Dorset veterans speak out against BNP leader
Dorset war veteran William Davis-Sellick, aged 75, was among a number of Devonshire and Dorset Regiment veterans who joined the grieving families of the soldiers to fly the regimental standard at the ceremony last Tuesday in Wooton Bassett.
According to a local Dorset newspaper, Mr Davis-Sellick and his comrades were incensed to see the BNP leader with a contingent of party members at the solemn occasion at Wootton Bassett.
He said: “I understand it was the first time he has ever been to one of these ceremonies. I think for him to be there on this occasion was totally wrong and it caused a lot of disruption. You could see that some people were very upset to see him there and there were some people who wanted to duff him up.
“The police were having to protect him. As an ex-serviceman I have spoken to quite a lot of other servicemen and they were not happy to see him there at the repatriation of our lads. He was just there to have his photograph taken.”
Mr Davis-Sellick served as a cook in the Dorset Regiment in the early 1950s before its merger with the Devonshire Regiment, and was deployed to the Korean War. He is now an active member of the Gillingham branch of the Devonshire and Dorset Regimental Association, which has its main headquarters in Exeter.
He said: “We send as many men as we can muster to each repatriation service to fly our standards and they are very emotional occasions. To see the parents throwing flowers on the hearses is very hard. Although I was only a cook in the Army, I had some very good friends that I lost out there and these ceremonies bring those memories back.”
Tony Coombes, secretary of the Gillingham branch, who spent his national service in the Dorset Regiment between 1955-57, said that crowds were unhappy with Mr Griffin’s presence.
He said: “There were a lot of people in the crowd who were concerned by that gentleman’s presence and found it somewhat disturbing. However, I would suppose he would say that it is his right to be there.”
The Devon and Dorsets were amalgamated into the Rifles which was formed in 2007 and is the largest infantry regiment in the British Army. The Rifles has been hit hard by the recent upsurge in violence in Afghanistan. It has suffered 29 fatalities so far this year. The latest was killed by small arms fire on Sunday. On Monday this week, both Mr Davis-Sellick and Mr Coombes were again in Wootton Bassett with representatives of the Devonshire and Dorset Regimental Association to pay their respects as former Dorchester schoolboy Philip Allen, 20, of the 2nd Battalion the Rifles and Samuel Bassett, 20, of 4th Battalion the Rifles, who was from Plymouth.
Sikh pilot who fought Nazis condemns Griffin
One of the last surviving Indian Second World War fighter pilots has launched an attack on the BNP after it used images of a Spitfire in its campaign.
Mohinder Singh Pujji hit out at the far-Right party, and urged all British ethnic minorities not to shun the forces. The 92-year-old RAF Squadron Leader flew a Spitfire in the Battle of Britain and also met Sir Winston Churchill. He was one of only 18 Indian pilots in the RAF in the war, and the only Sikh to fly wearing his turban.
Sqn Ldr Pujji said he was outraged at the way the BNP has used imagery from the war: “The BNP are wrong to use the Spitfire as representative of their party. They forget people from different backgrounds helped in the Second World War. I am proof of this – I was flying a Spitfire. I also met Winston Churchill. Even in those days, there were ethnic minorities fighting for the British. I would recommend the armed forces for young people, regardless of race.”
Sqn Ldr Pujji was born in Shimla, India, and volunteered for the RAF in 1940 after qualifying as a pilot in 1937.He was shot down twice and flew missions in North Africa and Burma, winning the Distinguished Flying Cross. After the war he flew commercial airlines, settling in Newham before moving to Gravesend. He was made a freeman of Newham in 2005.
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