2013 to mark 70th anniversary of Atlantic conclusion

Speakers at the event which was held last Thursday evening at the Beech Hill Hotel, confirmed both the importance of Londonderry’s role in the battle and also that 2013 will be a major anniversary year.

The symposium was hosted by the Beech Hill US Navy and Marine Corps Association which, in November 2012, will be opening a museum room and woodland trail dedicated to telling the US Navy’s contribution to transforming Londonderry into the Allies’ most important escort base in the Battle of the Atlantic.

It was organised in support of the Londonderry Branch of the Royal Naval Association’s fund-raising efforts for an International Sailor Statue, to match a similar one erected in Halifax, Nova Scotia, overlooking their harbour where the Atlantic Convoys gathered before heading out to the North Atlantic.

Also at the symposium, the Northern Ireland War Memorial launched its booklet ‘The River Foyle and the Battle of the Atlantic’ written by local author and historian, Richard Doherty.

Mark Lusby, City Walls Heritage Officer at the Holywell Trust, who organized the symposium, explained: “2012 is important as the 70th anniversary of the US Naval Operating Base being commissioned and of arrival of the Marine Corps into Derry.

“2013 will be especially important as it was in 1943 that the eventual outcome of the Battle of the Atlantic was largely determined.

“The attendees at the symposium demonstrated the wide local interest not only from navy veterans and their descendants, but also from local people whose lives were affected in some way by Derry’s transformation during the Second World War.”

Copies of the booklet are available from www.niwarmemorial.org.