Memorial Day service marks Weymouth's D-Day past

Servicemen and members of the public gathered at the American Memorial on the Esplanade yesterday for a brief service.

A huge number of American soldiers passed through Weymouth and Portland en route to France prior to D-Day.

Hundreds of thousands of soldiers left from Portland Harbour in order to fight at Normandy in 1944.

They are commemorated by the memorial, which was erected in 1947 and is made of Portland Stone.

Cllr Richard Kosior, Mayor of Weymouth and Portland, said: "The most important thing is to remember those who have paid the ultimate sacrifice.

"If you forget what people have done to enable us to be there, then it is a poor thing.

"If you forget history, you will have no future."

Master Sergeant Lynwood Newman, a retired member of the United States Air Force, said it was a "great honour" to represent his country at the service.

He added: "It is a very sombre feeling to be here.

"My father was in World War Two and he was in Burma. I went to Vietnam.

"I feel so strongly about [Memorial Day]. It is wonderful to be a representative.

"There is a great respect here with all that went on before D-Day."

Sergeant Newman moved to Weymouth in 1990 and said that the town has "really adopted" him.

Cllr Kosior added that it was "humbling" to be able to take part in the service after taking over the role of mayor earlier this month.

He thanked residents for being supportive in the early days of his tenure.

He said: "You can see that they want you to do well and represent the borough.

"I am here to represent the borough and I am at the borough's beck and call."

Memorial Day is celebrated as a national holiday in the United States.

It is believed to have originated in 1865, when former slaves in South Carolina dug up the mass graves of soldiers who died in the American Civil War and gave them individual burials.

The Weymouth memorial records that 517,816 troops and 144,093 vehicles embarked at Weymouth between June 6, 1944 and May 7, 1945.