WIREDGOV

Second World War veterans across the nation are set for trips to Normandy and theatres of war throughout the world to commemorate the battles that led to the end of WWII with awards totalling over £931,000 announced today by the Big Lottery Fund (BIG).

A total of 457 awards have been made from BIG’s Heroes Return 2 programme, funding 1,572 WWII veterans, widows, spouses and carers to mark overseas anniversaries throughout 2009 and 2010.  Some veterans are travelling in groups or accompanied by family and carers, while others are making final solo visits to the places where they fought in the battle against  fascism.

Peter Wanless, Big Lottery Fund Chief Executive, said: “The generation of men and women who served this country during the Second World War gave so much to protect the freedoms we enjoy today.  As they get older, pilgrimages to the areas where they saw service become ever more poignant and precious to our veterans.

“Today’s Heroes Return 2 funding announcement builds on the Fund’s previous support for our veterans. We were proud that we were able to contribute to events marking the 60th anniversary leading up to the end of the Second World War - including helping 39,000 veterans and their carers go overseas to revisit those sites where they saw action.

“This is why I am personally delighted today to announce the first round of grants of Heroes Return 2, as we are making a further offer to fund the trips for those veterans who would like our support to attend 65th anniversary events beginning in Normandy and continuing over the next two years to other commemorative sites across the world.  In this way, on behalf of the whole nation, we are honouring the service and sacrifice of so many of our veterans.”

Major John Majendie from Sevenoaks, Kent, will lead a group of ten veterans, six spouses and four carers to France with the support of a £9,100 award from the Big Lottery Fund. Major Majendie joined the army in 1938, and by 1944 was serving in the Wessex division of the Somerset Light Infantry. Ten days after he landed on the Normandy beaches on D-Day two thirds of his battalion died in a hard-fought battle.

Leading the Light Infantry Regimental Association of Somerset, 90-year-old Major Majendie and his group will arrive on 8th July to mark that battle and to visit two cemeteries, one of which contains the graves of 94 men from his regiment. Speaking of his group he said: “The youngest member, now 84, joined up underage. The oldest, now 93, still works on his farm.  One has received the Military Cross twice and one went from Sergeant to Lieutenant and was wounded all within one month.“

The veterans appreciate the Heroes Return 2 grants which are making these commemorative trips possible, rekindling memories of their time in battle. Major Majendie said: “Rather than Heroes Return, I feel that a better name might be Survivors Return because we were just the lucky ones.”

Prince Edward, Earl of Wessex, will attend a commemoration event with the Light Infantry veterans on July 12.

Memories of raids on German positions in the Netherlands and Norway are still fresh for former RAF gunner Frederick Bates from Southport in Merseyside. But if a detail escapes him, he’ll reach for his wartime logbook and rattle off a list of dates and targets from the 35 missions in which he took part.

‘Junior’ Bates, now 85, is returning with the navigator of his Lancaster bomber, Robert ‘Mac’ McNight, aged 87, also from Southport, to the Netherlands to remember their part in the crucial air attack in October 1944 on Walcheren Island which enabled the British Special Service Brigade to silence German coastal batteries and open shipping lanes to Antwerp.

“Mac and I paid a brief visit to Walcheren a few years ago, “ says ‘Junior’ Bates, “but we’ll be able to spend more time there now and take things slowly. I’m so glad the Big Lottery Fund has made this possible, and we’re very much looking forward to our visit. I’ve always been impressed by the Dutch people, who are so courteous and friendly.”

One of those who will never forget the war years is William Blewitt, from Darlington, County Durham. William is travelling to Italy, to the Anzio Beachhead British Military Cemetery which marks one of the major allied invasions in World War Two. Before Italy, he had been stationed in North Africa and Malta. “In Italy, volunteers were needed for amphibious tanks which had four men in them,” he recalls. “I volunteered, thinking I would go with my friends. “ However they were split up and William was attached to 45th Marine commandos as a radio operator and gunner and taken into battle.  “We got shot at a lot”, he remembers.

“When the war finished in Europe, we found ourselves stationed on the Lido in Venice and our company was running a water bus service for all the American, Canadian, New Zealand and Russian soldiers who came there for the newly- established rest camps”, William said.

Winston Churchill was on hand 65 years ago to wish good luck to Wilfred Simm and his comrades in the Royal Engineers when they set sail for France on D-Day.  Their task was to bring vital armaments ashore on temporary mulberry harbours as the invasion got underway to liberate Europe from the Nazis.

Wilfred’s return visit to Normandy this summer will be a less dramatic affair, but just as important to him. With support from the Big Lottery Fund’s Heroes Return programme, 89-year-old Wilfred will make the journey from Newton-le-Willows on Merseyside to commemorate those who never made it home.

“I want to pay my respects to those who died on D-Day and throughout the campaign,” he says. “I was fortunate that my comrades all survived, but many men didn’t, and they must not be forgotten.”

Richard Hargreaves from South Petherton, Somerset will travel to Le Muy in Provence for the 65th anniversary of the ‘Operation Dragoon’ invasion of southern France on August 15, 1944.  Then a major in the 4th Battalion of the Parachute Regiment, Richard Hargreaves holds both the Military Cross and the French Légion d'honneur.

He remembers the vital assignment in Provence: “We flew in from Rome and landed 15 miles inland to form a bridgehead at Le Muy to prevent the Germans from attacking the French and American troops landing on the beaches.”

He was in France only two weeks before returning to Italy, and he then moved on to Greece a few weeks later. But Operation Dragoon has remained an important memory to him. “I went to the 50th anniversary of the Le Muy action, led the veterans in the 60th and I will be leading them again, although there are only 14 of us left now.”

The event is a four-day affair hosted by the village with a memorial service at which Richard Hargreaves will lay a wreath as the British representative. The veterans are looking forward to a staged parachute drop, a concert and sumptuous lunches at the event which remains a major occasion for Le Muy.

The Big Lottery Fund has already supported veterans through the Awards for All small grants programme with funding over £178,000 to support anniversary trips this year.

Launched to mark the historic 60th anniversary of D-DAY in 2004, BIG’s first Heroes Return scheme awarded £16.6 million to over 39 thousand veterans, spouses, widows and carers to fund commemorative visits to Second World War battlefields, cemeteries and other significant places across the world.

Heroes Return was the centrepiece of the Veterans Reunited programme, including Home Front Recall which awarded £19.2 million to support UK-based group events and activities to commemorate those who contributed to the war-effort on the home front. The programme also includes Their Past Your Future, an ongoing £9.6 million scheme funding a UK-wide schools and education programme to give young people the opportunity to learn first-hand from veterans about their experience of war.

Further Information

Big Lottery Fund Press Office: 020 7211 1888
Out of hours contact: 07867 500 572
HEROES RETURN 2 HELPLINE 0845 00 00 121
Public Enquiries Line: 08454 102030
Textphone:  0845 6021 659

Full details of the Big Lottery Fund programmes and grant awards are available on the website: www.biglotteryfund.org.uk

Notes to editors

• The Big Lottery Fund (BIG), the largest distributor of National Lottery good cause funding, is responsible for giving out half the money raised for good causes by the National Lottery.
• BIG is committed to bringing real improvements to communities and the lives of people most in need and has been rolling out grants to health, education, environment and charitable causes across the UK since June 2004. The Fund was formally established by Parliament on 1 December 2006.
• Since the National Lottery began in 1994, 28p from every pound spent by the public has gone to good causes. As a result, over £22 billion has now been raised and more than 300,500 grants awarded across arts, sport, heritage, charities, health, education and the environment.
• Heroes Return £17 million scheme provided funding to Second World War veterans, their wives or husbands, widows and widowers and, where required, their present-day carers to visit the overseas areas where the veterans saw active service.  By linking with activities funded through the Their Past Your Future scheme, Heroes Return is also helping to give young people a better understanding of the efforts and sacrifices made by veterans.
• Home Front Recall provided grants of between £500 and £20,000 for regional and local projects across the UK in 2004-2005 that commemorated the events of the Second World War and the contributions of different groups in society.  The scheme funded a very wide range of projects including special community days; reunions and exhibitions; recordings of the experiences of those who lived through the War; plays and pieces of creative artwork. In addition, the scheme funded a number of national grants to organisations such as the TUC to fund a range of commemorative activities.
• Their Past Your Future is a UK-wide education project led by a partnership of the Imperial War Museum, Museums, Libraries and Archives England, National Library of Wales, Northern Ireland Museum Council and Scottish Museums Council, supported by the Big Lottery Fund. The project aims to increase young people’s understanding and appreciation of the impact on people and places of conflict throughout the 20th century, including the Second World War. It also focuses on history, national identity and civic participation/responsibility through learning programmes, engaging with veterans and eyewitnesses of conflict, and with primary sources from UK museums, libraries and archives. The project was established in 2004 as part of Veterans Reunited, and concludes in March 2010.
• The project website at www.theirpast-yourfuture.org.uk includes a wide range of resources for schools to use to facilitate learning about the project themes as well as details of projects delivered by museums across the UK.