Tag: Glider Troops

Alfred Wyles Medals WWII

UK: D-Day 81st Anniversary {6.6.1944-6.6.2025] – Remembering Private Alfred Wyles! (5.6.2025)

The infantry would assault the area from the periphery – and the Glider Troops would protect the centre (as if they had just dropped from the sky). As combat can be fluid and all kinds of emergencies can occur – Glider Troops would also train to assault the area from the periphery – and Infantry would defend the area from the centre. The reality on the ground might involve any contingency being used with flexibility being the key. I am told that this might explain how my grandfather came to possess an Airborne badge. When we were first researching this subject, die to the presence of this badge, we first thought Alfred Wyles had landed at Caen in a wooden Glider (this was in fact “D Company” of the 2nd Battalion [Professional] Ox & Bucks – but were later informed that in all likelihood (there is till a niggling doubt) my grandfather landed on Sword Beach as part of the supporting-infantry. Whatever the case, his official War Record is vague on this point.

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Winged Pegasus - 1944

80th D-Day Commemoration – Remembering the British & Soviet Sacrifice! (6.6.2024)

Specifically, the troops of the 1st Buckinghamshire (Light Bobs) Battalion of the Ox & Bucks Light Infantry (Territorials) – my grandfather’s Unit (he was part of an Anti-Tank Platoon) – intended to relieve D Company (Glider Troops) of the 2nd Battalion of the Ox & Bucks Light Infantry (Professional). My grandfather at one-point was barracked in Bovey Tracy in Devon – whilst his Unit trained around the Exeter Canal System – due to this place possessing a similar structure to that of the Canal System of Caen. This could have been to familiarise the “Light Bobs” with the Caen area they were supposed to advance toward from Sword Beach. This could have been my grandfather’s route into France – but I possess his shoulder badge – which is a Winged Pegasus (worn by Glider Troops). Whatever the case, his Unit was wiped-out and he fought on in the hedge-rows of France – fighting Vichy French and Nazi Germans.

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Veteran Star Medal: Alfred Gregory Wyles – WWII British Army Service [1940-1946]! (4.11.2023)

Although he joined the Royal Warwickshire Regiment – famous for its ‘Last Stand’ at Dunkirk – due to his ‘sharp-shooting’ ability he was soon transferred to the 1st Buckinghamshire Battalion (the ‘Light Bobs’) of the Oxford and Buckinghamshire Light Infantry (Territorial Army) where he was placed in an Anti-Tank Platoon. During D-Day, the ‘Light Bobs’ landed in the first-waves of Allied troops that hit ‘Sword Beach’. His Unit was tasked with fighting their way in-land ten-miles to Caen – where it was to relieve D Company of the Ox & Bucks Ligyt Infantry (Professional) – which had landed as ‘Glider Troops’ around midnight of June 6th, 1944. Due to these required military objectives – my grandfather trained with the Glider Troops around the Exeter Canal System – which resembled the canal system around Caen. Indeed, this association has sometimes ‘confused’ exactly what function my grandfather fulfilled due to him possessing a ‘Winged Pegasus’ badge!

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Normandy: Remembering the Allied Sacrifices of D-Day (6.6.1944) – 79th Anniversary! (6.6.2023)

The British Glider Troops were tasked with seizing local landmarks (such as ‘Pegasus Bridge’) of tactical and strategic importance from the local Nazi German defenders – and hold these assets in the face of the expected Nazi German counter-attack. Meanwhile, Arthur Gibson (as a member of the Royal Navy) was busy protecting Northern Britain by preventing a Nazi German invasion – whilst keeping the sea lanes free of Nazi German ‘mines’ so that Allied Shipping could move (free of this risk) throughout the North Atlantic. This included the assisting of the Russian (Soviet) Arctic Convoys – although the presence of Nazi German U-Boats was an ever-present threat!

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