WE WILL REMEMBER THEM

Camp News, Volume 2, Issue 66, 28 March 1941, Page 2

WE WILL REMEMBER THEM

In the second year of this Battle for Freedom, we shall do well to remember the heroic deeds which have studded the dark days as the stars shine in the night sky.

The British Commonwealth of Nations has produced many heroes and heroines these last twelve months.

Some are dead. The heroism of others has died with them. Others, again, did what was to them a job to be done, and neither they nor their comrades saw heroism in it.

But, whether these deeds were told in the pages of the Press or not, they remain as symbols of a great Commonwealth of Nations whose spirit can no more be defeated than can its fighting men.

Let us, then, as we put the dark days behind us, remember the men and women who gave their lives that we might continue to enjoy the freedom we have known for a thousand years—and let us remember them, too, when victory is ours at last.

They are men like Commander E. O. Bickford., D.S.O, who, with his gallant little band of sea warriors lost their lives in the submarine Salmon last July while engaging the enemy.

We shall remember, as our descendants will remember for all time, how this Briton and his gallant crew ran the gauntlet of mines and destroyers to sink a German submarine and torpedo the cruisers Leipzig and Bluecher.

We shall remember the pilots and personnel of the R.A.F. who at this very moment climb arid dive in life-and-death combat with the invading Heinkels, Dorniers and Messerschmitts which befoul and pollute the skies of Britain.

And among them the names of Flying-Officer Donald Edward Garland, V.C.,and Sergeant-Pilot Thomas Grey, V.C., who gave their lives to smash the Maastricht bridge, will shine like beacons in the annals of history.

When volunteers were asked for, these two men, with others, stepped forward as one man. There were five crews altogether, and only one man returned to tell the story.

Defying the withering fire from the ground defences, their planes dived through a blizzard of bursting shells to their objective, destroying it, thereby stemming the rush of enemy tanks into France.

We shall remember the lads of Calais and Dunkirk, who defied all attempts of the Germans to annihilate them. Our posterity will read with pride of those veterans of the Pioneer Corps, who armed only with picks and shovels, stormed the German tanks.

And men like Lance-Corporal Harry Nicholls, V.C., will symbolise for ever the grit and the valour displayed by all ranks of the British Expeditionary Force in France.

Our children will read with pride how Nicholls, although mortally wounded, rushed the enemy machine guns, ultimately succeeding in silencing three nests of them, an act which enabled his company to reach its objective.

We shall remember the brave women of the fighting services like Assistant Section Officer Joan Pearson, M.M., of the W.A.A.F., who stood on the wreckage of a crashed plane loaded with bombs.

We shall remember how she roused the stunned pilot, released his parachute and dragged him clear, afterwards to throw herself on top of him as a 1201 b. bomb exploded.

We shall remember the brave men and women of the civil defence corps, who have given their lives for the cause of freedom, many of them spare-time Civil Defence workers.

....Men like Cyril Wade, who was killed in an air raid after saving the life of a child he had carried to safety, will rank equally with all the other heroes and heroines of this war.

AND FINALLY, WE SHALL NEVER FORGET THE COWARDLY NAZI AIRMEN WHO MACHINE-GUNNED HELPLESS BRITISH PILOTS WHLIE THEY WERE SAILING TO EARTH IN THEIR PARACHUTES, AND THE WOMEN AND CHILDREN IN THE STREETS OF BRITISH TOWNS, WHO HAVE MET A SIMILAR FATE AT THE BLOODY HANDS OF THE ENEMY.