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Thursday 3 September 2015

MY FATHER'S BIRTHDAY

My father Captain Cecil Leonard (1913-2001) was born on 4th September 1913 in Plymouth, Devon




My father fought in the British Eighth Army in North Africa, initially as a Lance Corporal in the Duke of Cornwall's Light Infantry at the Battle of Tobruk, He was commissioned on the field by General Montgomery, and mentioned in dispatches, at the Battle of Tunis in 1942, after taking over command of his platoon and capturing a machine gun emplacement which was blocking the Allied advance. He was transferred to the Green Howards shortly afterwards,

My father subsequently fought in Sicily, at the Messina crossing and, while attached to the American Fifth Army, during the abortive British attack on the Anzio beachhead, which enabled the Americans to advance inland, He was among the first British troops to enter Rome

After several months respite in Palestine, my father fought in Holland and at the Rhine crossing, He reached the distant outskirts of Berlin before becoming an instructor at Sennelager.

After the war, my father worked as branch manager for Amalgamated Dental in Yorkshire and then in Plymouth, During his retirement, he visited me for long periods in Wisconsin.

Greumach MacFothaidh Happy memorial birthday to your father. He could well have met my uncle, Major Phil Vahey. CHESHIRE Regt & RTR, who was Monty's Tank Adviser in the 8th Army at Tobruk.





                                         My father and mother in Saltash, Cornwall in about 1970


                                                                                   


                                   
 My father,my stepmother, and myself, outside my house on Pickford St,. Madison, Wisconsin, in 1986




                                                                            


Today my friend Thomas and I will be celebrating my father's birthday retrieving our new second hand Touareg Volkswagen from the dealer on London Road in the hope that the turbo has now been properly fixed, We will then attempt to drive it to the Goblin Ha' Inn in Gifford, East Lothian.







Tom, Morag, and Thomas in Gifford




Scott, Morag, and Thomas in Gifford




Tom, Morag. and Scott in Gifford

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