Project 71Lawrence Churcher visiting Portsmouth FC about five years ago
NOS Nieuws•vandaag, 17:22
“Enlisted Lawrence, your service is over. It’s an honor to have known you.” With those words, the British organization of World War II veterans Project 71 says goodbye to Lawrence Churcher. The 102-year-old Churcher was the last known survivor of the British Navy involved in the evacuation of the British Army from the beaches of Dunkirk in the spring of 1940. He died just short of his 103rd birthday.
Under heavy German bombing and artillery fire, the British navy, with the help of a civilian fleet, managed to embark and transfer 220,000 British and 123,000 French soldiers to England. This prevented them from being made prisoners of war. In addition, it was a great moral boost at a time when the United Kingdom also seemed to be losing the war against Nazi Germany.
To see the world
Churcher was 18 when he enlisted in the Royal Navy in 1938 because he wanted to see some of the world. At the beginning of World War II, he was stationed in France, where his job was to bring munitions to the front. In the second half of May 1940, the Germans advanced so quickly that the British and French soldiers got stuck at Dunkirk.
Project 71Lawrence in the midst of his two brothers
From England everything that could sail was sent across the Channel to pick up the soldiers. Churcher helped them get on board. “There were so many soldiers there and planes bombed and shot at us all the time. When I was aboard our ship, a guy leaned on my shoulder. He sighed deeply and said, ‘Thank God we have the Navy’.” There he drew courage to continue.
In the chaos, he also encountered his two brothers who served in an infantry regiment. He returned to England with them, but he did not see them again until the end of the war. He remained in the Navy and fought in the Mediterranean, on D-Day and in the Far East.
Lawrence Churcher died in a retirement home in Fareham, near his hometown of Portsmouth.
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2023-08-14 15:22:53
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