The First Fatality of D-Day? While Lt. Den Brotheridge, taking part in the capture of Pegasus Bridge, is considered to be the first allied soldier killed in action, L/Cpl Fred Greenhalgh (3449663) was possibly the first fatal casualty of D-Day on 6th June 1944. Who was he and how did it happen? Fred was born in 1915 in Chorlton, Lancs, the son of Sam & Lily Greenhalgh. The Greenhalgh’s…
Our thanks to RAF Benson for providing this article and photographs. Women of the WAAF: Joan Woodruff (née Heraghty) Joan Heraghty was born on 4 November 1923 and originally came from Goldthorpe, a few miles away from Doncaster in South Yorkshire. At eighteen years of age she decided to join the Woman’s Auxiliary Air Force. After her days of learning to march and learning about the Royal Air Force (square…
Women of the Air Transport Auxiliary – Freydis Mary Sharland Thanks to RAF Benson for providing us with this article Between 1939 and 1945, more than 1,300 ATA pilots delivered warplanes between factories, facilities and bases across Britain, and, later, into mainland Europe and the Mediterranean. In January 1940, the ATA’s first eight female pilots were recruited, and, based at what had been the De Havilland airfield at Hatfield in…
The Attack on Monte Camino 1943 (80th Anniversary) Of course 11 November 2013 marks 105 years since the signing of the Armistice in 1918, but it also marks 80 years since 7th Battalion, Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire Light Infantry were engaged in the Attack on Monte Camino during the often-overlooked Italian Campaign of the Second World War. The following entries from the Regimental War Chronicle record the events leading up to…
