NEW SHERWOOD RANGERS MEMORIAL, BERJOU, NORMANDY

In June 2024, I found where Frank Galvin’s Sherman tank had been abandoned, burned-out and broken, in a Normandy hedgerow near the village of Berjou. A few yards away, where the tank had been hit, pieces of his tank, as well as the remains of ammunition, still littered the side of the road. All five of the crew were killed as were three other men in C Squadron of the Sherwood Rangers Yeomanry that dark day of 16 August 1944. A ninth man later died of his wounds on 29 August 1944. There remains an indentation in the hedgerow where the wrecked Sherman had stood for many years after the war - and it’s here where we are planning to erect a stunning new memorial to the nine men who lost their lives.

We shall be walking the route of the Sherwood Rangers from their landing on Gold Beach on D-Day, 6 June 1944, to that fateful day in August 1944. We’ll be doing this over three days from 8-10 July this year and then we are planning to inaugurate the memorial on 16 August 2025.

The memorial has been designed by architect, Stuart Bertie, and is made of steel, reflecting the nature of the Sherman tank in which they served. The outlines of the nine men killed, and their names, will be stamped out of the metal.

It will be a poignant, moving and appropriate memorial to the nine men from the regiment who gave their lives for our freedom on 16 August 1944 and who deserve to be remember for ever more.

Additionally, we are also raising money to urgently save the archives of the Sherwood Rangers. At present they are languishing in an attic at Carlton Barracks in Nottingham. They desperately need sorting, reorganising and digitising. The concern is that without this vital work, they may soon be lost forever.

Please do support this project.

Thank you.