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5 Jun 06Mayor of Poole Lays Wreaths with D-Day Veterans
The Mayor of Poole, Cllr Mrs Judy Butt and her Consort and husband Mr David Butt, visited Cherbourg to participate in the D-day commemorations at the Normandy battlefields of 1944. They were accompanied by 16 year old Tom Newman, a Sea cadet from TS Drax Poole, who is serving as a Mayor’s Escort and Mr Ted Thurston.
On arrival on June 5th, they were greeted by the Mayor of Cherbourg, Monsieur Bernard Cazaneuve, and the Deputy Mayor, Jean-Claude Magalhaes and many other French officials. They were escorted on a superb tour of the Cherbourg Hotel de Ville (Town Hall), following which the Mayor of Poole Cllr Mrs Judy Butt was invited to give press interviews with local papers, radio and television.
The Mayor and Consort visited the WW2 battlefield site St Mere Eglise, commemorating the invasion by American and International paratroops to liberate France on 5th June 1944, leading to a battle which raged for twenty-four hours until American tanks arrived on 6th June. One American soldier, John Steele of 82nd Division, caught his parachute on the church steeple and hung there as a target for German troops for over two hours until, wounded numerous times, he was taken prisoner. John Steele survived his ordeal and lived until 1969, but his original parachute still hangs from the steeple with a dummy soldier attached. A restaurant is named after him where the Mayor, Cllr Mrs Judy Butt, took supper with her French guests on the eve of the Normandy commemorations
On D-Day June 6th 2006, the Mayor and her Consort attended a memorial service at Bayeux Cathedral, and laid wreaths at Bayeux Cemetery, accompanied by Tom Newman and Ted Thurston from Christchurch, a veteran of the Normandy beaches and holder of the French Legion d’Honneur, on behalf of the Military Police and all fallen comrades. The Mayor, with the official military party, met and personally thanked every veteran standing within the war memorial official commemorative circle for their courage and sacrifice; the oldest standard bearer being some 89 years old.
At the War Memorial at Arromanches, the Mayor Cllr Mrs Judy Butt was deeply honoured to be asked to lay a wreath with a small group of senior political and military figures. Later, the Mayor of Poole, Cllr Mrs Butt said “I was among only eight leading international political and military figures to be given the amazing honour of laying a wreath in memory of the some half a million fallen soldiers who died on that cold June day in 1944. My own dear adopted father, Major John Henry Oldershaw-Gilbert, was a veteran of Dunkirk and a Desert rat of the 8th Army. Although I laid my floral wreath to commemorate all who gave their lives so unconditionally for the communities of Poole, it was with a special thought for my own dear brave father who so sadly passed away in 1976 at only 62 years of age, giving so much that I may live and thrive in the next generation and be part of future generations to come”.
Jenny Bothwell
Directgov