THE stories of two Largs men who lost their lives as a result of the D-Day landings and the preparations for them in 1944 have been shared as the country prepares to mark the 80th anniversary of the operation that changed the course of the Second World War.
One Largs man who died in active service is buried in a war cemetery in the Calvados region of France, while another lost his life in a training accident on British soil which resulted in the deaths of 21 other people.
Eric Spiers, who died on June 11, 1944, is now buried in the Ranville war cemetery, north-east of the city of Caen.
The son of John and Daisy Spiers and the husband of Mary Stewart Spiers, of Largs, he was a sergeant with 3 Commando.
He was a volunteer who had signed up near the beginning of the war, and had served in the British raid on the Norwegian island of Vågsøy in December 1941.
He was aged 25 when he died during operations in the days following D-Day.
The Ranville cemetery is the last resting place of 2,235 Commonwealth military personnel who were killed during the Second World War, 97 of them unidentified.
On June 5, 1944, just six days before Sergeant Spiers was killed and the day before D-Day, an intimation had been published in the Glasgow Herald announcing the death of another local man who had lost his life while preparing for his role in the Allied invasion of Normandy, known as Operation Overlord.
Lieutenant Guy Bracey Stephen Wilson is one of the men named on the Largs war memorial.
He was the son of Charles Bracey George and Eglartina Maria Wilson of Payta, Peru, and the husband of Edna Maud Wilson, of 7 Hutchinson Drive, Largs.
He was born in Callao, Peru, where his father was the British Vice Consul. He became a naturalised British citizen on July 7, 1933.
Prior to the war he worked in an insurance office, and was living at 17 Acacia Grove in Dulwich, South London.
He enlisted in the Honourable Artillery Company, a London-based Territorial Army unit, on September 2, 1939, the day before Britain declared war on Germany.
After training at 162nd Officer Cadet Training Unit, Bulford, Wiltshire, he was commissioned on December 15 that year as a second lieutenant in the 11th Battalion, Somerset Light Infantry (known as 'Prince Albert’s').
He married Edna Maud Cunningham in Glasgow on December 10, 1940.
Edna was the daughter of George and Alice Cunningham, who had moved from the Southgate area of North London to Largs to escape the London Blitz.
He was transferred to the 4th Battalion, Somerset Light Infantry and was promoted to Lieutenant on the 15th June 1941.
He was killed while leading a demonstration of anti-tank grenades at Dymchurch on the Kent coast in May 1944; a number of grenades exploded, killing Lieutenant Wilson and 21 other men.
Lieutenant Wilson, who was aged 28, was buried with full military honours on June 3, in the Shorncliffe military cemetery in Folkestone, along with seven other victims of the accident.
The remaining members of the battalion, bolstered by the addition of 24 men from the Regimental Holding Unit, landed at Arromanches, Normandy, on June 15.
Thanks to Ian McIntosh and Alexander Marchi for research, and Lucie Bain for photographs.
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