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This story has been written onto the ´óÏó´«Ã½ People's War site by SCV Storygatherer Pam McCarthy on behalf of Bernard Peters. They fully understand the terms and conditions of the site.

Here in Truro we have just lost Ted Earl-Davies, 82, who was a Flight Engineer on Lancaster bombers, flying 38 missions. At 93 Mary Manningham-Buller, a wartime trainer of carrier pigeons. Denise Villameur, aged 93, she was an SOE agent parachuted into France, who in the run-up to D-Day was in Normandy reconnoitring landing grounds, arming the Maquis, mining roads and using tyre-busters. Squadron Leader John Hall just died aged 82 - Mosquito pilot June 5/6 at Juno, Sword, Gold, Omaha and Utah keeping German bombers away from the beachhead and the invasion fleet. Also at 86 Captain Bill Sise, flying from Portreath, Cornwall in rocket and canon firing Mosquitoes.

Elderly Americans have already put in appearances with their GI brides this Spring, revisiting where they were in their youth. So good to see happy couples 60 years after, because back then when our girls married the Americans, becoming GI brides, they were entering the unknown. Not all found happiness. Their husbands after the war suffered mental attacks, reaction from what they had seen and done. The GI brides ended up in a strange land. America is not England, and the Americans are different. When the Gis eventually returned to the States, for some their glamour faded. Out of uniform, employment was difficult. Others had taken the jobs and some were unable to settle down to civilian life. In some cases there was resentment from the locals and from childhood sweethearts refound. The American GI became just an ordinary man. There were mismatches and the English bride missed home, living with a man no longer so kind nor loving.

Thousands of the American troops have returned over the years to Cornwall, to the South coast, and to the battlefields and beaches. At Omaha I have seen Yanks and Jerries, shaking hands, even in tears. At Utah beach memorial quite often you will find a veteran GI surrounded by visiting groups of Europeans listening to what it was like in ‘44 and what went on. Truro has had its share of veterans. Howard Manoian from New Hampshire, USA was with the 83rd Airbourne, parachuting into Ste Marie Eglise on the Cherbourg Peninsula, where his friend John Steele hung from the church spire, featured in the film, ‘The Longest Day’. Howard used to come back annually. Paul Honath, with his wife, Betty, stayed in the Royal Hotel while revising our area. They had a pasty with us in Union Place. I took them to Trebah, from where he embarked in ‘44. For 30 years now I have corresponded with Betty, in her eighties at Grand Rapids, Minnesota. Paul died in the 1980s. Doug Chester used to ring from Alberta, often in the early hours of the morning, sometimes befuddled with bourbon whiskey, unable to relax from what he had seen and done. Bill Stanway and his wife returned twice to find relatives. Whilst he was here on war duty he didn’t have a chance, but in 1980 whilst I was part-time chauffeuring for Truronian Coy, I was given the job of taking them around his old haunts, eventually discovering in Veryan Churchyard 14 of his 1800s original family. Since then Bill died, his wife Gaye returned once more, now for 24 years I have been corresponding with her.

With all that I have been going on about don’t think that I am neglecting our English troops, the Free French, the Canadians landing on Sword, Gold and Juno beaches. I was lucky to mix with the Canadians in Aldershot. We, that is my wife and 6 family members, over the years remember them with many visits to Bayeux UK cemetery, the Brittany and Normandy memorials, even as far as Alsace Lorraine and Italy, and still do.

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