Gosport’s D Day Memorial Unveiled

The News, Portsmouth

A D Day memorial was unveiled on The Promenade near Stokes Bay Sailing Club on Thursday, June 5, 2025.

Transcript

00:00So I'm Andrew Griffin, I'm Chair of the Trustees of the Gosport D-Day Fellowship.

00:04So tell me all about this morning and what's been happening down at Stokes Bay.

00:07Well, five years ago the original plan was the County Council and the Borough Council wanted

00:13to build a permanent D-Day memorial and had a budget of £100,000.

00:20Obviously we then got into the world of Covid and things changed and in 2022 the funding

00:28from Gosport Borough Council was withdrawn.

00:30At that point, Julie, Salvat and David were determined that the project wouldn't fail

00:36but they obviously had to come up with a new plan from what was originally drawn up

00:40by the County Council and the Borough Council together.

00:45They spent the last year trying to raise the rest of the money and to go through the administrative

00:51processes that were required to take over the land where the memorial was to be built.

00:58I was approached at the end of last year having met some of the members of the Fellowship

01:04with my experience at the Hailing Island having been involved in the Cot Memorial

01:08and being a Gosport boy myself.

01:11They required some extra bodies to provide some help with the administration.

01:18We had to become a formal charity which was a quite involved legal process in itself

01:23and from there, once we had the official Charities Commission's blessing, we could then enter

01:29into the legal contract to take responsibility for the land where the memorial is sited.

01:36And then obviously we had the plans drawn up that were passed a couple of years ago for

01:40the benches and then we had a contractor but we obviously had to find a window when we could

01:46get the thing built.

01:47It didn't take that long actually to construct but the timing of when we would unveil it was

01:52then key in our minds and we were thinking that VE Day would have been a very appropriate

01:57anniversary to commemorate but unfortunately we were bogged down by the paperwork and so we

02:06decided on June the 5th not because D-Day was June the 6th but because historically all of

02:12the troops were actually went on board on the afternoon or the morning of the 5th and sailed

02:18just after lunch.

02:19So in fact we are commemorating exactly 81 years that the largest invasion force in history

02:27left Stokes Bay.

02:29And tell me a little bit about the service this morning and what the reaction was like

02:32and how lovely it was.

02:33I can't take any credit for what Gilly put on today but as you saw we went for some senior

02:41military representatives, obviously the Mayor of Gosport, the Lord Lieutenant obviously was

02:45represented and obviously we had the cadet force locally as well from TS Hornet.

02:53It was just a really, we wanted something that commemorated and showed the respect that you

02:59should honour D-Day veterans with and to have a 100 year old real veteran who took part

03:05in D-Day was in something else that we, you know, again we had to spend a bit of time trying

03:11to make things like that happen but it came together quite late in the day but to have

03:16somebody, he did sail five days after D-Day itself but he was kept back in the reserve

03:21and he left from Weymouth which is where most of the American soldiers sailed from and of

03:26course the sights that you see in Saving Private Ryan, that was the reality of what the people

03:31that went before Albert saw on D-Day itself so, you know, the fact we've got a man here

03:38who's 100 years old whose comrades took part in that operation and paid the ultimate price,

03:44we thought it was fitting that we could reflect that in our service today, obviously with the

03:49Dean of Gosport taking the formal commemoration ceremony.

03:56Thank you very much.

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