19-Jul-2019

TRIBUTES TO VETERAN & TRUST SUPPORTER PAT MOORE

The Normandy Memorial Trust was saddened to hear the news of the passing of D-Day Veteran Patrick (Pat) Moore on Sunday night.

Pat was one of the ‘magnificent seven’ – the group of D-Day and Normandy Veterans who took part in the official inauguration ceremony of the site of the British Normandy Memorial on the 6^thJune 2019. Pat was a keen and active advocate for the creation of the Memorial to remember and honour his friends who never made it home from Normandy in 1944.

Pat served in the 85th Royal Engineers landing on Juno Beach on D-Day; tasked with clearing the beach of mines and obstacles and providing safe access routes off the beach for the Canadian Infantry and Armoured units.

Pat went further in treating injured soldiers using his first aid training and saved many more lives as a result. The 23 -year old sapper was involved in liberating the village of Graye-sur -Mer – and was recently honoured with the renaming of a school after him in the village: ‘Ecole Patrick Moore’.

After the war Pat enjoyed a successful career as a distinguished sculptor with a studio in Soho’s Carnaby Street and works exhibited at the Royal Academy of Arts in Piccadilly. Pat was delighted to meet David Williams-Ellis; the Trust’s sculptor who was commissioned to create the D-Day sculpture that was unveiled at the inauguration ceremony – and we were delighted that he gave it his full seal of approval.

The Trust’s founding trustee Nicholas Witchell paid tribute to Pat: “It has been a privilege to meet all the Normandy Veterans”, he said, “Pat Moore exemplified the very best of the qualities of that remarkable generation: selfless and dedicated. We owe them so much.”