At Young Heroes Grave – Conisbrough Parents Normandy Pilgrimage

August 1950

South Yorkshire Times August 12, 1950

At Young Heroes Grave

Conisbrough Parents Normandy Pilgrimage

Mr and Mrs. William McGrath, 45, Daylands Avenue, Conisbrough, returned from France on Monday, after a four-day visit to the grave of their 17 ½ year old son Ronald, killed in the Battle of Normandy in June 1944. Ronald is the youngest soldier buried in the British cemetery at Fontenay, near Caen.

Military Stock

A visit to the grave was made alone by Mrs. McGrath three years ago, and another is planned in three years time. One of a military family, Ronald was the second of four sons.

His father, an ex. Company Sergeant-Major, served for 25 years in the K.O.Y.L.L, to which Ronald was attached for the 21 months before his death, One brother has just come out of the Forces and another is waiting to go in. The eldest, ex-Cpl. Harry, McGrath, completed seven years in the R.A.S.C. before demobilisation in 1945.

Mrs. McGrath told our reporter, that the headstones in the cemetery are now completed and the verses chosen by relatives have been engraved. A church is being built in the centre of the cemetery.

Staying at the same hotel in Caen were another couple, visiting their son’s grave at Granville cemetery.

” I think it would make people happy to know,” said Mrs McGrath, “ that work on the headstones has started there as well.”