Oct 12, 2009
Operation EuroGo: D+9
October 12, 2009 // Ramsbury, England
This morning Dave and I caught the Underground from Kensington High Street Olympia station to Waterloo where we boarded a train to Farnbourough. Ian Gardner, author of the internationally acclaimed book Tonight We Die as Men, picked us up and wisked us off down the M4 to Ramsbury where the men from third battalion lived and trained during the time prior to Operation Overlord (D-Day) and prior to Operation Market Garden.
Our first stop was in Parliament Peace, a manor house in the center of town that was for reserved for officers. The house is privately owned by the Lady Rosemary Pinches. She isn’t officially a lady in the sense of some sort of royalty but visiting her did feel rather stately. She is a very intelligent bookseller specializing in books on heraldry and on geneology. She had us in for a “spot of tea”. I had some very delicious water. Then we had the honor of visiting her book shop located in old coach house.
Ian then drove us around Ramsbury, and we visited the field behind Parliament Peace were most of third batallions enlisted and noncoms had Nisseen huts. We also saw Adelborne where the Band of Brothers aka Easy Co. and Second Battalion was stationed.
Off to Hungerford for a pasty and a coke. (kinda like a veggie pot pie you can hold in your hand.) We ate it by the side of the river that runs through Hungerford. We sat on a bench that had a stone next to it. On the stone there was an inscription. It said the bench was in honor of James Talmage, Apostle of the Lord Jesus Christ who was born in Hungerford. I find it interesting because while at BYU I was in the library looking for old chemistry books for visual research. One of the old books I got used to belong to Elder Talmage. He signed the inside front cover and dated it. Now here I am doing research again and I am in his old town.
With fully bellies we headed out to Littlecote House. I had no idea what was in store for us but this house was no house it was an estate house. The kind that was built on old roman ruins and then expanded over the years. It was Jane Austin land for sure.
One of Ian’s mates, Bruce Steggles who works at Littlecote was so nice and showed us around. In the main hall the great table was over 400 years old. Solid oak that takes 20 plus men to move it. Henry the VIII courted Jane Seymore in this house and was used as a main Cromwellian stronghold during the English civil war. The reason we went to see the house was its role as 506th Headquarters durning WWII. They even have a small WWII museum in the basement area of the house. After a few hours and the grand tour of Littlecote House Ian drove us back to Farnbourogh where we dined at a great little pub restaurant.
Ian was very generous and took us to the train station where we caught a train back to London and then we took the Tube to High Kensington St. As it turns out the High Kensington St. station is about a half mile from our hotel so we hiked it home. Another amazing day on this trip and a nice end to Operation EuroGo.
