Culture, Swanage | Posted on May 29th, 2024 | return to news
D-Day plaque unveiled where American soldiers left for Normandy
A plaque in honour of the 80th anniversary of D-Day has been unveiled at Swanage station where American Soldiers left for Normandy.
Swanage station welcomed an 80th-anniversary memorial plaque for the young American soldiers who boarded a train on their way to the horrors of Omaha Beach in Normandy as part of the Allied D-Day invasion of France in June 1944.
The tribute was unveiled on Monday 27 May at 1.30pm by 99-year-old English D-Day veteran soldier, Peter Lovett, who lives in Swanage, together with civic and community guests – including the Mayor of Swanage, Tina Foster.
The American troops, known as GIs, were billeted in Swanage between November 1943 and April 1944 while they trained for D-Day and their part in the largest maritime invasion in history.
Peter Lovett said: “I was honoured to unveil the D-Day plaque because it’s important that people remember and learn from the sacrifices of the past to defend freedom. My father’s war – the First World War – was never remembered.
“There were a lot of American troops in the Isle of Purbeck training for D-Day and Swanage station played an important part in transporting the GIs.
“I was 19 years old when I landed in Normandy on D-Day with the King’s Regiment, in the second wave, on the five-mile long Juno Beach at 8.30am with Canadian forces. There were dead bodies in the water and on the beach.
“It was the job of assault troops was to get ashore and push inland – it was the job of the second wave to clear the beach,” added Peter who was demobbed in 1946.
The plaque honours the men of the 26th Infantry Regiment of the US Army’s First Infantry Division which was known as the ‘Big Red One’ because of the distinctive red shoulder flash worn on the uniforms of the soldiers.
After the unveiling, the invited guests enjoyed a return train trip from Swanage to Norden hauled by a unique Victorian T3 class steam locomotive that hauled passenger and freight trains during the Second World War – including during the run-up to D-Day.
The Swanage Railway Trust’s newly restored T3 class No. 563 was built at Nine Elms in London in 1893.
The locomotive was set to be scrapped in 1939 but was spared by the outbreak of the Second World War because of the urgent need for as many trains as possible to carry troops, equipment, supplies and ammunition.
The D-Day 80th anniversary plaque at Swanage station was the idea of Swanage Railway Trust trustee and volunteer station porter, Robert Patterson.
Robert Patterson said: “The role the American soldiers – the GIs – played in training for D-Day in the Isle of Purbeck while being billeted in Swanage from November 1943 to April 1944 was an important and historic one and should be remembered.
“Located on the platform at Swanage above the doors from the booking hall, the plaque will be a constant reminder of D-Day, 1944, and the sacrifices made by the American and other Allied forces to defend freedom and return freedom to Europe in the face of Nazi tyranny.
“The Swanage Railway’s D-Day plaque project was three months in the planning and everyone came together to help make it a really memorable and poignant event – I would like to thank all of them.
“There was immediate interest in the plaque, as soon as it was unveiled, from our passengers who were genuinely interested and unaware that the American GIs trained for D-Day in the Isle of Purbeck and left for D-Day by train from Swanage station in April, 1944, bound for Devon and the Normandy beaches,” added Robert.
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