Reunion at Bognor Station

On 1^st March 1945 Dick and Chotie were together again

 for the first time since 20th May 1944. 

 

Dick’s 1945 diary for March:

1 Thurs – Met Cho Bognor Station for leave.

 

52^nd (Lowland) Reconnaissance Regiment:

52^nd Recce went into attack on enemy positions pinpointed east of Afferden on 1^st March. A dawn attack was rebutted by the enemy and resulted in the death of Corporal Duncan Simpson but the second attack led by ‘C’ Squadron Sergeants (the officers being on leave!) was successful in taking a bridge over the anti-tank ditch, revealed by the receding flood waters, and 49 prisoners of war. The Commanding Officer of ‘B’ Squadron, Major James Stormonth-Darling received the Regiment's first Military Cross for the planning and execution of the attack. (He was later knighted for his work as a Director of the National Trust for Scotland).  The advance could now continue.

(From the War Diary of the 52nd Reconnaissance Regiment held by the Archive and Reference Library, the Tank Museum, Bovington, Dorset and ‘The Fighting Fifty-Second Recce’ by Carl Shilleto, Eskdale Publishing 2001)

 

52^nd Recce Roll of Honour includes the following who died on 1^st March 1945:

Corporal Duncan Brown Simpson (age 24)

who is laid to rest in the Milsbeek war cemetery near Gennep.       

(See Roll of Honour for Milsbeek and Ottersun and photo.) 

We will remember them.