A cache of wartime love letters has revealed the final days of a young US soldier who spent his last weeks in Cornwall before being killed in the aftermath of D-Day.
Trebah Garden, near Falmouth, is marking the 82nd anniversary of the Normandy landings by sharing the story of Daniel Bowen Craigue Jr, a 20-year-old G.I. from Wolfeboro, New Hampshire, who was stationed there in the build-up to the invasion.
Craigue served with the United States Army’s 175th Infantry Regiment, part of the 29th Infantry Division, and was among the thousands of American troops who embarked for France from Polgwidden Cove at the foot of Trebah’s valley in June 1944.
Weeks before he arrived at Trebah, Craigue had met and married Megan Rogers, from Penzance, while stationed elsewhere in Cornwall. She was four months pregnant when he was posted to the garden and, with troop movements shrouded in secrecy, the couple never had the chance to say goodbye.
Unable to give away military details because of wartime censorship, Craigue wrote to his wife almost every day from Trebah in the days leading up to D-Day. The letters, later carefully preserved by Megan, show an ordinary young man trying to cling to normal life: he writes of repairing watches, asks for photographs from home, makes gentle jokes and repeatedly checks on his wife’s health.
In one of his last letters, dated June 1, 1944, he ends simply: “Well dear, I can’t think of anything more to say only that I love you very much and miss you very much and hope to see you soon.”
Days later Craigue crossed the Channel with the 29th Infantry Division as reinforcements for the Normandy campaign. On June 21, 1944, he was killed near Saint-Lô while trying to rescue his wounded friend Robert, who was just 17.
He was posthumously awarded both the Purple Heart and the Silver Star for bravery.
Back in Cornwall, Megan did not receive official confirmation of her husband’s death until September 1944. The following month she gave birth to their son, whom she named after his father.
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After Megan’s death in 2017, the bundle of letters was rediscovered by her family and has since been shared with Trebah, along with photographs and family history, by her granddaughter through a subsequent marriage, Marie Tonkin, a poet now living in Sweden.
The correspondence now forms part of The Story Of Trebah, the garden’s permanent exhibition tracing its history from the Middle Ages to the present day.
Marketing manager James Lewis said: “Daniel’s story is one of the most moving personal accounts connected to Trebah’s wartime history. We’re honoured to be able to share his story, and include it in our current exhibition The Story Of Trebah, where it has now been added to the wartime section to help visitors better understand the human stories behind the preparations for Normandy and the sacrifices made by those who departed from Trebah’s shores.”
Thousands of American soldiers embarked from Trebah’s secluded beach during the Second World War, and staff hope Craigue’s letters will help visitors connect those wartime movements with the individual lives changed, and lost, soon after leaving Cornwall.
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