THE TRANSATLANTIC MAGAZINE
THE TRANSATLANTIC MAGAZINE
For several months starting in late 1943, American soldiers with the 1st Infantry Division made their home away from home in Swanage, England, living and training there before leaving to invade Nazi-occupied France on D-Day. Eighty years later, the English Channel town is honoring the soldiers with a plaque at the place where they began the first European leg of their journey to Omaha Beach in Normandy.
Soldiers from the division's 26th Infantry Regiment arrived in Swanage as part of the so-called "friendly invasion" of thousands of American troops who passed through the United Kingdom during World War II.
British D-Day veteran Peter Lovett, 99, unveiled the plaque during Monday's ceremony, at which some people dressed in World War II military attire.
"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."
Among the invited guests were members of the Dorset Military Vehicle Enthusiasts’ Group who attended with their vehicles and motorcycles to give Swanage station a taste of 1944 and the Second World War.
After the plaque 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, which is coincidentally the home of the U.S. Embassy today.
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 late Bill Lee, who lived in the town of Mount Vernon in Illinois, was a 23-year old American with the 26th Infantry Regiment in Swanage between November, 1943, and April, 1944, and made a nostalgic return to the seaside town 45 years later.
Speaking in 1989, Bill said: "The Swanage railroad was a vital link to happy times with new-found friends.
"It took us away from the harshness of training for war and was a friendly little line. I still recall it and remember the kind people I met there with affection.
"The people of the Isle of Purbeck were an important part of our lives and we needed that. We were brash, different and full of bravado but they took us in as part of their families – and for that we will always be grateful and never forget."
The D-Day 80th anniversary plaque at Swanage station was the idea of Swanage Railway Trust trustee and volunteer station porter Robert Patterson.
Among the people who went to the unveiling were the Mayor of Swanage Tina Foster, Swanage Railway Trust chairman (as well as a Royal Corps of Signals veteran and a dedicated Swanage Railway volunteer for more than 40 years) Frank Roberts, and Robert Patterson, a Swanage Railway Trust trustee and volunteer station porter who came up with the idea for the plaque for Swanage.
