TWENTY-TWO AMERICAN HEROES

Back in 1999 i inherited a task from TTL; to finish the investigation into who the American volunteers were who joined the Royal Navy, and were anonymously commemorated by a plaque in the floor of the Painted Hall at Greenwich. All records of their names had been lost in the bombing and fire s of the blitz. My partners in this were Chalky White a retired sailor and police officer, Eric Berryman, a retired USN officer and historian, Charlotte Hammond, a young solicitor and Winston Churchill, grandson of the wartime leader, sadly all now gone. The original plaque was ordered by Winston Churchill in 1940 or 41, it bore no names as these men were fighting for a foreign power, us; a serious crime in the USA. At first we thought there were 21 of them, it took longer to find the 22nd, Surgeon Lt. Francis Mason Hayes RNVR sadly KIA in a secret operation, but more on the personalities later. With this post i want to roll back the time to when we finally succeed, or rather Eric succeeded, in identifying these lost heroes. Parker and Hayes were killed in the line of duty, at sea. Kauffman went back after Pearl Harbour to the USN, created the Navy Seals and ultimately had a destroyer named for him. Cherry wrote up his experiences in "Yankee RN", Russell married a Duchess, WSC's cousin. Each one of them came here when we needed all the help we could get, in future posts i will tell who they were and what they did. Eventually after all the research, fund-raising, and persuasion of the curators of the Old Royal Naval College we held a great event to dedicate the memorial that returned to these anonymous heroes their names, and their non-forgotten lives. That event, as fate would dictate, long-planned, took place just days following the tragedy of 9-11, the families of each of the volunteers all came, even Ed Russell joined in person from the USA, Beth Bush, sister in law of the President came as his representative. The solidarity of the Special Relationship was impregnable. Here is the film made of that ceremony;

https://vimeo.com/154581956

more to follow