BURMA CAMPAIGN TO BE REMEMBERED
The Dean would like to hear from the relatives and friends of anyone from the Belfast area who served in the Burma campaign during World War II.
The Dean said, “On October 3 at 3.30 pm, we will be holding a service during which the Standard of the Belfast Branch of the Burma Star Association will be laid up in the Cathedral.
“We would like as many people as possible with family links to those who served to be present in the Cathedral. Please contact us by sending an e-mail to admin@belfastcatheral.org or a SAE and we will be in touch”.
The close links between the Cathedral and the Burma Campaign are symbolised by the Association's Memorial in the North Aisle and the memorial of the 8th (Belfast) Regiment of the Royal Artillery.
The address of Belfast Cathedral, is Donegall Street, Belfast BT1 2HB.
In the Belfast Newsletter's Church comment feature on Saturday August, 7, 2010 the Dean wrote:
Full marks to BBC NI for its programme on Tuesday last telling the story of the young trainee solicitor from Robert Kelly’s law firm near St Anne’s Cathedral who was killed during the first World War. Coming as it did on the evening of the funeral of Lieutenant Neal Turkington from the 1st Battalion, The Royal Gurkha Rifles, killed by a renegade Afghan soldier, was a stark reminder - if we still need one - of the cost of war. With three of the next generation of our family circle who have been in Bosnia, Afghanistan and Iraq, the viewing of both events impacted in our home. It was silent viewing for my wife and I.
The viewing also resonated with some recreational study I have been absorbed in over the past month - and don’t ask me how it started. I don't know. Using search engines on the internet to follow references to the family name, the evidence would suggest that there has not been a war that McKelveys haven’t been involved in. Indeed, my file of information garnered is titled, “The Fighting McKelveys”.
Of the ten who served with the Australian forces in World War 1, two had mothers living in Belfast. The only naval fatality of the name in that war, was caused when a U boat torpedoed a RN minesweeper in the Aegean Sea. There were American McKelveys flying with the RAF in World War II long before the USA entered that conflict after Pearl Harbor. And from Dunkirk to Iwo Jima, “we” were there. There were at least three at the Battle of the Bulge, two Yanks and a British fatality who was serving with the Glasgow Battalion of the Highland Light Infantry. Another son of Ulster, his name is on the war memorials in Gilford and Banbridge.
One of my most important working engagements this week was to meet with Brian, and to take forward arrangements for a service in the Cathedral on October 3 at 3.30 p.m. During this service the Standard of the Belfast Branch of the Burma Star Association will be laid up and in due style as befits. Brian, one of the youngest of the branch, was only a lad of 15 years of age when he went out as a navigation cadet, serving under Lord Louis Mountbatten’s command. The lads that remain have decided, pragmatists that they are, on one last muster and a short parade. These veterans however knew they were pushing on an open door because their personal and Association links with the Cathedral go back to the very days when they returned from one of the toughest campaigns of the Second World War.
The city’s links, apart from the many men and women who served individually in various air force squadrons, ships companies and other units, is particularly upheld by the service record of the 8th (Belfast) Regiment of the Royal Artillery whose memorial and Book of Remembrance is in the Cathedral. Under the command of the late Jimmy Cunningham, this TA regiment was one of the few to fight the retreat to Dunkirk and exceptionally, to bring homes their guns intact and useable. They took part in the air defence of Southern England and then were shipped to the west coast of India. They drove their vehicles and guns up the Indus and down the Ganges valleys and into Burma. Not bad for a regiment, most of whose members hadn’t been farther than Bangor on a Sunday School excursion or parish outing. In Burma they took part in the most viscous series of battles in the Arakan peninsular where they earned the title “The Twelve Mile Snipers” as they brought their air defence artillery into a 'ground to ground' role, such was the ferocity of the battle. It is worth searching the internet for - 8th City of Belfast, or getting "The Price of Peace" booklet at the Cathedral. It will make you feel both proud and humble.
Those who came home made their contribution to civic and business life. I am very much the richer for having known men like the late Harry Porter and Sir Robin Kinahan, former Lord Mayor, Cathedral Warden, prime mover in assisting the Samaritans to be founded in Ireland, and father of Danny MLA.
I got to know them because I was chaplain for almost thirty years to the successor Ulster Gunner TA regiment. Coming to the Cathedral as Dean was not the first time I had followed in the steps of Dean Sammy Crooks! Each Sunday I think of “The Twelve Mile Snipers” and their fellow Association members as I process with the choir past the 8th's Regimental Memorial and walk over the Burma Star insignia on the floor of the north aisle.
Its message - the Kohima epitaph - “When you go home, tell them of us and say - for your to morrow, we gave our today” - seems to me to have a message to the Christian community as well. We too can look at the cross - burdened with Christ in his suffering, or bare due to the victory of his resurrection - and go out impelled and empowered to tell people that to win for us for an eternity with God, he gave his life also. Sacrifice for freedom from sin is always costly, even though salvation is free. Ends.
www.burmastar.org.uk/8belfast.htm
www.burmastar.org.uk/inniskillin.htm
www.burmastar.org.uk/irish.htm
/www.burmastar.org.uk/slim.htm
