4032352 Lance Serjeant Leonard George PREECE, 2nd Bn. King's Shropshire Light Infantry: 09/06/1944

Remembering Today

Casualty Details | CWGC
PREECE, LEONARD GEORGE
Rank: Lance Serjeant
Service No: 4032352
Regiment/Service: 2nd Bn. King's Shropshire Light Infantry
Date of Death: 09/06/1944
Age: 26
Cemetery: RANVILLE WAR CEMETERY
Grave Reference: II. E. 34.
Additional Information: Son of Albert Henry and Florence Mable Preece.
Personal Inscription: IN LOVING MEMORY OF OUR DEAR BROTHER,LON. SLEEP ON, BELOVED AND TAKE THY REST

 

The 2nd Battalion
The 2 KSLI had a much more peaceful start to the war, remaining on duty in the West Indies, where it was to guard Dutch oil refineries in Curacao and Aruba. This very pleasant tour of duty, largely untroubled by the war raging elsewhere, lasted until February 1942 when the battalion began its long homeward journey via New Orleans and New York. Under Lt. Col. Maurice, the Battalion spent the next two years undergoing intensive training, much of it carried out in Scotland, to prepare it for its role in the coming invasion of Europe.
The 2nd Battalion landed on Queen beach near Hermanville-sur-Mer on “D-Day”, 6th June 1944 as part of 185 Brigade of the 79th Armoured Division. After a period of hard fighting, the battalion took part in the capture of Caen, by then completely ruined, and of Manneville.
The battalion fought its way across the Seine in September 1944 and then began what the regimental history describes as “something like a royal progress” through Belgium, everywhere welcomed by joyful crowds.
After heavy fighting on the fringes of the Reichswald Forest and at Venray and Overloon in Holland, the battalion was to spend a bitterly cold and comfortless winter facing the river Maas.
The offensive was renewed in the spring of 1945 and saw the 2nd battalion in action at Kervenheim. Here on March 1st, Sergt. Joseph Stokes, a Glaswegian in the KSLI - won a posthumous Victoria Cross for his conspicuous gallantry in launching three consecutive attacks on German strongpoints until brought down by his wounds
By the end of March 1945, 2 KSLI was facing the Rhine itself and, crossing the great river on 29th March, fought its way across the Dortmund-Ems canal towards Bremen. Here, in the dying stages of the war late in April 1945, the 2nd KSLI were to see their last serious fighting as the town suburbs and factories were cleared of the enemy
The battalion had seen nearly a year of solid action - but at a high cost; it lost 144 men killed, 66 missing and 552 wounded.
http://www.shropshireregimentalmuseum.co.uk/regimental-history/shropshire-light-infantry/the-kings-shropshire-light-infantry-1939-1945/