ONE of Jersey’s last survivors of the Second World War Normandy Landings received a guard of honour from fellow veterans as he made his final journey yesterday.
A bugler played the Last Post and standards were lowered at the start of a service at Jersey Crematorium to celebrate the life of Richard Wraight and provide a fitting send-off for the old soldier.
Mr Wraight, who was among the Allied troops who landed on the French coast in the aftermath of D-Day in June 1944, died aged 97 on 22 April.
A dozen veterans from the Royal British Legion lined up to salute the cortège as it arrived, and were thanked by Mr Wraight’s wife of 58 years, Joanna. Mrs Wraight said her husband had claimed he wanted a plain funeral but that the family knew this was a façade. ‘He would have been delighted,’ she said.
Members of Mr Wraight’s family were joined by his friends and the group of veterans at the service, which was also attended by two of Jersey’s remaining veterans of the Normandy Landings, Billy Reynolds and Ernest Thorne.
The congregation heard about Mr Wraight’s ‘wicked sense of humour’, mixed with a tendency to be cantankerous during his later years.
There was a ripple of laughter as family friend Paul Brookes described the latter trait, saying that the more cantankerous Mr Wraight became, the more people loved him.
Reference was also made to the former postman’s love of dancing, DIY skills and fondness for a plate of moules frites and glass of Ricard on trips to France.
As the family filed out of the chapel at the Crematorium, the veterans approached and saluted Mr Wraight’s coffin, which was draped with a Union flag, on top of which were arranged his sword, beret and medals.
Paul Aubert, a member of the Royal British Legion, said veterans had been honoured to be asked by Mr Wraight’s family to take part in the service.
‘Without those who took part in the Normandy Landings, the war would have been very different. What happened in France during that time was the start of the Liberation of the Island,’ he said.
After initially being too young to sign up for the army in the early years of the Second World War, Mr Wraight joined the second battalion of the Essex Regiment as soon as he was old enough to do so.
In 2016, he was one of seven Jersey war veterans awarded the Légion d’Honneur – France’s highest order of merit – by the French ambassador for his role in the Allied landings.
In 2019 he received the Bailiff’s Bronze Medal as part of events to mark the 75th anniversary of the beach attacks.
