Page 36 - The Wish Stream Year of 2022 CREST

Exercise NORMANDY SCHOLAR
After a long eight weeks of battling through the field exercises of ROBERT’S RETURN, ALLENBY’S ADVANCE and SLIMS STAND, Commissioning Course 222 was rather looking forward to a ‘holiday’ in northern France. Borneo Company followed behind Falklands Company, crossing the Channel with a sluggish overnight ferry. Arriving early on the Wednes- day morning, Borneo spent the morning follow- ing in the footsteps of 9 PARA’s bloody mission to destroy the Nazi artillery battery located at Merville. We were given the tactical and ethical problems of the time to solve, before our excel- lent War Studies staff enlightened us with what our forebears decided to do; in some cases, our plans were very similar, in others, wildly different. After lunch and an exploration of the complex bunker system at Merville, we then moved to Gold Beach itself. We were presented with fresh problems and gave our respective solutions; the earlier ideas of the trip being a ‘holiday’ were quickly dropped, as we were presented with the grim reality of what crossing the Channel really meant 80 or so years ago.
An artillery piece at Merville Battery
lowed the trail to the vicinity of Hill 112, a key objective for Operations Epsom and Jupiter, the capture of which would have unlocked the road to Caen.
Here we found what was the end of the trail for not just us, but for many: a memorial to those
The next morning, we headed
to the St. Pierre Church, in Tilly-
sur-Seulles. This was the site of a
brave defensive stand by the Brit-
ish, who were then forced to with-
draw before successfully defeating the overpow- ering German counterattack. As we followed in the British footsteps once more, this time in a demoralising backwards direction, the problems we were presented with became bloodier and bloodier, and increasingly desperate. We fol-
The newly constructed Normandy memorial for British personnel
It was a stark and cold lesson on the realities of peer-on- peer conflict.
involved with the aforementioned operations. Father Corrigan’s service was deeply moving. He broke the traditional format of Remembrance services and asked us all to select a grave which related to us by age, regiment, or even surname. We were
then to conduct a more intimate act of remem- brance with our chosen forebear by placing our memorial markers on their grave and were to bring their name back with us to the remain- der of the service, and indeed for the service on Remembrance Sunday later that week. Hav- ing asked many of my peers if they could still remember their chosen person even after a few weeks, not one had forgotten. Surely this is what Remembrance is truly about?
Ex NORMANDY SCHOLAR served more than just an academic exercise focused on war stud- ies, leadership and military planning. It was a stark and cold lesson on the realities of peer-on- peer conflict. After all, it was often the case that more service personnel died in one day, or even one hour, during WW2, than during the entirety of the Afghanistan War. Indeed, with the Ukrain- ian war still ongoing, the lesson we learnt in Nor- mandy is now more important than ever.
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