Appeal to buy medals for 'beastly' WW2 battle
Frank "Biddy" Boyce was born in the New Forest on 24 August 1921.When his 5th battalion arrived at the wood, near Geilenkirchen, they had already suffered heavy losses at Hill 112 in Normandy in July, and again at Arnhem in September.Their target, the German Siegfried Line which blocked the way into Nazi Germany, was filled with bunkers, pill boxes, guns, mines and tank obstacles.The battle was fought at great cost and, after breaking through, the Dorsetshire soldiers held their position, fighting in conditions likened to World War One.Their Corps Commander, General Sir Brian Horrocks, later wrote: "The Battle of Geilenkirchen is barely mentioned in military histories, yet it was one of the hardest fought actions of the whole war."This was warfare at its most beastly with continuous cold rain turning the ground into a sea of mud and constant counter-attacks from experienced German troops."
The citation on L/Cpl Boyce's Military Medal reads: "L/Cpl Boyce was No.1 on a 2-in Mortar with a forward company. "He was wounded very shortly after crossing the start line but carried on with his platoon. "He maintained his mortar in action with great effect throughout the attack and reached the final objective with his platoon. "By this time he had suffered considerable loss of blood but still made no complaint of his wound."His courage and self-sacrifice were a magnificent example to the men of his platoon."Since the war, the site of the battle has been known as Dorset Wood, in a tribute to the soldiers who fought there.Biddy died in Southampton in 1999.The Keep was originally the gatehouse for the Depot Barracks of the Dorsetshire Regiment and, with the exception of World War Two, it served as regiment's administrative centre from 1879 and 1958.The museum, which is temporarily closed, features thousands of original exhibits of military history relating to the regiments of Devon and Dorset.To raise funds for the medals, the museum is hosting a talk by historian and author Christopher Jary where the story of Biddy and his Dorsetshire comrades will be brought to life.Details of the event, in Dorchester on 7 March, can be found on the museum's website.
You can follow BBC Dorset on Facebook, X (Twitter), or Instagram.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Spectator
16 hours ago
- Spectator
My angry Fairy Liquid battle
'Please do NOT wash up!' reads the makeshift sign I have fixed above the kitchen sink. It instructs our B&B guests to leave their dirty dishes on the side, which sounds ridiculous. But we cannot convince anyone to put their plates and cutlery in the dishwasher any more, because they all seem to have bought into the latest conspiracy theory. You may think anti-vaxers like me are annoying enough. But please give me credit for never being so barmy as to become an anti-dishwasherer. The anti-dishwasherers are way worse than the anti-vaxers for a whole host of reasons. So far they seem to be flying under the radar of the authorities, and no one in a position of power has taken them on to expose their nonsensical rhetoric. The idea is that dishwashers are behind the current rise in neurological disorders. This is so ludicrous that I am starting to have rows with the guests who come to stay with us and who refuse to put their dishes in the dishwasher for health reasons. We also routinely catch people rinsing the clean plates they take out of our cupboards. They rinse and rinse sparkling knives and forks under the tap before they use them. We explain that our house is on spring water from the mountain, and that if you run the kitchen hot tap long enough it will drain down the tanked hot water for the showers, and possibly empty the well entirely in a dry period – which admittedly doesn't happen very often in West Cork. But still they run the tap for minutes on end while they rinse items before use; then after eating they run it for minutes again over single plates and forks, while squeezing Fairy Liquid onto each item in turn so as to avoid the allegedly murderous Zanussi. Leaving aside the waste of water and the draining down of the cylinder – and by people who delight in telling us how worried they are about the environment – nothing makes me angrier than the squeezing of Fairy Liquid onto single items. I used come to blows with the builder boyfriend about it, to the point where it was the number one issue threatening to break our relationship apart until he kicked the habit. The last bottle of Fairy I bought was so big it would have lasted me a year, but it disappeared in a few days as a young German couple squeezed it over every fork, spoon and plate, while running the hot tap. 'I can't stand it!' I yelled, when I found the nearly empty bottle. And I wrote out the notice, effectively taking the sink out of commission. To this the guests reacted with a mixture of confusion and fury. In fact, I've noticed a direct correlation between the amount of concern expressed about the environment by a guest and the extent of their use of resources. The more vociferous the unsolicited lecture a guest gives us about climate change, the more of everything they will consume. The more horrified they are to discover we're on oil, the more oil they will burn by running the kitchen hot tap, showering for hours or demanding we put the heating on for them in June. This summer we've hosted dozens of young French and Germans, as well as Swedes, Dutch and Canadians, and the twenty-to thirtysomethings are all the same. They're unable to make any connection whatsoever between their desire to just stop oil and their use of oil, and electricity and gas and petrol and aviation fuel. One time, the BB claimed he could hear a young Austrian couple sitting in their room chatting for half an hour as the shower ran with no one in it. Sadly, I can't do anything about guests wanting to watch a film about the environment on their iPad whilst running the hot shower. But I can get the darn bottle of Fairy out of their hands. 'So you DON'T want us to wash up?' demanded a French chap as he surveyed the sign. 'No, thank you all the same,' said the BB. 'We just want you to leave your dishes there so we can load them into the dishwasher.' The Frenchman looked at him as though we were proposing to place the dishes in a nuclear reactor. It was the New Zealand lady who argued with us about everything who first came right out with it and told us, 'Dishwashers cause neurological damage.' 'I don't think so,' I said. But she was adamant. Her previously fit and healthy fiftysomething brother had just been diagnosed with a horrible disorder and she was convinced that dishwashers were to blame. It's all based on a 'proven' myth that dishwasher detergent pods are encased in a film which contains microplastics that somehow stick around on the dishes… The theory runs out at this point. It's garbage. It confuses soluble, biodegradable detergent-grade PVA with insoluble forms used in applications like textiles. I have a theory, and you can call it a conspiracy theory if you like. The deep state – whatever that is – is feeding these bizarre conspiracies to the masses to divert attention from the real horrors they don't want us to think about, and stuff they'd rather we didn't look into properly. From killer dishwashers to ironing boards that give you cancer, the crackpot theories multiply, and they're all designed to take the eye off something, is my wild conspiracy theory. The other day, I noticed that some people calling themselves scientists were claiming the Earth was revolving a second quicker one day per year, changing people's circadian rhythms, leading to 'spikes in heart attacks, strokes and traffic accidents'. Does that make you want to say, 'Oh, that explains it!'? If you're falling for a lunatic idea, I sympathise – but only up to a point. If you want to run my hot water tap while squeezing a Fairy bottle, then you've gone too far.
ITV News
a day ago
- ITV News
Top-secret WW2 plans to liberate Channel Islands sold at auction for £3,800 after attic discovery
Top-secret WW2 British military plans have been sold at a specialist auction in Derbyshire. The rare 47-page document, detailing an ultimately successful operation to liberate the Channel Islands from German Occupation, fetched £3,800 after a bidding war which saw the lot well surpass its £800-£1,200 estimate. The winning offer was made by an unknown telephone buyer following global interest after the item was discovered buried in a cardboard box in an attic. Dated 1 November 1944 under the codename "Operation Nestegg", the plans go into great detail about how the Channel Islands would be freed from years of Nazi rule. Everything from the number of ships to members of the press and even bicycles was accounted for, as were mine sweeping instructions to approach the islands by sea. Although some documents from the British operation are kept in the National Archive, these plans were uncovered in a private collection and subsequently went under the hammer at Hansons Auctioneers in Etwall near Derby. The auction house has described the lot as "extraordinary and rare". What happened in "Operation Nestegg"? The mission was given the go-ahead on 8 May 1945 as Allied Forces declared Victory in Europe following Germany's unconditional surrender. It was carried out by a specialist British military group called Force 135, three 700-man battalions which sailed from Plymouth on HMS destroyers Bulldog and Beagle. They were not sure the message of surrender had been received or accepted in the Channel Islands, so they potentially faced 40,000 German troops stationed behind extensive fortifications, built on Adolf Hitler's instruction to make the Crown Dependencies impenetrable. However, a day later, German troops officially surrendered in Jersey and Guernsey - marking the end of five years of Occupation. Sark followed on 10 May 1945 and later Alderney on 16 May, due to the island's extensive defences.
ITV News
a day ago
- ITV News
Top-secret WW2 plans to free Channel Islands from Nazi rule found in cardboard box in Derbyshire
Top-secret British military plans have been discovered in a cardboard box in Derbyshire. The 50-page document, dated 1 November 1944, maps out how forces would liberate the Channel Islands from German Occupation during the Second World War - codenamed "Operation Nestegg". They go into great detail, from the number of ships involved to mine sweeping instructions for the approach by sea. The mission was given the go-ahead on 8 May 1945 as Allied Forces declared Victory in Europe following Germany's unconditional surrender. The mission was carried out by a specialist British military group called Force 135, three 700-man battalions which sailed from Plymouth on HMS destroyers Bulldog and Beagle. They were not sure the message of surrender had been received or accepted in the Channel Islands, so they potentially faced 40,000 German troops stationed behind extensive fortifications, built on Adolf Hitler's instruction to make the Crown Dependencies impenetrable. However, a day later, German troops officially surrendered in Jersey and Guernsey - marking the end of five years of Occupation. Sark followed on 10 May 1945 and later Alderney on 16 May, due to the island's extensive defences. Watch stories of the Channel Islands' liberators, told through the eyes of their children Thousands of people across the Channel Islands celebrate their Liberation Day each year with reenactments and parades. While some plans of the successful British operation are kept in the National Archive, this document will be auctioned off in Etwall near Derby on Wednesday 13 August with a guide price of £800 to £1,200. Hansons Auctioneers' militaria expert, Matt Crowson, says: "It's an incredible story. The document had been part of a dusty box of papers in a UK saleroom, the value of which was considered negligible. "But on closer examination the vendor came across a piece of WWII history detailing the freeing of the only Nazi occupied area of the British Isles." Mr Crowson continues: "A document like this really brings home the suffering of the Channel Islanders during the German Occupation, some 2,300 of whom were deported to German prison and internment camps. By the time of the Liberation in 1945, many were close to starvation. "The essential role played by the men and women involved in Operation Nestegg, and their story of freedom, cannot be underestimated. And the fact that the document came to light in the 80th anniversary year of Liberation Day makes it even more special."
