Budleigh Past and Present

Continued from  26 August 1941 – Buried in Winchester:  Aircraftman 1 st Class Horace Bucknell (1905-41) Royal Air Force  https://budleighpastandpresent.blogspot.com/2020/12/ww2-75-26-august-1941-buried-in.html   Ship's badge of HMS Repulse, the Royal Navy battlecruiser on which Boy 1st Class Peter Anstey served in World War II No words can describe the ugliness and chaos of war. For the families who’ve lost loved ones there’s some small compensation in the neat orderliness of war cemeteries. On land, all over the world, 23,000 of them are beautifully maintained by the Commonwealth War Graves Commission. And for shipwrecks at sea, most governments with any humanitarian awareness have a policy of treating war graves as protected places. So the recent news that there are parts of the world where scavengers have been stripping WW2 ships for metals such as aluminium, brass and steel is a cause for distress and anger.   Map of the 1941-42 Malaya...

Continued from 10 December 1941 A Boy aged 17: Boy 1st Class Peter Anstey (1924-41) Royal Navy https://budleighpastandpresent.blogspot.com/2020/09/ww2-75-boy-aged-17-peter-robert-anstey.html     Photo of Henry Harold Gray, listed on Budleigh Salterton's War Memorial  Image credit Jane Gray No words can describe the ugliness and chaos of war. For the families who’ve lost loved ones there’s some small compensation in the neat orderliness of war cemeteries. On land, all over the world, 23,000 of them are beautifully maintained by the Commonwealth War Graves Commission. And for shipwrecks at sea, most governments with any humanitarian awareness have a policy of treating war graves as protected places. So the recent news that there are parts of the world where scavengers have been stripping WW2 ships for metals such as aluminium, brass and steel is a cause for distress and anger.   Map of the 1941-42 Malaya Campaign. The red arrow indicates the approximate wreck...