Wartime Sweetheart Remembered

Wartime Sweetheart Remembered

Former Fiancée Remembered at Trebah Garden

After some local research regarding SSgt Tom Cassidy, a 29th Infantry Veteran who served and sadly lost his life in Normandy 1944; Steve Lane approached Trebah Garden hoping to organise a visit to their Memorial.

Tom was billeted in Porthleven, where Steve lives, and had also got engaged to a local lady who still resides there today. Steve, a member of World War Two Re-enactment South West, discovered that Tom had departed from Trebah aboard LST 28, was wounded on Omaha beach, and was then killed in the severe fighting on the outskirts of St Lo, Normandy on Jul 30th 1944. His photo had been missing from the 29th Infantry's Memorial page until recently when one was obtained from Tom's former fiancée Peternal Head, nee Ziemann.

Members of the re-enactment group and SSgt Cassidy's former fiancée attended Trebah this week, where she laid a bouquet of flowers for him and his comrades, who Peternal had got to know as close friends prior to the embarkation for the D-Day invasion. It was a short but moving ceremony featuring two honour guards with replica WW2 US Army M1 Garand Riffles.

Poignantly the visit represented only 12 days from the 70th Anniversary of Tom's death in combat.

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