The South Shore Tide Watch: Another piece from the past comes home …

From a number of my previous blogs, it will have been noted that I have a passion for WWI and WWII research, with a particular focus on the casualties of those conflicts. In many of the related projects that find their way to me from families or organizations, I have had good success at bridging the decades, and importantly giving a Lost Voice back to a name inscribed upon a CWGC gravestone, or engraved on the wall of a memorial.

My motivation for this “hobby” comes from having done research into five of my own family who were killed in war, four from WWI and one WWII. Many of the research tasks are helped along by a global network of similarly minded folk, who when nudged, roll up their sleeves, then enthusiastically do what they can.

Last month, while doing some work for an upcoming trip to Normandy in France, I googled my relative Hugh Wright, a Royal Engineer attached to the British 49th Infantry Division. He took part in Operation Overlord, the invasion of Normandy in June 1944, landing on Gold Beach. Hugh was later killed in Wuustwezel, Belgium, near the Dutch border on 21 October 1944. To my enormous surprise, my google search turned up an Instagram post, from the account of “ist printing services”, the post included a photo of the front and back of a “Field Service Post Card” sent by Hugh on the 12 September 1944, to his mother at the family home at Duke Street in Glasgow. The comment on the posting said ~

“Amazing what you find in an old Deed box! Six weeks after this was sent in Sept 1944 Hugh Wright was killed in action, he also served in the 49th Division known as the 'Polar Bears' check it all out at ... https://www.bbc.co.uk/history/ww2peopleswar/stories/89/a1082189.shtml " ~ Which is a link to an article I wrote back in June 2003 for the BBC.

From the web-site of “ist printing services”, I found it to be a company in Glasgow, Scotland. Using their contact email, I wrote off explaining who I was, together with some details about Hugh and curiously to find out where the Post Card was found.

Just over an hour later, I received a reply from Ian. He told that he found the card under the lining of a Deed Box, that he purchased in Clydebank (near Glasgow) ~ and with that he kindly offered to send it over to me in Nova Scotia.

The Deed Box ~ I strongly suspect it came from Hugh’s family home at 599 Duke Street, Dennistoun, Glasgow, where he was born on 30 October 1917. His sister Jean, who was also born there on 8 March 1920, lived in the same tenement home until a few months before her death in June 2022, at the age of 102. An incredible fact is, going back to the 1890’s, five generations of my family have crossed the threshold at this address.

After Jean died all the original contents and furnishings that had been in the home for well over a century where removed, with many probably finding their way to auctions in the Glasgow area.

The Post Card ~ it arrived today from Glasgow and will now be added to other items belonging to Hugh. One of which is his Military Housewife, which was retrieved after he was killed in Belgium, and then over 60 years later found its way to me ~ the incredible story about this, can be read at the following link (click on the image or the link below) ..

https://southshoretidewatch.blogspot.com/2017/10/hugh-wright.html

For operational reasons the Post Card has no indication of where it was sent from. The date that Hugh signed it, 12 September 1944, the 49th Infantry Division were involved in “Operation Astonia” (10 ~ 12 September 1944), the code name for an Allied attack on the German-held Channel port of Le Havre in France. It was a combined British and Canadian operation which resulted in 500 Allied casualties.

Below are three other related links, click on the images or links …

My visit in June 2024 to the exact location where Hugh was killed in October 1944 ~