In the Shadow of the Wars

Two events yesterday, Nov. 6, brought home how timeless the memories of wars past are in this country, one a harmless lark and the other more somber. First the fun one. A veteran from the Royal Engineers was on campus for the Remembrance Day service in Pegasus Courtyard, and he wanted to check out a relic from the Second World War found recently in a pasture just over the top of the ridge behind the Manor. It is an old Allan Williams turret used to mount a Bren Gun or a Lewis Gun, or whatever was at hand, in the dark days of 1940 when invasion by the Nazis was a real threat.

Manufactured quickly and in the thousands, these steel turrets were embedded across the countryside at airfields and other key installations, as well as important roadways and junctions. Manned by a crew of two, they could be fitted for anti-aircraft or anti-personnel firing. Gary Weight, late of the Royal Engineers and now head of Pegasus Normandy Tours in France, invited me to come along with him and get some pictures of the turret with a Bren mounted in it--which he conveniently happened to have, decommissioned of course--in situ as it were.

Anyway, off we went up Swine Hill and around to the back of the estate, pulling off to the side of the road at a small gate into a pasture. Then it was over the gate and under the electric fence to reach the turret, still sitting where it had been installed during the war. There was an emergency landing field there for damaged aircraft to use instead of crashing on the airfields in the area and putting them out of commission for a time, and this turret was situated to defend it.

And, this is the result. The first one shows how the gun would have been mounted for anti-aircraft fire.

This one would have been for covering anyone trying to approach the turret from the ground.

The turret could swivel about 180 degrees, but of course the tracks are all rusted now. The college is considering raising funds to have the thing removed from the pasture and brought onto the Manor proper or gaining access to it from the tree line in the background which marks the edge of the college's property.

Also, as mentioned above, a much more somber event yesterday as well when members of the local Parachute Regiment Association came to Harlaxton Manor to conduct a Remembrance Ceremony in the Pegasus Courtyard (see my post of Aug. 24). Ceremonies like this are conducted all over the country this week in the run-up to Remembrance Day, Nov. 11. Though it now honors the memory of all those who gave their lives in the wars of the 20th Century, it will always be particularly connected with the end of what is still called here simply The Great War, i.e. World War I. Members of the Paras were here because of this manor's connection with the British 1st Airbourne Division and its heroic failure at Arnhem during Operation Market Garden in World War II. As my own uncle fought in that battle, trying desperately to open the road north to relieve the British Paras trapped at Arnhem, I was invited to meet some of the veterans before the ceremony began. Although none were in the actual Market operation, several were veterans of WWII and now in their late 80s.

The ceremony took place in the courtyard and included remarks by one of the paratroopers, the laying of a wreath of poppies on the memorial, and the playing of Last Post, the British equivalent of our Taps, by a lone trumpeter. Here is Dr. Gordon Kingsley, Principal (dean) of Harlaxton College offering a prayer during the ceremony.

 

And, here a member of the honor guard lays the wreath on the memorial



All in all, a very moving service attended by the great bulk of our students and college staff.