Home front action recalled with lottery funding

The crucial role played by the port of Londonderry in the Battle of the Atlantic will be remembered thanks to a grant from the Big Lottery Fund.

The Londonderry branch of the Royal Naval Association has been awarded a grant of £18,600 to hold a three-day commemoration of the Battle of the Atlantic next May.

The Association is one of four groups in Northern Ireland awarded grants totalling £46,600 today under the Big Lottery Fund’s Home Front Recall scheme.

The Royal Naval Association will use its lottery cash to host a variety of activities including educational talks and a wartime concert. Wreaths in memory of the thousands who died in the conflict will also be cast into the River Foyle as a tribute. Church parades and a formal dinner for war veterans will bring the commemorations to a close.

Derek Stone from the Royal Naval Association said: “This is a very important period in history and it is vital that we remember the actions of those people involved. We are delighted to receive the grant from the Big Lottery Fund as it will allow us to organise a series of events that will make a fitting tribute to the bravery of those men and women.”

The Battle of the Atlantic was the longest running single sea campaign in the Second World War. During the war the port was a crucial convoy escort base with many of the allied naval fleet posted there and in 1945 it witnessed the surrender of the German fleet.

(MB/SP)