MEMORIAL TO CAPTAIN GEORGE CHARLES GREY

4th Bn GRENADIER GUARDS

Captain George Charles Grey, 4th Battalion Grenadier Guards was killed on the opening day of Operation Bluecoat, 30th July 1944. His unit, part of 6th Guards Tanks Brigade, was equipped with Churchill VII tanks and advanced on the left flank from the Caumont l'Evente - Briquessard road, with 3rd Scots Guards on their right. Grey was killed in the advance on Lutain Wood, and buried on the battlefield by his men. The Grey family made the grave permanent after the war, and while many isolated graves such as this once existed on the Normandy battlefields, most were concentrated into military cemeteries post 1945. The Greys resisted this, and the memorial remains an official war grave to this day and known as the Livry Isolated Grave. Along with the isolated grave to Lieutenant James Gerald Marshall-Cornwall, it is a rare example of such a burial to a British soldier killed in the Second World War.

George Grey was born 2nd December 1918, and became a Member of Parliament for Berwick-upon-Tweed in August 1941, aged only 22 - quite an achievement. He was one of the youngest members of the House of Commons in the twentieth century. Upon his death, his seat was taken by Lord Beveridge.

The memorial on the grave takes the form of cross, surrounded by a small stone wall with a gate. The stone with which the memorial is made was brought specially from the Houses of Parliament - a fitting tribute to this young MP.

©PAUL REED 2002-2006