Larry Barton awarded the DCM from king

THERE was many a tale of bullets and bombs, trenches and ditches related between colleagues of two World Wars, when ex-servicemen gathered at their Duke Street premises for the annual reunion organised by the local branch of the British Legion at Christmas 1979, the Drogheda Independent reported at the time.

The story that followed was amazing. Men who had fought heroically in these two terrible times of conflict relaxed in a happy festive atmosphere and recalled—a little hesitatingly at times but with no little pride —the parts they played in the wars.

From Mornington came ex-Navy man, John Reynolds, who sat in one comer of the room smoking his pipe. We guessed he was one of the oldest men present and decided to enquire. “I’ll give you two guesses on my age and I bet you’ll be wrong,” chirped John.

He was right. We never would have guessed he had seen so many summers. “I’ll be 88 next June,” he finally told us. And a more sprightly man for hiS age we have yet to see, as he hopped up and down the stairs like the proverbial two-year-old.

“I was in the Royal Naval Reserve,” John told us. “and started off my service in Belgium. I remember going through the city of Antwerp when it was in flames.” Did he dispose of many of the enemy? ‘”I did my best,” he said, with a gleam in his eye.

At the other end of the room was Paddy Carolan of Newtown, formerly of Windmill Road. Paddy is 80 and served with the Royal Irish Rifles in Western Europe.

“I remember we were the first regiment to encounter the Germans at Mons in Belgium in 1914. There were many Drogheda men fighting in the war and, indeed, 17 of them were killed in one day —my brother Larry, being among them. In another battle, there were 83 of us left out of 900 who started off. I was one of the lucky ones. I was not in the last war, though I got the call-up. However, my wife had died in 1938 and I had to mind my children. Only for that, I would have been away again,” said Paddy.

By comparison with John and Paddy, Larry Barton is only a “‘young fellow” of 77. Larry, from George’s Street, is father of local show-band star, Johnny.

Larry was a member of the Royal Irish Fusiliers and, for his exploits, he got the second highest honour there is—the D.CM.—from King George V.

“We were the first regiment through Armentieres,” Larry told us. “We lost a captain, a sergeant and ten men in a farmyard outside it. I discovered the Germans were in a cellar, full of wine, in a house. I told my superiors and we blew ten Germans up,” he said.

We also met John Hafford of Pearse Park, formerly of Green lanes. He served in the Irish Guards in the last war. “You may remember me as the man who ‘found the cannonball in Cromwell’s Mount a few years ago when working, as I still am, as a Corporation employee. I was cutting ivy and found the cannonball set in the wall.”

Hughie Downey of the Old Abbey, also fought in the second war. He served with the 3rd Battalion, Irish Guards in North West Europe. He received a severe wound in the chest, perilously close to his heart and was recovering for two years.

Amazing family histories indeed.