Memorial service for couple who met during World War II to be held

AMERICAN SOLDIER LESTER MET JOAN IN 1942

- By LAUREN DAVIDSON

A POIGNANT memorial service to honour a Transatlantic couple who met during World War II will take place next month at the North Lincolnshire church they were married at 80 years ago.

Joan Smithson, from West Butterwick, met Lester Moyer, a soldier from the USA who was stationed at the former RAF base in Kirton in Lindsey, at a dance in Scunthorpe in 1942. But after Lester was sent to Africa with the American Army Air Corps, the two spent the following year writing love letters back and forth.

After pleading with her parents to join the WRENs (Women's Royal Enlisted Navy), Joan - who was aged just 17 at the time - travelled to London where she served as a translator for the French personnel.

She witnessed many bombings during her time there and lost many friends and colleagues.

When the War was suddenly over, instead of returning to his family in the States, Lester made his way back to England to marry Joan. On October 20, 1945, the couple married at St Mary's Church in West Butterwick, close to where Joan was brought up.

One of thousands of war brides who were waiting to travel and meet their husbands back in the USA, Joan then spent months waiting for air travel to be arranged - but when she found out she was pregnant, it was organised for her to travel to New York on a military ship.