Former Winchelsea Mayor Lt. Col. Henry Dormer Royal Artillery (RA) (Retired) has recently been appointed with other Second World War (WW2) veterans to the rank of “Chevalier in the Ordre national de la Legion d’honneur” for his involvement in the Liberation of France in WW2.
He was commissioned in 1943 into the RA and stayed before D-Day (the invasion of France on June 6, 1944) in a field just north of Northiam. He landed on Gold Beach in Normandy shortly after D-Day. His unit was initially engaged in operations east of Caen, and subsequently with the 15th Scottish infantry division in the breakout of the Normandy bridgehead at Caumont.
Thereafter the division fought through Northern France including at the Falaise Gap and the assault crossing of the Seine. By VE Day the division had reached a point east of Hamburg having been through the Low Countries and northern Germany. After the war Henry saw operational service in Kenya, Northern Ireland and Aden.
For many years in retirement he lived in Winchelsea. Despite a lot of searching, he has never been able to identify the field in Northiam that he was camped in prior to D-Day!
Henry is still synonymous with the annual Winchelsea Singers’ “Fun Evening”, acting in many different sketches and successfully writing the script which so many of us enjoyed.
He became a highly respected member of the Corporation and then Mayor of Winchelsea from 1995 to 1997, and all of us who know him are delighted that he with many other WW2 Veterans have been honoured in this way.
Photos courtesy Col. Dormer