War vet identified
THANK you for including the photograph of the man we were trying to identify (Letters Page, July 8, 2020).
Would you believe it but first thing Wednesday morning, the Echo was just out, my phone rang and it was my Aunty, Mrs Peggy Cumberland of Hazel Road, who rang to tell me the gentleman was John Bramley.
His wife, Brenda, was an evacuee from London who returned to London when the situation improved, however when the flying bombs, the doodlebugs, started she returned to Loughborough to work and stopped with my auntie’s family. She married John after the war.
John was a territorial soldier in the 1/5th battalion the Leicestershire Regiment they were mobilized at the outbreak of WW2 and in April 1940 they took part in a disastrous campaign in Norway after the Germans invaded the country.
Changing ships on a number of occasions and being separated from their equipment they landed in Norway totally unprepared for the German onslaught, ill equipped and clothed and with very little ammunition they were driven back until rescued by the Royal Navy and evacuated back to Britain.
John Bramley wasn’t so lucky and was taken prisoner and spent the rest of the war in a German POW Camp.
Many of those killed are buried in Lillehammer Northern Civil Cemetery and over the years there have been a number of visits by ex-members of the Leicesters’ and we assume the photograph was taken on some such a visit.
My Aunty Peggy says that John and Brenda had two children and she believes they still live in the area and we would like to contact them to see what they can add to the story.
The attached picture is of Loughborough men being welcomed back from Norway, I believe that flags were flying and the Mayor hosted a dinner for them at the Town Hall so pleased were the people of Loughborough that their sons had returned.
Mel Gould, Loughborough Carillon Tower and War Memorial Museum.