Memorial ensures Normandy heroes will never be forgotten

SHERWOOD RANGERS WHO DIED LIBERATING FRENCH VILLAGE ARE COMMEMORATED

- By LOUIS CORBETT & SIMON GREAVES

RELATIVES of Nottingham soldiers Killed in action in Normandy in the Second World War have told of their pride at seeing their loved ones commemorated by a memorial more than 80 years later.

The families were tracked down in just five weeks by Sherwood Rangers Yeomanry researcher Karl McDermott and invited to attend the inauguration of a steel memorial which now stands outside a museum on the outskirts of the village of Berjou, south of Bayeux, France.

The Carlton-based Sherwood Rangers were the unit with more battle honours in the war than any other in the British army.

The memorial features cutout silhouettes of eight men who were Killed in a country lane in Berjou on August 16, 1944, when a Sherman tank commanded by Lt Frank Galvin was destroyed. All five crew were killed along with three other men in C Squadron of the Sherwood Rangers Yeomanry. A ninth man died of his wounds days later.

The Rangers’ veterans and friends from Nottingham - a minibus full of members of their squadron’s regimental association - were led at the unveiling ceremony by chairman, Major Chris Whitamore, supported by colonels John Chatfeild-Roberts and Murray Colville, High Sheriff and Deputy Lieutenant of Leicestershire respectively.

In blazing sunshine at the Blackwater Museum, which commemorates the liberation of Berjou, historian and author James Holland explained how the memorial originated and would be a lasting memorial to the men and all who lost their lives after D-Day in 1944.