Extensive Coverage in The Courier

On the 75th anniversary of VE-Day, the Warwick Courier gave prominent coverage to the relaunch of our War Memorial Website to include The Fallen from both world wars, and reported the public appeal for photos and information about the Warwick men who died in WW2.

The newspaper featured our appeal prominently on the front page, and pages 8 -10 included some of the information we have discovered about the way Warwick celebrated VE-Day in 1945, and a selection of the personal stories behind the 112 names from WW2 on the memorial plaques.

For example, the research team has established that 23 of the Warwick men who died in WW2 were serving in the RAF and the RAF Volunteer Reserve. Many died flying the dangerous bombing missions over Germany in the later stages of the war. Bomber Command suffered extremely high casualty rates with sixty percent of the airmen killed, wounded or taken prisoner.

Ernest ‘Monty’ Pease who lived in Emscote Road died when his Lancaster crashed in northern Germany. Herbert Stroud who worked for Warwickshire County Council, Edmund Ayton from Coten End, Peter Nixon from Woodcote Road and Harry Lyndon-Adams from Cape Road, were all among those who failed to return from their bombing missions. Some were shot down by night fighters, some by anti-aircraft fire, others were recorded as ‘lost at sea’. 

The Courier Online is also carrying stories about the War Memorial Project, https://www.warwickcourier.co.uk/news/people/appeal-launched-memories-wartime-warwick-2846957

The newspaper editors say they will hope to print more personal stories of the Warwick men who sacrificed their lives in WW2 as the research team finds them, and as members of the public provide photos from family albums. If you have information about one of the men featured here under ‘The Fallen’, please email Christine Shaw: info@warwickwarmemorial.org.uk