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Author: Ursula Corcoran

To help us mark D-Day 80th we are enormously grateful to the Granville family for the donation of John Granville’s medals. LIEUTENANT COLONEL JOHN GRANVILLE OXFORDSHIRE AND BUCKINGHAMSHIRE LIGHT INFANTRY 1913 – 1984. Johnny Granville joined the 2nd Battalion of the Regiment as a Second Lieutenant in August 1936, when the Battalion was in India. He quickly made his mark as an instructor and as a polo player in the…

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As part of our new exhibition, Children and Military Lives, we have invited contributors to share their stories of adventure, family and exile.  1944 to 1964 “I was born in the war you know” I say to my Grandchildren evoking a response from the older ones of “Which one Grandpa?” At which point I put them straight. I mention it to them as it begs further questioning from them about…

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Military Life: A Child’s Experience – Appeal for Objects & Stories From June until November 2022, we have a new exhibition, Military Life: A Child’s Experience and one of the themes it will explore is what life is like for the children of serving military. We are covering the 1950’s up to present day and have lots of current material but very little that cover 1950-1990. If you have any…

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Refugee Week 14-20 June 2021 ‘Gunner Gerin: Refugee and Liberator’ How did a Jewish Polish refugee come to be one of the liberators of Bergen-Belsen concentration camp in April 1945? A brief mention in a soldier’s war-time diary led Harry Staff, a volunteer researcher with the Soldiers of Oxfordshire Museum, to track down a remarkable story. Gunner Henry Gerin was formerly Henryk Bochynski. Born 1905 in Poland he arrived in…

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VJ Day 63rd (Oxfordshire Yeomanry) Anti-Tank Regiment RA (TA) War In the Far East 251 Banbury Battery Prisoners of War in Thailand In February 1942, Singapore fell and the men of 251 Battery who had been involved in the attempt to defend it became some of the 61,000 prisoners taken by the Japanese. for three and a half years they were prisoners and used as slave labour, made to work…

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VJ DAY 15th August 1945 On the 15th August 1945, Japan finally surrendered to the allies bringing the bitter fighting in the last theatre of the second world war to an end. This day would be known afterwards as “VJ Day” or “Victory over Japan Day”. On this day two units of the county’s infantry regiment were present in theatre:- The 6th Battalion, Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire Light Infantry and a…

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The week starting on the 25th. May eighty years ago, was to be a memorable week for the Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire Light Infantry. On the day that Lord Gort the commander of the British Expeditionary Force made the crucial decision to evacuate his troops through Dunkirk, three battalions of the Regiment were ordered to take up positions on the perimeter of the pocket that was being formed to protect the…

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Having entered Belsen on 15 April 249 Battery were relieved on the 20th of April. From Belsen the battery moved to Celle. Its task in Celle was to establish a camp for newly released Russian Prisoners of War (PoWs) Having been in Celle for just over a week another move was made to Luneberg where the battery would undertake garrison duties in the town. Luneberg would become famous for the…

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At 6.20pm on the 4th May 1945 in a tent on Luneberg Heath in Northern Germany a German delegation signed the instrument of surrender of all German forces in Holland, Denmark and North Western Germany. The surrender was taken by Field Marshal Bernard Montgomery commanding the 21st Army Group comprising the British Second Army and the First Canadian Army. The cease fire in the British and Canadian sector was to…

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The Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire Light Infantry and the Hauraki Regiment 25 April is ANZAC Day in New Zealand. ANZAC Day is the equivalent of Remembrance Day in the UK. ANZAC Day commemorates the landing at dawn of New Zealand troops, along with Australian, British, French and Indian forces, on the Gallipoli Peninsula on the 25th of April 1915. This is viewed as the first time New Zealand fought under its…

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