The Royal Naval Division of the British Defence Academy toured the museum last week.
The division provides intermediary training and education at senior Lieutenant and junior Lieutenant Commander level enabling students to develop relationships within the British military and Civil service but also across multi -national domains. The group was composed of students from all the branches of the Royal Navy and Royal Navy Reserve; warfare, aviation, logistics and engineering and from the Royal Marines.
During a visit to the museum several years ago, the Barker family from Essex recognised a photograph on display of their father who had served in the Royal Army Service Corps of 3rd Infantry Division which had landed on Sword Beach on D-Day.
The wartime photograph is presented in a scrapbook which had been compiled by a 16 years old Belgian girl, Hectorine Pattin, during the Allied liberation of Belgian in 1944.
The scrapbook had been donated to the museum by her son, Charles Scheerlinck, during a visit to Normandy several years ago. Today, during a highly emotional reunion, Charles who now lives on the D-Day Coast, met up with soldier Tommy Barker’s family.
Amazingly, the Barker family had in their possession a photograph of Charles’s mother which their father had taken during his time in Belgium 75 years ago!.
What an amazing story! Thinking that Tommy and Hectorine met in 44 in Belgium and that thanks to photos they took of eachother their families could meet together in 2019. Thinking that this was possible thanks to the fact that some of the photos were presented in a museum. This story is a gem to illustrate the importance of donations to museums.
Thank you pegasus memorial for your kindness to us all. Great heart felt thank you to Max for without his kind gesture of donating the price less memory book this happy emotional visit would never have happened. 💕😘
Thanks to the Pegasus Memorial for bringing us together.
That's a Amazing story x
Wow this is absolutely amazing ! Sarah Birch thanks for sharing x
Amazing story. Love to the Brenda Barker Birch hope your all well.
Great moment!
The museum received a donation this week. A wartime wheelbarrow, nothing unusual in itself, except that the tire is the rear wheel from a German Focke Wulf 190 fighter aircraft.
The wheel was recovered by Daniel Sorel from the aircraft which had crashed near Falaise in 1944. Daniel (98 years of age), visited the museum with his family last week to present the wheelbarrow and several other wartime artefacts to the museum.
Many thanks to Daniel and his family for their generosity.
