Family’s pride as they walk in footsteps of liberation hero
Relatives travel to island to mark VE Day
He was the first soldier to arrive on Guernsey after the island was liberated from the Nazis in 1945, riding his motorcycle off the boat to the joy of locals.
As Sergeant- Major Robert Shaw, f rom Springburn, Glasgow, disembarked, he would meet a boy with whom he’d become lifelong friends.
The late serviceman’s family from Scotland are travelling to the island to celebrate the 77th anniversary of VE Day tomorrow alongside the Earl and Countess of Wessex.
Robert’s son, retired Motor Retai l Group director Martin Shaw, said: “My father was so proud of being par t of such a historic moment in liberating the island of Guernsey after the war. He talked about this moment throughout his whole life.” Robert was the first person to disembark onto Guernsey which, as one of the Channel Islands, was one of the only places in Britain occupied during the war by German soldiers.
Robert, who was born in September 1915, was part of Task Force 135, the British Military Contingent that liberated the island as part of the operation Nestegg exercise.
To honour his memory, his three children and four grandchildren will be travelling from Scotland to Jersey and Guernsey to attend the postponed VE Day celebrations. He died in 2005 and the family were set to visit and attend the 75th anniversary celebrations in 2020 but they were cancelled due to Covid.
His boat arrived in L’Ancresse Bay to liberate the island and he rode off the landing craft on a motorcycle followed by a number
of armoured vehicles. Robert met “no opposition whatsoever” except for the mobbing of the soldiers by the “hilariously enthusiastic population”.
The first person he met was a local boy called John Rault, who was cycling on the right-hand
side of the road. Robert stopped him and told him to cycle on the “British side of the road, which was the left- hand side”, as he was worried the little boy would be knocked over by the other vehicles behind him.
Forty-seven years later, in 1992,
Robert visited Guernsey again to receive commemorative Liberation medallions with a number of other war veterans.
John read about the event in the local paper and remembered it, so he contacted Robert at the hotel he was staying in.
The two met up, reconnected and retold the story. They stayed in touch until Robert passed away aged 89.
A trained motor mechanic, the retired soldier said in 1992: “The Brit ish off icers were anxious to get use of German cars while stationed on the island”.
Robert went on to marry an
English wartime nurse called Esme Collinson and started a family in Glasgow, where he lived until he died.
His son Robert added: “The fact he managed to reconnect with the very l ittle boy he stopped all those years ago was just magical for him.
“Visiting Guernsey as a family in his memory this year will be such a special moment for us to be together and remember all those that fought with him in the war.”
The Shaw family are trying to reconnect with John’s family this weekend to continue the relationship.