Hi, I’m helping with our village heritage bank. Hoping someone tracked the movements of Canadians as they left England for Normandy on D-day… I We need clues or confirmation about which Canadians spent a short time in and around Buriton, Hampshire, as they headed south towards Portsmouth and Southampton to take part in the D Day landings. We know from accounts from locals that Canadians paused in the village in the days before 6th June. They had Bren-gun carriers and lorries full of soldiers / ‘general service lorries’. Men were sleeping under canvas and camouflage nets, and some used the village hall and barns at the local Manor House. We also hear their might have been some sort of fuel depot set up in Buriton too. We know they were quite strung out and some were parked along the 2miles between Buriton and the town of Petersfield and our surrounding areas, Weston, Nursted and Harting. Any clues or confirmation would ace. If we get to learn more we’d be over the moon as we hold an annual village heritage event and would love a breakthrough (that might lead us to photos) before June. Thank you Paul
Although the above is a lot of people, let's suppose (and it might not be correct) that it was men of 3rd Canadian Infantry Division and that it was members of one of the nine infantry regiments in the division. Thanks to "Project '44", many war diaries were digitized. I just had a look on the Library and Archives Canada website and had mixed luck, to whit: * I couldn't find a digitized war diary for the Royal Winnipeg Rifles * I did find a digitized war diary for the Royal Regina Rifles. They seem to have been in Hiltingbury until it was time to go to their embarkation port(s), so - not them. If you go through the list of regiments that made up the division, you might get lucky?
It seems the 1st Battalion, The Canadian Scottish Regiment (7th Infantry Brigade) were at Aldershot before crossing the channel. Aldershot is close and the road from there to Portsmouth run by Buriton so they deserve a bit more digging. Thanks for the steer so far chaps.
CanScots were also concentrated at Hiltingbury with the Reginas and Winnipegs. All were 7 Cdn Bde, so not surprising they were together. They moved there in early April from the Isle of Wight. You might try a search of 'Marshalling Areas' here and on wartimes.ca . They show the locations of the camps for various D-Day formations and some of the routes they used to move into the camps. I couldn't find anything that showed Buriton/Petersfield in a cursory look but might be worth a deeper dig. They are unfortunately quite scattered around on various threads and I'm not sure they are comprehensive.
