Page 70 - Bugle Issue 18 Auntumn 2021

SOUTH WEST
‘H’ Jones Walk
The annual ‘H’ Jones Walk, organised by the Exeter Branch, took place on the 3rd July 2021. The walk started at Hay Tor Vale and the participants made their way to the top of Ripon Tor where there is a Regimental letterbox where a short service of Remembrance was held.
The Regiment Reunion
Our annual reunion will now take place on Saturday 18 September 2021. The Parade will march from Dix’s Field, Exeter, through the
high street, taking the salute at the Guildhall, on to Cathedral Green for a short Drum Head Service, presenta- tion of the President Awards, then onto the Corn Exchange. The Devon ACF Corps of Drums, The Rifles Bands - Salamanca and Waterloo will take part, along with Branch Standards.
The Normandy Memorial Trust
The Devon and Dorset Regiment, together with the Royal Hampshire Regiment supported the newly constructed British Normandy Memorial by sponsoring one of five memorial benches overlooking Gold Beach. The double bench has three brass plaques commemorating D-Day and the attack on Hill 112 a month later involving The Devon’s, The Hampshire and The Dorsets.
In proud memory of all ranks of The Devon- shire Regiment, The Hampshire Regiment and The Dorsetshire Regiment who fought in Normandy in the summer of 1944 and began the liberation of Continental Europe.
The launch of the Memorial was unveiled on the 77th anniversary of the 6th June
in Ver-sur-Mer and honours the soldiers who died on D-Day, and in the fighting that followed.
The British Normandy Memorial records the names of the 22,442 people who were killed on D-Day and at the Battle of Normandy. It remembers those who died in the largest seaborne invasion in history, as about 160,000
troops from Britain, the US, Canada, France and other Allied nations landed on the beaches. The memorial sits atop a hillside overlooking Gold Beach, one of three where soldiers landed on the morning of 6 June 1944. The site consists of a temple-like structure containing 160 stone columns inscribed with the names of the dead and a bronze sculpture of three charging infantrymen.
On the day of the launch the RAF’S Red Arrows and the French Air Force Patrouille de France aerobatic teams flew overhead to mark the opening of the memorial.
In a video message the Prince of Wales, patron of the Trust, said it was important the memory of these “remarkable individuals should be preserved for future generations as an example of personal courage and sacrifice, for the benefit of the wider national and, indeed, international community”.
Carole Arnold
Devon and Dorset Regiment
Regimental Co-ordinator danddsec@hotmail.com
Major William Hugo White MBE DL
Major William Hugo White MBE DL has recently been awarded the MBE in this year’s Queen’s Birthday Honours List for his services to the Regimental Museum, The Rifles Regimental Association and the community in Padstow, Cornwall. Born
on 3rd October 1930 in Manchester, Hugo celebrated his 90th birthday with us at The Keep in Bodmin, last year.
Brought up in India for the first 6 years, he sailed back to England to start boarding at Twyford School, near Winchester and then
to Wellington College. Hugo followed in his father’s footsteps and enlisted at the age of 19 into the Coldsteam Guards, from there to the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst as an Officer Cadet and then commissioned into the Somerset Light Infantry (Prince Albert’s).
Major White’s military career saw him serving in Germany, Malaya, Cyprus, Jordan, Gibraltar and Northern Ireland where he
was Mentioned in Despatches. One of his memorable duties was to carry the Queen’s Colours at her Coronation in 1953. Another highlight of his career was passing ‘P Coy’ and a Parachute Course at Abingdon. Somehow, Hugo even managed to get a posting to HMS EAGLE as Liaison Officer and spent 160 days at sea. After a career spanning thirty years, Hugo retired from the Army in 1979, or so he thought.
Hugo volunteered for all sorts: as a guide
with the National Trust, Church Warden, Chairman of the Cornish Buildings Group as well as Chairman of Padstow Rowing Club. He was tasked by Lt Col Salisbury-Trelawney, the County Regimental Secretary, to ‘sort out’ the DCLI Museum at The Keep in 1983! Hugo took over from Lt Col Salisbury-Trelawney as County Secretary in 1985, he was appointed a Deputy to the Lord Lieutenant in 1988 and Clerk to
the Lieutenancy in 1988. Hugo has served on many committees and is still a Trustee of the DCLI Cottage Homes, he is also the President of the LI and RIFLES Bodmin Association.
Hugo married Caroline in 1958 and recently they celebrated their Diamond Wedding Anniversary. They bought their house in Padstow in 1963, raising their two children Richard and Catherine, and still live there to this day. Hugo enjoys long walks with his beloved Nessie, the latest in a long line of retired greyhounds, rowing, reading, painting, carpentry and metalwork. Hugo’s involvement with the museum has seen it expand from not only
the DCLI collection, but also the LI collection and now into Cornwall’s Regimental Museum. Hugo has worked continuously and quietly in the background, writing books and answering queries on military and family history connected to the DCLI, until April 2020 when the COVID-19 pandemic hit and he finally retired. Even Hugo had to admit that he was getting old.
After a military career spanning 70 years, Maj Hugo White finally retired in 2020 and
in 2021, he is very proud and honoured to
have been awarded the Member of the British Empire for services to the Regimental Museum, the Rifles Regimental Association and the community in Padstow, Cornwall.
70 RIFLES The Bugle
Hugo followed in his father’s footsteps and enlisted at the age of 19 into the Coldsteam Guards
DEVON AND DORSET REGIMENT