From the Axholme Herald
Friday June 21st 2002
Fighting spirit brings infantry back again
THE lads of the King’s Own Yorkshire Light Infantry (1939-45) are a lively bunch, who keep on returning to Owston Ferry year after year for their annual service of remembrance.
As time elapses, their numbers are diminishing and, of course, there are no new recruits.
As a group, they wonder if they will return the following year but for the last 12 years they have always made it.
The spirit that saw them through horrific times in Burma is very much in evidence today. This was a significant occasion, it being 60 years last month that their long and arduous withdrawal from Burma ended.
At a gathering in the Coronation Hall, one of the members of the 2nd Battalion, Capt Gerald Fitzpatrick, said he was pleased to see the day had seen such a success and he was amazed at the number of men on parade — a couple more than last year.
“Why do we do it?” he asked. He outlined the reason by mentioning former attenders. One, a man from Worthing, who had become an adopted Yorkshireman had attended 52 times up to two years ago; and Bill Slee, from Newcastle, aged 88, would have loved to have been there.
“He knows we are meeting,” said Capt Fitzgerald, “and he’s with us in spirit. There are so many who know —and you bet, they are with us,” emphasised Capt Fitzpatrick.
That was the reason why they continued. Not just because they were able to meet up, but because there were so many others who were thinking about them. The parade containing quite a number of civilians, was led by standard bearers carrying the regimental colours to the Owston Ferry war memorial.
Then after the citation and the laying of a wreath of yellow roses and carnations, with a note indicating it was from the 2nd Battalion KOYLI, they went back to the Coronation Hall.
There was much good humour between the men, but there were also some harrowing takes to tell.
Some of these were reminders from Capt Fitzpatrick’s book, ‘No Mandalay, No Maymyo - 79 Survive’, which refers to the devastating time in May, 1942, in which only nine officers and 70 other ranks survived out of a 900-strong infantry battalion, during the Japanese assault on Burma.
Of Owston Ferry, Capt Fitzpatrick said it was a place they liked and “they like us,” he said. He urged members to visit the Smithy Heritage Museum, where curators, Mr and Mrs Don Clayphan, were waiting to show the display cabinet made to contain Capt Fitzpatrick’s book and photographs of the late Jim Major, along with group pictures of KOYLI soldiers some of whom it was hoped would be there that day.
Mr Major, a well-known Owston Ferry resident, was one of the 79 men who lived to tell the tale and was the instigator of the KOYLI remembrance services being held in the village.