The veteran named after WWI battle
‘Pride’ at association with Great War
Verdun Hayes has physical and mental scars to remind him of the horrors of the Second World War.
Should he ever need any reminder of the appalling suffering endured by so many in the First World War, there is his name.
Bryson William Verdun Hayes’ third given name – and the one he calls himself by – comes from the battle in the Great War, the largest and longest on the Western Front between the French and German armies.
His father Joseph was a sapper with the Royal Engineers fighting elsewhere in France while Verdun raged for 303 days in 1916.
Joseph wrote home to his wife Mary Anne who was pregnant at the time, saying if the baby was a boy he should be named Verdun.
“He liked the name and it was linked to his experience, so it went hand-in-hand,” said Mr Hayes, who is 102.
He was one of 907 babies who were given that name after the battle, in which the two sides suffered a total of more than 700,000 casualties.
“I am enormously proud of my name and its association with history. Even though it is associated with such awful things, it’s almost a historical reference that I bear.”
Mr Hayes was a lance corporal in the Royal Signals, attached to the 7th Seaforth Highlands 15th Scottish Division in the second world war. He came ashore in Normandy a few days after the D-Day landings of June 6, 1944, and served in France, Holland, Belgium and Germany.
His medals proudly include the Légion d’honneur, which was awarded to all British veterans who fought for the liberation of France, presentations made to mark the 70th anniversary of D-Day.
Mr Hayes, of Croyde in North Devon, has twice been back to the landings site, most recently in 2016, thanks to the Royal British Legion’s (RBL) Remembrance Travel fund.
‘I am enormously proud of my name and its association’
Verdun Hayes
He said he was struck by the calm he encountered, which was in contrast with what followed during the Allies’ progress through German-occupied territory in 1944. He suffered shrapnel injuries to his hands and ribs in an explosion near Choux in eastern France, which claimed the life of his friend Sgt Edgar Robertson.
They were digging slit trenches together at the time. “I remember I was passing a shovel to him and he took it with his right hand,” said Mr Hayes. “The next thing I knew I was coming around trying to regain my senses. A German shell had exploded close to us and it took out my sergeant.
“I lost any amount of friends in no time at all really. I just didn’t think I would ever return home. Surviving an explosion when others didn’t. I was just lucky, I guess.”
He said the hardest thing he has ever done in his life was saying goodbye to his wife and two young children at the end of a period of leave, as he prepared to rejoin his unit for what he knew would be fierce and bloody fighting in Germany.
Mr Hayes’ zest for life is reflected in becoming the world’s oldest tandem skydiver in May last year, aged 101 years and 37 days, from 10,000 feet above Dunkeswell airfield in East Devon.
He jumped to raise money for the RBL, a charity that he once served as branch secretary. The charity, founded three years after the First World War ended, remains dear to his heart.
“The legion does a good job,” he said. “I have always paid £10 for a poppy. I have for years.”
While he has vivid reminders of both conflicts in body, mind and name, his personal knowledge of what his father went through is limited, other than that he fought in the Battle of the Somme.
“My father literally said nothing about the war,” said Mr Hayes. “I guess he wouldn’t talk about it because of his experiences. I always considered him to be a hero just from imagining what he used to do.”