The First World War
Our project to find out more about the impacts of the four-year conflict on life at home in Buriton – and to find out what happened to each of the men who left the parish to take part in the war – has now culminated in the publication of our latest book: “Buriton and the First World War: Through Local Eyes”.
Our research has tried to look at as many sources as possible and we summarised our findings, season by season, covering the activities and events of 100 years ago. Copies of these original summaries are available below.
If you have any comments on any of these summaries, if you know anything extra or are able to help in any other way, please let us know via heritage@buriton.org.uk
Perhaps you have some family stories of wartime – or letters or diaries which suggest what life was like in this area in those troubled times? If so, please get in touch.
D-Day
Like many parts of the country, the parish of Buriton bore witness to a number of aspects of Operation Overlord, the top secret build up to D-Day, without ever knowing what was going on.
To mark the 70th anniversary of D-Day, and thanks to generous assistance from the Heritage Lottery Fund and Portsmouth City Council’s D-Day Museum, we were able to conduct research into local connections and publish our findings.
Our publication ‘Buriton & D-Day: the 1944 invasion through local eyes’ contains information about: the build-up of troops in and around the parish; parachuting into Normandy soon after midnight; landing on the beaches later on D-Day; and the follow-up operation (including the Mulbery Harbours).
Our search to identify the Regiments of Canadians who camped around the village in the spring / early summer of 1944 still continues. If you have any knowledge about these troops or their movements in the weeks before D-Day, please let us know: heritage@buriton.org.uk
First World War Articles
Our project to find out as much as we could about the impacts of the four-year conflict on life at home in Buriton – and to find out what happened to each of the men from the parish who took part in the war – has culminated in the publication of a new book in our Heritage Bank series: “Buriton and the First World War: Through Local Eyes”. Our research has looked at as many sources as possible and we summarised our findings, season by season, covering the activities and events of 100 years ago.
Here (below) are those initial findings – and we are grateful for all the comments and additional information subsequently received. Almost inevitably, we cannot be absolutely certain about the exact location of any of the men from the parish on the battlefields at any specific time, but our research is based on as many sources of data as possible. If we have made any errors we apologise and we are always grateful to receive amendments.
