Historian Stephen Nunn remembers Maldon fallen D-Day heroes

The Normandy landings commenced on D-Day, Tuesday, June 6, 1944, and the campaign didn’t end until August 22.

It involved British, American and Canadian forces landing on beaches code-named Sword, Juno, Gold, Omaha and Utah.

Preparations were top secret and many British towns and villages contributed to the plans, including in the Maldon district.

Embarkation 'hards' were constructed at the Stone and Stansgate, capable of berthing up to five landing craft each and were used for advanced training.

Troops armed with blank cartridges and thunder-flashes loaded heavy vehicles, guns and tanks on to landing craft and 'attacked' defenders in pill boxes on Osea Island.

Such training was taking place in other locations, including Dorset. There, on May 4, 1944, despite terrible weather, Operation Fabius took place with troops landing on Hayling Island.

In a force six gale with 8ft waves, a landing craft almost capsized, throwing men overboard and killing seven of them, including Maldon man Private (6024936) Charles Argent, of the 2nd Essex Regiment.

But with an improvement in the weather, D-Day was on.

'Darby' Stebbens, of Heybridge Basin, recalled seeing "a dozen or more Thames lighters tied up along the sea wall (at the Basin) as far as Mill Beach”.

“They must have been in one heck of hurry to get away,” he said, “because on the day they left they just threw all their mooring chains overboard and left them on the shore."

Maldon resident Ron Baker - now 99 going on 100 - was with 45 Commando Royal Marines as a landing craft coxswain.

D-Day 80 remembered (Image: Stephen Nunn)

He transported young soldiers of the Yorkshire Regiment on to Sword Beach, working from early in the morning until late into the evening, going backwards and forwards - taking wounded men back to a hospital ship, before collecting fresh troops for the beaches.

All these years on, Ron still recalls events.

“It was the noise," he said.

"We had rocket ships firing those things over our heads constantly.

"Then we had the battleships firing salvo after salvo. And then the cruisers further out with their huge shells.

"You would hear them coming like a train and feel the pressure as they went over you. You just got on with it, but it wasn’t pleasant.”

“Tremendous activity” occurred at RAF Bradwell Bay, with 488 Squadron Mosquitos, and 3 Squadron Tempests forming part of the Allied expeditionary force.

Aircrew had been moved out of their relatively comfortable quarters into a makeshift tented site behind Bradwell Lodge to “harden them up for Normandy”.

Along with Spitfires of 124 Squadron and more Mosquitos of 219 Squadron, “beach head patrols” were flown, along with support flights over the “shipping stream crossing the Channel”.

The Mosquitos “bombed and patrolled roads in the beach area” and enemy aircraft harassing our ground forces were engaged in furious combat.

This went on throughout the operation, some aircraft only just about making it back, a number of them coming to grief short of landing.

By the evening of June 6, 155,000 Allied troops were ashore and in control of 80 square miles of French coast.

D-Day was an undoubted military success, opening up Europe to the Allies and ultimately leading to a German surrender less than a year later.

But it all came at a terrible price – in excess of half a million men from both sides, killed, missing or wounded, including Maldon men.

Captain (179648) Cecil Kenneth Gordon Overend, of the Royal Engineers, son of Donald and May Overend and husband to Olive Overend of Maldon, lost his life on June 30, 1944, at the age of 26.

Private (6031501) Frederick Harry Eves, of the 4th Dorsets, son of William and Sarah Eves of Maldon, was killed on July 10, 1944, aged 21.

Trooper (6028385) Gordon Francis Basil Young, of the Royal Armoured Corps, son of Jethro and Sarah Young of Maldon, died on July 17, 1944, aged 29.

Gordon Young‘s grave in the war cemetery at Bayeux (Image: Kevin Lagan)

Along with Charles Argent, they were part of that massive effort to re-take France, destroy tyranny and end the conflict that had taken over the world.

Today, Charles lies in Maldon Cemetery and Cecil in St Manvieu War Cemetery, near Caen.

Sadly, Fred’s remains were never found and he is just one of the 1,800 names listed on the Bayeux Memorial and Gordon‘s grave is in the adjacent war cemetery at Bayeux.

The inscription on the Bayeaux Memorial reads: “We, once conquered by William, have now set free the Conqueror’s native land.”

History can be strange like that and here in Maldon, a town dominated after 1066 by Norman landowners, we remember four of our brave sons who did just that.

D-Day laid the foundations for an Allied Victory on the Western Front and 80 years on we remember that fundamental contribution.

Tonight - Thursday June 6, 2024 - a commemoration for D-Day 80 will take place in Promenade Park, from 8.45pm. Everyone is welcome to attend.