Messages posted by: Nicholas Rankin

Jose - Lt Noel Wilson Cooper RNVR also features in Stealthily by Night (Crecy Books, 1995) by Ian Trenowden. He was SBS first, and marked beaches for the Torch landings before he disappeared with four other COPP officers off Sicily.

Jose: - Have you noticed that CWGC spell his name LENNARD? What Bon Royle wrote in full was 'The saddest casualty was another B troop chap. He had come from the Argentine, of British parents, and could only have been 18 [actually he was 20] This was his first day in action, and he was lying in a ditch, fading away in front of us through internal bleeding while we watched helplessly; fifty years passed before I found out that his name was Bentley, inscribed on his gravestone in Bayeux military cemetery.' Attain by Surprise p.192. I hope you're going to publish your work, I'd like to read about the Anglo-Argentine contribution to WW2. Good luck! Nicholas

Jose,
Leonard Bentley was very young, maybe 18, and it was his first day in action. They were in a bocage field near Ste-Mere-Eglise when a German plane dropped a canister of anti-personnel bombs. More experienced men had dug in but many of those who hadn't were wounded. Bentley and Wright were two Marines killed and also Lt Alexander Ionides RNVR. This information comes from Bon Royle's testimony in Attain by Surprise, ed Nutting, which is an oral history of 30AU, about whom I am also writing.
Suerte con su trabajo, amigo!
Nicolas Rankin