D-Day Memorial hosts Remembrance Day service
DOZENS of people attended a Remembrance Day service at Gosport’s D-Day Memorial, at Stokes Bay, on Wednesday (November 11).
Wreaths were laid by the borough’s Deputy Mayor Councillor Kevin Casey and Gosport D-Day Memorial Fellowship trustee Ann Wilkinson, before Walking With Veterans Group member Graham Jarvis, a former Royal Navy man, laid his tribute.
Another was laid by jointly by Steve Stubb and Steve Tubbs of the Royal British Legion Bikers branch, at the site overlooking where thousands of men sailed for Normandy to liberate France the night before D-Day, and in the days that followed. Members of the public also came forward with crosses bearing poppies to pay their own personal respects, as did Gosport Borough Council leader Zoe Huggins.
A short service was led by Andrew Griffin, the former editor of the Gosport and Portsmouth Journal, who chairs the Gosport D-Day Fellowship’s trustees. Before The Last Post was played, Cllr Casey read out a poem called ‘Two Faces of Stone’ which was written by 14-year-old Madison McClaren two years ago to mark the start of the project to finally construct a formal D-Day Memorial.
The memorial was originally planned by Fellowship founders Malcolm Chapman and Tony Belben, a member of Stokes Bay Sailing Club, more than a decade ago. Retired Warrant Officer David Salvat, whose wife Jilly led the memorial project, read both The Exhortation and the Kohima Epitaph, before the crowd recited the Lord’s Prayer and sang the National Anthem.
Mr Griffin who was educated at Bay House School – and helps promote the history of Hayling Islands’ Combined Operations Pilotage Parties, during WWII, and also have strong connections with Gosport’s former submarine base HMS Dolphin – was very pleased with the turnout.
He said: “It was a low-key ceremony again, as we have decided since the memorial was completed last summer that our main focus should be on commemorating D-Day itself. “It was the second Remembrance Day service we have held and at least this time, the rain managed to hold off. “
“The crowd must have been at least 75-strong even on a work day, and the two-minute silence was solemnly observed. “On behalf of the Fellowship, I would like to say how humbled we have been by the many, many comments we have received since the memorial was completed.”
“Whenever we do any work maintaining the site – such as watering the plants during the summer heatwave – we have had visitors and residents from the town coming up to us and telling us how much they like the memorial, and how pleased they are for the town to finally have something more substantial than has been there before to mark the huge sacrifices made back in June 1944.”
“Jilly and Dave put so much effort into ensuring the vision Malcolm and Tony had finally came to fruition, and I am very honoured to have played a small part in the latter stages. I really hope that whoever follows us, will continue the tradition and ensure both Remembrance Day and D-Day are observed at the memorial for generations to come – and it still means as much to people in the town in another 80 years.”
PICTURED BY GOSPORT D-DAY FELLOWSHIP: More than seventy people gathered at Gosport’s D-Day Memorial for the service marking the end of World War One in 1918.
