大象传媒

Last August as posted previously my sisiter and I went to Etrepagny 60 years after our uncle was KIA on 29.08.44.

Since then, the amount of information and people that we have met that knew him and of what actually happened on that fatal day has been amazing.

A local lad aged 16 at the time took an ammunition box from the ground near the tank.

'Serge Boulanger' was one of two men that approached my sister and I at the grave side last August and asked us to attend the local remembrance, which we did, and from that moment on our knowledge and life changed dramaticly regarding our uncle who at that stage was only a name of our father's brother who had been killed in WW2.

Serge wrote to me afterwards and said that he had this small box and felt that it should be returned to Paddy's family so in July my wife and I went to Normandy to visit a number of places that the 2nd Fife and Forfar had journied from the landing at Juno beech on D-Day+9 to the final resting place in Etrepagny 29.08.44.

It was a lovey trip and the Mayor of Etrepagny joined us for lunch on the Friday. We stayed with a local lady 'Jacqueline Mennessier' who also lost her brother four days before our uncle was killed.

They are so genuine and thankful for what the forces did. It is a sad reflection on us when i visited my grand parents grave in Southall (Paddy's parent's) to see the vandalisum that has occured compared to how the French respect their dead, is beyond words.

Paddy is not in a War cemetery he and his crew are in the town cemetery and it is immaculately kept.

I have posted a photograph of Serge returning the box which is a .30 Cal M1, it has no real financial value but as it came from my uncles actual tank it is priceless to us.

The first time I went to his grave was on my sixth birthday we were on holiday at the time. Forty years on to the day I placed a spray of red and yellow roses on his grave, he will never be forgotten.

My father died four years ago, alas he was never to discover the things that we have and the warmth of the locals to his brother and crew.

My auntie (Paddy's sister) died in July so there is only Paddy's brother, my only remaining uncle left. He was in the Royal Navy during the War and had drawn a line on his life pre 1948 due to the horrors that he had witnessed and the lost of his uncle and brother in WW2.

However, I am delighted that he has agreed to visit Etrepagny with his two son's on the actual 61st anniversary and meet the local people who also lost their loved one's but saved 84 British, American and other soliders during this period.

Hopfully he will get some kind of closure on what actually happened that day.

He said to me last October. "Mark, to me it is real, not history." Well, i said, "It is also real to those in France who also lost their loved one's and to me it is also real. My father named me after Paddy."

Those that fought will understand better than us, but my uncle never discussed any of this or of his own expeience with his wife or his own children, but since last August he has.

I am delighted that it has done so much good discussing it now with his own children. We have had a few tears, I will confess, but so many questions have been answered and erased the untruths that has haunted my uncle for so long.

I am a "Next of Kin, Associate Member" to the Fife and Forfar Yeomanry Regiment and have met Paddy's friends and collegues since as well as read so many books, the latest "By tank in to Normandy by Stuart Hills" which has helped understand what actually happened.

To all the vetran's in all the forces.

Thank you.

Perhaps being named after Paddy made me look into his military life....who knows.

I hope he is at peace and is reunited with his mother, father, brother and sister.

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