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| Captain Wilfred Geoffrey Good - Royal Artillery |
LEOPOLDSBURG WAR CEMETERY
Captain Wilfred Geoffrey Good is buried in Leopoldsburg War Cemetery, run and administered by the Commonwealth War Graves Commission who perform a magnificent role in maintaining this site and the others I have visited around the globe.
As you can see we left a poppy together with some words I read out and left and have shared here.
"Dear Captain Good,
Sir we did not know you in life but have come to know you only from the accounts of my father Sergeant Herby Jones who served with you in the 55th Field Regiment, West Somerset Yeomanry, Royal Artillery, Guards Armoured Division, as part of the 21st Army of Liberation.
Sparing his family the trauma of war, my father spoke little about his war service, but the little he shared with us, his children, always made mention of you and the high regard and deep affection he had for you and the great loss he obviously felt at your passing. I know that a tank crew, through their close shared living conditions and their shared fears in the face of battle became a very close knit family unit one to another. From his accounts it was obvious that you as the leader of your men in war encouraged a leadership and initiative in them with the warmth and good humour of a father and that is how he described you, as being a father to the crew.
As a father myself I can now understand the great responsibility you carried and can only deeply respect the way you carried it out in the face of battle that I , thankfully, have never had to experience.
I know he would have wanted you to know that your death was not in vain and that because of your sacrifice and the others in the Allied forces that laid down their lives in the fight to rid the world of Nazi fascism we, the generations that have followed, owe you a deep gratitude for having enjoyed over seventy years of peace, free of other world wars, living life in liberty and freedom.
Speaking personally I would like to thank you for being the man my father so deeply respected and loved and to tell you that my family remember you also with a deep affection and have come here today to pay our respects and honour that memory.
Rest in peace sir and thank you for your service and your life
Jonathan and the Jones Family"
They shall not grow old, as we that are left grow old:
Age shall not weary them nor the years condemn.
At the going down of the sun and in the morning
We will remember them.
Note:
From September 7th to the 12th before Market Garden, Guards Armoured Division were involved in a vicious battle to liberate Hechtel in Belgium and the 55th Field Regiment were usually attached to the Welsh Guards who played a lead role in this battle.
It seems likely that Captain Good was a casualty in this battle that indirectly lead to the capture of "Joe's Bridge" by the Irish Guards, the start point for the 'Garden' part of Operation Market Garden on the 17th September 1944.
http://september1944hechtel.blogspot.nl
https://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic.php?t=115085
Excellent tribute Jonathan.
ReplyDeleteWe all need to remember, and pay tribute to, the sacrifice of the generation that fought in that terrible conflict against the evil of Nazism.
All the best
Nigel
Wonderful post JJ.
ReplyDeleteExcellent. Thanks for sharing
ReplyDeleteThanks for your comments chaps. As you can imagine this was a very moving experience for all of us and it was a very important part of our visit that I wanted to share.
ReplyDeleteCheers
JJ
Good evening, not sure you will even see this but ChatGPT directed me to your site. We have had a family meet up today and going through old family documents. Captain Wilfred Geoffrey Good was my grandfather. His son, my father, had two daughters and now has three grandchildren and two great grandchildren. The oldest grandson will be getting married in 5 weeks time and will be wearing his great grandfathers wedding ring. We have photos of my grandfather and his medals on display. He is not forgotten.Your tribute was amazing to read. My aunt said today that his best friend was in the tank with him on the day he was killed and visited my grandmother after the war to tell her of the events of the day which, while sad, at least meant she knew what happened to him. Thank you
ReplyDeleteGood morning. I’ve just picked your message up and am replying to reassure you that it has been read, and to say hello and how great to hear about you and your family. I don’t know if it was Dad who went to visit your grandmother after the war, but it is certainly something I know he would have done, and I am also pretty sure that they would both be very pleased that you got in contact.
DeleteI know Dad had a deep affection for your Grandfather from what he told me growing up, and so my posts here on the blog covering our family holiday to Holland in 2017 were my journaling of me passing on the baton of appreciation to the next generation, as both my sons, Tom and Will know about their grandparents service in WWII, as recounted here on the blog, and they both got to see the route taken to Nijmegen as Guards Armoured fought their way along ‘Hell’s Highway’.
https://jjwargames.blogspot.com/2024/09/operation-market-garden-eightieth.html
I don’t know if you have seen my account of that trip and I have linked it above, but there is a picture of the tank in Eindhoven during the liberation of the city that Dad identified in 1984 after I showed it to him, the picture taken, a week after your Grandfather had been killed, and the thing that strikes me is how serious Dad looks in the picture despite all the merriment about him from the Dutch civilians celebrating.
Since 2017, both my boys are now married, and we have a grand daughter, part of a large family of cousins, as I have two sisters and a brother, most of whom live locally in Devon, and like the modern prospering city of Eindhoven, still able to be linked to events in its past, I guess that the fact that both of our families having prospered since those dark days in 1944 serves as a fitting tribute to my Dad’s and your Grandfather’s service.
Thank you for getting in contact, and I will let my family know you did, as I know they will, like me, be touched by your message.
All the very best to you and yours.
Jonathan (JJ)