Harry Billinge and the new Gold Beach Memorial

I doubt you can watch this clip without firstly smiling and then finding a tear in your eye:

BBC One - Breakfast, WWII veteran Harry Billinge sees for the first time, the D-Day memorial he's helped fund

 

An inspiration.
The Normandy Memorial Trust - Points of Light
https://www.normandymemorialtrust.org/d-day-75-story/d-day-75-stories-harry-billinge/

 

A wonderful moment with Her Majesty there.

 

Anybody know what unit he was with? I have read that he says he was a Royal Engineer in the Commandos and landed on Gold Beach at 6.30 am with the 2nd Bn South Wales Borderers. I would like to understand what is right/wrong here... Something is wrong!

 

Harry was RE and landed in the first wave alongside others: that could be the cause of any confusion and/or conflation.
As he told me a few months ago 'it was my job to blow stuff up. If someone said "go blow it up" I'd go blow it up'. His first big target was, apparently, the Radar Station above Gold Beach.

 

But he also states that he landed with the 2nd Bn South Wales Borderers and they were not first wave, hence my question.

 

very moving photos of a brave and modest man
sheila and richard

 

I think he was in the 81st RE squadron alongside with the 50th ID

He told me that he was on the first wave but he wasn't with the 2nd SWB for sure.

 

Good News, we have received an email from Normandy Memorial Trust informing us that construction work resumes on the Ver-Sur-Mer site following easing of restrictions in France after 2 month shutdown caused by the coronavirus.
dizzy and she

 

Saw that news on tv this morning Diane. What a wonderful story.

Lesley

 

Thank you Diane, we agree with Lesley, a wonderful story, uplifting in these uncertain times. We shall never forget.

Dizzy and She

 

Sorry to appear a party pooper, but just because an old man sets himself a mission to build a memorial doesn't make it a great idea.

The core motive for the memorial seems to be the idea that we do not do enough to commemorate those who served and died in the Liberation of Europe. This is flawed logic. The Commonwealth already has an established way to commemorate war dead. There is already memorial to the Missing at Bayeux and the Bayeux War Cemetery which is where our acts of Remembrance have been held for many years.

The Bayeux memorial commemorates ALL who died in France during the period, not just those involved in the dramatic cross channel assault that is the trigger for national remembrance and a media moment. There are men who died as PW or in the invasion of southern France or as members of the Special Forces in the French interior.

The Bayeux war cemetery is a historic location as the cemetery was started in wartime and the graves are witnesses of the story. The dead include allies from Poland, Czechoslovakia and the Soviet Union as well as members of the merchant marine. They also include Germans, a fallen enemy but current day ally. Our war cemeteries are humbling but majestic places. They are fitting locations for acts of Remembrance.

It isn't clear to me what part the new memorial is going to play in national commemoration. Is it going to replace Bayeux as the focus for British commemorations? If so it is a very bad idea to allow sentimentality to overturn an established well founded custom. Ver-sur -Mer is not a great place to hold an event with tens of thousands of spectators. It will be a nightmare to participate in an event there. It ain't great at Bayeux, which is at least served by a dual carriageway and on the motorway network.

The Normandy Veterans Association used to hold their commemorations at the stature of Montgomery in Colleville-Montgomery. Is that now neglected?

 

Whilst respecting your point of view, I think it's appropriate to point out the massive conflation in your post that may mislead people reading it. The implication is that the Memorial is the 'mission of an old man' aka Harry Billinge and that that is somehow disrespectful to others (you mention aspects that amount to 'competition' with other Memorials etc). That is simply not correct.
1. The Memorial is not the idea of Harry Billinge.
2. Harry is simply a high profile fund raiser who has caught the imagination of the public and who throughly deserves all the credit and air time he gets.
3. The Memorial was actually the idea of the Normandy Veterans Association. To avoid repeating the full detail, this can be found in the link below.

Background - Normandy Memorial Trust

 

It says the idea was from George Batts who became secretary of the NVA. The memorial website does not claim that this was an NVA policy.

I stand by the rest of my comments. While Normandy was a bloody campaign those who served there, including my father, do not deserve to have their service elevated over others who served in less well known or successful campaigns.
One of my uncles died at Dieppe. Was his life and service any less deserving of a special memorial?
What about those who served for nearly two years in the Italian Campaign? Or died as a FEPOW captive of the Japanese? Or in Burma?

 

No one is elevating any veteran above any other. If you take that slippery slope approach then you may as well say "there should be only one Memorial and that should be dedicated to all those that died, were wounded or otherwise took part in WW2 whether they were civilian, military or whatever". I presume that is not what you are implying! I could go on with lots of detail (key words re my family: Burma, slave labour, left to die, Normandy etc etc etc) but won't as it will detract from the noble subject of this thread.

 

The story of the new memorial is a bit of a dumpster fire, as it err... does not contain the names of all casualties of the campaign, that's for starters.

They have also refused to change course on the inclusion of names so we have brothers and cousins who won't be commemorated together as they don't fit into the chocolate box criteria. Such arbitrary decision on dates etc shows that those involved simply do not understand the battle in the slightest.

It has gone massively overbudget and been very, very poorly managed running years behind schedule in a campaign that borders on sheer farce, whilst lofty praise is lauded on the endeavour.

A massive heritage white elephant which still promises to deliver a museum at some point, subject to massive future funding, but I don't trust this team to even know how to tie their own shoelaces - let alone achieve it. I've got a tenner on it that this becomes our Monash Centre.

 

Now I'm totally confused - the Memorial contains the names of all those British (that's my understanding ) casualties as that's the whole point of the project. Are you saying that's not the case; if you are then I agree there are serious concerns?