Le 18 mai 2022 un anglais et sa famille se présentèrent devant le grand portail. Je les accueillis et il m'expliqua qu'il était le petit-fils d'un soldat britannique, Leslie Dowson, qui avait débarqué à Juno Beach le 6 juin 1944 et avait installé un poste de premier secours dans un des bâtiments de la Belle Angerie qui était alors une ferme (voir Un peu d'histoire...).
Voici ce qu'il m'écrivit quelques jours après son passage ici :
"It was quite surreal for me to be in the same place my grandfather had been on D-Day in 1944. I will remember that for the rest of my life. It was extra special by the fact I was able to share it with my son."
Il m'avait aussi parlé de croquis que son grand-père avait fait et de documents sur sa participation au débarquement. Il me les a envoyés fin 2022 avec la présentation détaillée de la carrière de son grand-père.
Cette présentation et les dessins figurent ci-dessous.
Carrière de Leslie Dowson
Présentation rédigé par Simon, petit-fils de Leslie Dowson
"Born in Sheffield, England in September 1914 and died in 2003, Leslie was a British Army soldier in the Pioneer Corp, 92nd Company which was part of 24th Airfield Construction Group, Royal Engineers. Their role was to lay the emergency landing strips for the Royal Air Force (RAF) planes. He reached the army rank of Corporal, even having turned down promotion to Sergeant.
In the days building up to D Day he was waiting on board a flat bottom tank landing craft boat anchored off the port of Harwich in England. Leslie landed on the Canadian JUNO Beach in the hours after the assault troops had taken the beach. He went ashore on a Rhino, which was a big motor raft. Going up the beach and through the sand dunes that had safe routes marked out for their vehicles to follow to avoid the minefields by the Canadian engineers. When he reached the fields, this is where he saw the real signs of the fighting, with bodies in the hedge sides.
After being at Sainte-Croix-sur-Mer to build the airstrip, it looks like Leslie then went onto Arromanche beachhead to build the second landing strip there. He was also near Bayeux. Leslie later went as far as Nijmegen, Holland with the 11th Armoured Division before going back to England to train with a new infantry force being prepared for the invasion of Japan.
Dessins de Leslie Dowson
La ferme
L'aérodrome B3
