Dear Sapper
I am writing to you to express my thanks for your postings. They hold much significance for me as my Father, George Messenger was also a Sapper in the Royal Engineers. I have never known much about my Fathers experiences, because, as I believe is quite common, he would not talk about them as they held too many painful memories.

Indeed I would probably have never even known anything at all about his war time service except when I was at High School I took part in an exchange with a French Student from the small seaside town of Luc-Sur-Mer in Normandy. When he first heard I was going there (this was in 1969) he said,”I was in the next town to that during the war”, he then told me that he had landed on the day after D-Day, but would say very little more. When I returned from Normandy and mentioned that I had been to Caen, he again said he had been involved in the battle of Caen and again would say little more.

Over subsequent years from passing comments I found he had also been to Brussels & had been involved in the crossing of the Rhine. Unfortunately my father passed away last November (he was buried on Remembrance Day) without ever feeling able to pass his experiences on to me. And so I felt I had lost my last chance of finding out any more. Therefore I am finding your postings compulsive reading, most especially since in one of your early postings you listed you route across France, Belgium and Holland which must have closely matched my Father’s. I am still only part the way through but they have already helped me feel a closer tie to my Father.

It is unlikely you ever knew him, but I am sure he would have been grateful to you for passing along these experiences that he felt unable to do.

Again MANY MANY THANKS

__________________
Brian Messenger