1922 -- 2000 *** I have been trying to think of how best to describe George Wall, a Bermudian World War II veteran. Perhaps the most appropriate way simply is to say that, as much as anyone I knew, he represented the very best in a typically British infantryman. He was a volunteer, both in Bermuda and to go overseas. He had a full share of courage. Yet, undoubtedly, like all of us, he would also experience terror. However, George was forever optimistic and possessed the sense of humour and fun so necessary to see himself and all of us through.

Comrades, for George, became his close friends for life. George and I began our war service at Dockyard on September 3, 1939 in a Bermuda Volunteer Rifle Corps B Company platoon, commanded by Lieutenant (late Major) Anthony F.

(Toby) Smith. Tragically, Toby was killed at the Battle of Overloon in Holland five years later. George survived the battle. In 1940, George's and my military career paths changed direction when I went overseas with Bermuda's first draft of volunteers. We did not meet again until more than 40 years later when he returned to Bermuda for the annual reunion of the BVRC Overseas Association. George was a prodigious correspondent, inspired by an equally prodigious photographic memory. We used to joke that, when a bullet missed him (and, thankfully, they all did), he could identify the name of its manufacturer as it sped past! Of English descent, George was born at Dockyard on February 14, 1922, the fifth of nine children of Elizabeth and Sydney Wall.

His mother's family name - Hughes - has been traced in Bermuda back to 1640.

He attended the British Army Garrison School at Prospect, where his father was a civilian employee of the Military. George joined the BVRC in 1936 at the at of 14. He left Bermuda with the 86-strong Second Contingent of BVRC volunteers on May 5, 1944 to join the Royal Lincolnshire Regiment in England. They were posted to the Regiment's 2nd Battalion of the 3rd Infantry Division in Belgium. The Division was rushed to Holland following the failure of the Allied Forces to capture the famous Bridge at Arnhem, where George Fisher and the 1st Battalion of the Border Regiment, of the 1st Airborne Division, had landed by gliders. George Fisher was wounded in both legs and became a prisoner of war. The 2nd Lincolns took part in major battles at Overloon in Holland on October 14, 1944 and at Venray two days later. The Division then pursued the retreating Germans into Germany where it won the Battle of Winnekendonk. They pushed on to liberate the City of Bremen in the closing days of the War. Many experiences remained vividly etched in George Wall's memory. He continues his story in his own words: "At the Battle of Overloon, several Bermudians were killed. Warren Harris fell during a feeler patrol.

John DeSilva, Willard Patterson, Toby Smith and Richard White were all killed when making a frontal battalion attack on a heavily defended wooded area.

Several more were wounded, Francis Cassidy severely. Stuart Moniz was to die from war wounds nearly four years later. "Jay Stephenson lost his life one month later and is buried in Mook Cemetary, which I have visited. I also visited the graves of Edward Hennessey and Francis Monkman, who fell at the Battle of Winnekendonk. "Major Peter Clarke, MC led D Company in which I was a sniper. He was a wonderfully pleasant English gentleman who used to talk to me about Bermuda whenever he got the chance. C Company was commanded by now retired Major-General Glyn Gilbert of Bermuda. "The Village of Winnekendonk was heavily defended. When we attacked on March 1, 1945 we went in at about 5:45 in the morning. The ratio of casualties was higher than at Overloon. I returned there three times after the War, but was unable to find any landmarks I could associated with the past. "Infantry attacks in the Second World War had not changed one iota since 1914. The enemy could tell you were going to attack because of the air assault and artillery bombardment which preceded it.

They would just sit in their trenches and wait for you to walk into their fire''. After the War, George returned to Bermuda for a short time, but resettled in England permanently in 1947. He joined the British Ministry of Civil Aviation, and in 1955 was promoted manager of Marshalling at Heathrow Airport. He was also appointed to the Board of Trade. Further promotion came in 1961 on moving to Oceanic Terminal No.3. It was there in 1964 he met his future wife, Greta Haywood of Bromley, Kent. They married in 1967. George retired in 1984 and soon afterwards they relocated to Hythe in Hampshire on the fringe of the New Forest. He attended his last BVRC Overseas Association reunion in 1994. He was ill at the time and for the next six years his health steadily deteriorated. He died on May 2. George is survived by his wife Greta and, by a former marriage, sons Douglas and Martin and daughter Janet (Watson). His brothers, including top Bermudian footballer Fred, all predeceased him. His remaining sister, Phyllis, lives at Feltham in Middlesex.

George was a member of the Royal Lincolnshire Regimental Association, the British Legion, the Bermuda War Veterans Associations and the BVRC Overseas Association. Of all his wartime memories, he said: "The best was receiving our mail from home -- especially for those of us spending our first Christmas overseas in 1944 facing the Germans across the River Maas''. George Wall began his year of intense European fighting where the immortal poppies grow in the Flanders Field of Belgium. We who served with George, and shared the intensity of his patriotism, remember him as a loyal and cherished comrade and friend.

In the words of the greatest of all war poems, "At the going down of the sun, and in the morning, we shall remember them''.

Contributed by Tommy Aitchison George Wall Days of youth: George Wall and his sister Phyllis during World War II.

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