So this is my first time in Northern Ireland, first time in Belfast I'm doing
the journey that my uncle would have made some 75 years ago, keen to learn
more about him and his life and sadly his death.
So I'm now on my way to the Ulster rifles regimental Museum they have the
war record of the regiment there and I'm hoping that they'll be able to give me
some more answers.
The first record we have off him he came from the general service corps
which meant he joined up when the war broke out so then he was he came in to the
1st battalion of the Royal Ulster rifles now at that time the 1st battalion was
airborne so their their name is the 1st airborne battalion royal ulster rifles.
He went in on d-day with C company at about
9:30 in the evening of the of the 6th of June so their landing zone was just north of
Ranville so he was part of what was known as 6 Airborne Division and he's part of
6 Air Landing Brigade in Horsa gliders so when they landed then there if
you imagine if you look at the battlefield here you can see these are
the major landings y'all hear about Sword beach, Juno, Gold, Omaha
going right across. The two flanks of the whole invasion were supported by airborne
troops, now the problem we do have with his with his death is he's buried far
away from where the battalion was at the time, thebattalion was away down here
virtually parallel with Caen when he died, now he died in a hospital and was
temporarily buried then reburried again and he died of wounds so we can only assume
until you get the service record that he was actually wounded and moved back to
the hospital where he died of wounds and was buried. All the lads that are
recorded on his on that day all died of wounds in that area and were buried in
a temporary grave yard. So very very little we can tell you about what he was
doing other than they they were assaulted down towards this flank of of Caen.
So it's possible he's been wounded between the 6th of June and his death it's
hard to say, now we we will supply you with the paperwork to apply for his for
hiss service record in Glasgow. yeah. On that will have more detail right
right and what they would've done in those days They would've
moved them back their concentration pool once he got them in the hospital and
stabilized they'd've shipped them straight back to the UK so a lot of lads died on
the way back mmm you know if the weren't killed right
away or died right away if they got to a hospital he must have been too far gone
for to do it. Do we know anything about the operation
he was engaged in on on D-day? Yes from D-day well well their their their
objective was the land and just north of Ranville so earlier in the morning
the likes of pegasus bridge was taken very early by the assault the assault lads
the main division didn't come in that evening
so the me and division landed right across north of Ranville which is here
yeah so if you imagine this is Pegasus Bridge so it was taken very early yeah
the stop reinforcements coming up here so there's only a small detachment of of
the Ox and Bucks here, paratroopers landed and he also took out the Merville
Battery. Yeah this was the night before D-Day? Yes this was the night this was the
morning of D-day 12:30 they were on their way, so he had your pathfinders
went then yeah then you had your assault troops and your paratroopers dropped the
to take out the Merville Battery and to capture the and the Glider-borne lads
to take out Pegasus bridge and to protect that until the Landings come in the next
morning. I can only surmise but I would assume that he died in the hospital
was buried in the temporary cemetary then when the cemetery was we was done
he was then exhumed with anybody else who'd died with these lads here and then put into a
proper grave. Yeah he's a source of great curiosity but also great pride
because you know this was a very righteous war and he and he played a
very small part in that. Well if you look at him you know
there he is with his Red beret yeah you know hiss airborne flash, Pegasus so you can see
how proud he is before that he was an airborne lad. The family tradition is
that he he got a train he obviously was a Dubliner you know yes yeah
yeah he got a train when the war broke out now is my father his my granddad his
father didn't want him to join really was against it anyway he got a train to
Belfast yeah to join the RAF he wanted to join the RAF right on the train he
met a friend right and his friend said you don't join the RAF you want to join
the Ulster rifles right and so they both went together right to the enlisting
office his friend was rejected oh and he got in oh. Well it is quite possible he
was wounded three or four days before he passed away it should have
something on that, it should have something about that it may not I can't promise it
but it'll give us a bit more details of his joining and training and everything
where he went to and I see where he was and it was a bit more and we can see
what happened. Thank You Gavin. My pleasure. So it's
really a case of more questions than answers after that brilliant meeting
the Ulster rifles museum Gavin and the rest of the guys were really helpful and
great to talk to about the regiments history and also their participation in
D-Day, it's still quite frustrating and I don't know how my uncle died still I
don't know what he was doing or who he was engaging with to kill him so for
that kind of information we need to look at his service record.
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