The memorial is a small block of
Portland stone with an inscription on the top. The inscription reads:
Remember
All who
died in
The Normandy Campaign
6th June - 20th
August
1944
The well kept gardens, that have
experienced flooding from the River Ouse are open during daylight hours and are
free to enter. Seating is available.
The memorial was placed in 2007 and an
article appeared in the local paper [visit
link]:
"NORMANDY war veterans have
commemorated comrades who never made it home, with the unveiling of a memorial
stone in York.
The stone, which has been laid in
the Memorial Gardens, in Leeman Road, was dedicated to all those who fought and
fell during the Normandy campaign, between June 6 - D-Day - and August 20,
1944.
More than 60 years later, the
Normandy landings remain the largest seaborne invasion in history, involving
almost three million troops crossing the English Channel.
More than 50,000 Allied troops lost
their lives in the ten-week campaign.
The Canon Jeremy Fletcher, the
Precentor of York Minster, led the service of dedication, which started at 11am,
last Wednesday, the 63th anniversary of D-Day.
Kenneth Bell, the chairman of the
York Normandy Veterans' Association, which includes about 30 surviving members
of the campaign, said: "We've been fundraising for the stone for quite a period
now, running raffles and other money-raising events. Throughout the country
there are these stones, as well as other memorials, like the stained glass one
in York Minster."
Mr Bell made it through the massive
Operation Overlord to invade north-west Europe.
"I was wounded on October 24, 1944,
in Holland, where I was hit with an 88mm gun," he said. He was taken back to the
UK before the Allied troops made it into Germany.
He said there were about 80 people
at the service, including veterans, their friends and family, visitors and the
Lord Mayor of York, Coun Irene Waudby.
Coun Waudby said: "It was a very
moving service. I unveiled the memorial stone.
"The youngest member of the
association there was 82, but they all stood for the service, standing to
attention."
She said there was a piper at the
ceremony and a bugler playing the Last Post.
"It is important that our
generation, and younger generations, remember what these men did for us," she
said.
The York Normandy Veterans'
Association meets at 11.30am, every third Wednesday in the month at Huntington
Working Men's Club, in North Moor Road, York."