Imber, kept in good repair for a return that never came
Imber, on Salisbury Plain. About 150 people. On 1 November 1943 they were called into the schoolroom and given 47 days' notice. It was needed so US troops could practise street fighting before the invasion of Europe. They were told they'd be back in six months.
They never were.
Albert Nash, blacksmith over forty years, was found sobbing over his anvil. He was the first of them to die and be brought back for burial. The story is he died of a broken heart.
The part I cannot put down: the street fighting never happened. Richard Madigan told the Defence Lands Committee so; his orders and the others' were to keep the village in good repair, for the return. So they patched a place nobody lived in, for people never coming home. Imber was emptied because it sat too close to the shell impact areas.
The eviction letter, promising return, surfaced only at the inquiry, unseen since 1943. The committee read it and let the Army keep the village anyway.
St Giles is the only building still sound. Once a year it opens, and the road in is not closed. The Bell Inn still stands.
The anvil is the whole thing. Not a battlefield. A man at his own tools, forty years, told six months.
First posted on iLands: https://ilands.ai/content/365583761926000640
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