4th August 1944 – Anne Frank, whose diary came to symbolise the plight of the Jews under German occupation, and her family are arrested by the Gestapo in Amsterdam, Holland, after two years hiding with other Jews in a secret Annex. Anne died of typhus in Bergen-Belsen in March 1945. (Ted Lewis, Chotie’s brother-in-law, was among the British forces that liberated Belsen a few weeks later.)
Stalin meets a delegation of the Polish government in exile ('the London Poles') led by Stanisław Mikołajczyk but installs a 'Polish Committee of National Liberation' (the 'Lublin Poles') - a Soviet puppet government in waiting. Churchill sends weapons and supplies to the Warsaw insurgents in bomber planes from Italy with the BBC Polish service playing 'Let's dance a mazurka again' to announce the drops.
Rennes, the capital of Brittany in north-west France, is liberated by the US 3rd Army's 4th Armoured Division.
Villers-Bocage “which we last saw during the ill-fated attack in June” (Eric Postles) was finally liberated by a patrol of the 1st Battalion Dorset Regiment (Dick’s original Regiment), 50th Northumbrian Infantry Division, on 4 August 1944. The town was in ruins: Eric Brewer wrote home a few days later "if you could only have seen Villers-Bocage you would think that there had been an earth quake; why London is not touched compared to Villers-Bocage. You are lucky if you see a side of a house standing... There must be about 5,000 craters and there isn’t one more than 5 yards away from the other...think of a thickly planted orchard and a bomb crate for every apple tree. The town looks as though it's been standing for a thousand years and age has made it decay away... nothing could get anywhere in the town until they got the bulldozers busy, now only a single line of traffic can get through." Villers-Bocage has now been almost completely rebuilt.
Évrecy, east of Villers-Bocage, was liberated on the same day as well as Aunay-sur-Odon, to the south, where only the the church steeple remains standing.
On 4th August Eric Brewer was "In harbour waiting for orders" with time to write another letter home: "Well here I am in an orchard cleaning my equipment". Then his diary records: "On Recce 2 miles from V Bocage." (Extracts from Eric Brewer’s diary and letters included by kind permission of Derek Brewer and his family.)
In ‘Beaten Paths are Safest’ (Brewin Books, 2004) Roy Howard of 61st Recce's ‘A’ Squadron describes how his troop (7Able) were divided into two patrols. The other patrol, led by Sergeant Joe Dunnington investigated a building with radar masts which appears to have been wired with explosives. Sgt. Dunnington bled to death from a severed artery, dying the next day. Corporal Ronnie Washburn was severely injured losing the right side of his skull and Trooper Bill Mathews lost his right arm. Ernie Brobbin (who found the foxcub) was there to give First Aid and saved Corporal Washburn's life.
Roy Howard was subsequently promoted to Troop Sergeant following in the shoes of Bill Abbey (killed 1944 on 23rd June) and Joe Dunnington. Ronnie Washburn was left physically and mentally handicapped, ending his days in a Royal British Legion home. Only three of the original 7Able had survived in the troop by February 1945.
We will remember them
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