Remembering the GI’s in West Bay

We were delighted to welcome the 1st Infantry Division Living History Group and dignitaries including a representative of the US Embassy, Dorset’s High Sheriff, Lord Lieutenant and Town Mayor to the West Bay Discovery Centre on Saturday 18th May. They came to visit our exhibition “Warm Beer and Cabbages” as part of Bridport’s weekend of honouring the GIs Just as 75 years ago the arrival of men in uniform and their vehicles generated a lot of interest.

We have been so grateful to the locals who shared with us their treasured childhood memories of the GI’s who became their special friends.

Arthur Watson told us how one morning the GI’s disappeared from their lives without even a goodbye. One moment these soldiers were alive in the beauty of the Dorset countryside and then they were lying dead or injured on the French beaches. The American families did not realise the deep impact their sons and husbands had on the local community and did not inform them what had happened to them.

One of these children, Arthur Watson, told us “seventy-five years on from D-Day I still remember the wonder of the American dream in West Bay. Such a great nation that came to us in our time of need and personified by the selflessness and sacrifice of its individual soldiers.”

These anniversaries make you stop, think and remember. Without them such great and brave men could easily be forgotten.

The Exhibition “Warm Beer and Cabbages” about the GI’s In West Bay will close on Sunday 23rd June 2019, so there is still a chance to visit us and see it.