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EXHIBITION IN VILLAGE HALL
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On the 5 & 6 June
2004 the Haughley Local History Forum mounted an exhibition of ‘Haughley in
Wartime’ to mark the 60th anniversary of D-Day. The main exhibition took place
in the Village Hall and included photographs, war-time memorabilia, an archive
film show, and displays depicting family life during the war. There was also a
Village trail that showing how houses and buildings have changed their use since the war -
notices were displayed in the windows of the houses in the Village to say exactly
what the building was in 1944. The notes below provide a very brief summary of what
D-Day was all about, and also give a small sample of Haughley wartime memories.
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D-DAY - A BRIEF HISTORY
Operation Overlord, the long awaited allied invasion of German occupied mainland
Europe, was originally planned to take place on 5 June but bad weather delayed the
landings by 24 hours. The following day was cloudless and the landing craft successfully
brought British, American and Canadian troops to the Normandy coast. |
By the end of the day 132,000 men and their equipment in 2727 ships, which
had assembled in great secrecy along the south coast of England over the previous week,
had landed on a 30 mile front west of the River Orne estuary near Caen. The five beaches
onto which the British 2nd Army, the American 1st Army and the 3rd Canadian Division
landed were codenamed Utah in the west, Omaha, Gold, Juno and Sword in the east. 23,500
soldiers arrived by air either by parachute or in gliders which had been towed across the
channel.
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Although the Germans had been successfully deceived into believing that
the invasion would take place nearer to Calais, where they had concentrated their troops,
the success of the operation was by no means certain and some key objectives, such as the
capture of Caen took a month longer than planned. That was not achieved without very heavy
fighting among the hedgerows and farms of Normandy which claimed 10,300 casualties. |
| American and British reconnaissance aircraft flew high over
the beaches throughout the landings monitoring the Allies' progress and recording their
advance as they established beachheads before making their way inland. |
The members of the Haughley Local History Forum would like to record their appreciation to
all the many villagers who came along to the URC Hall on Saturday 17th January 2004 to
share their wartime memories. The recorders were kept busy all day with some
fascinating tales. Some incidents were remembered by several people but without
exception, everyone also had an individual recollection of a particular event.
The History Forum now has the absorbing task of writing up the memories
and, with the help of some photographs, assembling a display to commemorate the
anniversary of ‘D’-Day. |
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| For the enemy aircraft, Haughley was easy to find; even on the darkest
nights it was relatively simple to follow the railway as far as the junction. The
Village was subjected to cannon, machine gun, bomb and incendiary attack.
Astonishingly the casualties and damage were relatively light, although several people
remembered a horse being injured at Red House Farm. The searchlight unit at
Harleston also attracted a fair amount of attention from German aircraft and from a
‘doodlebug’; bombs on Stowmarket would shake the houses in Old Street.
However one of the most dangerous incidents was very much ‘home-made’. An
ammunition train ran though the end of the sidings at the station and crashed across the
level crossing gates, spilling bombs down the road. Fortunately, none went off.
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Italian POWs, were held at Plashwood and worked in the fields. Sme
were occasionally invited into the village as were the American crews, especially at
Christmas. Counting the bombers out and back was a regular schoolboy pastime, but it
also left its mark with the high number of air force casualties being immediately
apparent. |
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| Life in the Village went on in a surprisingly normal way. Transport
was limited - the railway into Stowmarket and Ipswich or the bus from Squire’s Cross,
but for most it was by bike or on foot. The main road to Tot Hill was much steeper
and there were few who did not have to push their bikes up the hill. However, the
Village was much more self-sufficient with plenty of shops and a good supply of local
produce. The main local crops were wheat, barley and sugar beet, but milk, eggs,
meat and the occasional rabbit and pheasant were usually available. Rationing
obviously made its impact but overall, no one was starving. Life was still quite
primitive: few had electricity; the sewage was collected in a cart every Friday night;
fresh water was drawn from the pump on the green. Losing too much milk or water on
the way home seemed to get several of the schoolchildren into trouble! |
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The Vicar “Parson” or “Tonkey” White (depending on
one’s view of him!), organised regular dances in the Village Hall with Johnny
Ransom’s Band and there was a series of concerts and parties to raise money for the
“Welcome Home Fund” - to provide a wallet and cash for every returning
serviceman. |
| There is so much more to tell, but we hope that this gives just a flavour
of the D-Day exhibition held in the Village Hall in June 2004. |
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