Post by ADMIN K on Nov 22, 2015 16:59:50 GMT
During World War II (1939–45) the Barry Docks were used to import war materiel. A ring of barrage balloons protected the docks. One was located on the mole and another beside the Barry Island Station. The US Army built a large camp in the spring of 1942 to house troops that serviced the docks. The 517 Port Battalion, with about 1,000 men in four companies, had moved to Hayes Lane Camp in Barry by September 1943. Three companies worked at the Barry docks, discharging cargo, while the fourth moved to Cardiff. The Americans imported vast amounts of food through the Cardiff and Barry Docks to feed their troops. The quantity and quality causing some resentment from the local people, who were making do with wartime rations.
In the first part of 1944 there was intense activity in preparation for the Normandy landings. The Barry docks were an embarkation point for troops in the second and later waves of this invasion. Porthkerry Park was used as a vehicle park and ordnance store. 15,000 long tons (15,000 t) of equipment, including 1,269 vehicles, and 4,000 troops were carried from the Docks to Normandy. After the invasion, coal was carried from Barry to liberated ports in France.[/p]
American GIs in Wales:
During World War Two nearly three million American soldiers and airmen were sent to Britain, most of them arriving in the years 1943 and 1944, prior to the D-Day landings in France.
They were the US soldiers from Pennsylvania sent back to the land of their forefathers during World War II.
LINK
The 28th Infantry Division known as the “Keystones” arrived on Welsh shores in October 1943, based along the South Wales coastline from Porthcawl to Pembroke Dock.
But after settling into their “home from home”, the bloody fighting that followed on Europe’s battlefields tragically meant many would never return to their US homes again.
Now, 70 years on, their lasting impact on Wales is being remembered.