- By Greg
- In Construction, Rail
AW GROUP – D-DAY 80
AW Group – D-Day 80
The 80th Anniversary of the Normandy Landings
On 5th and 6th June this year, a series of major commemorations in the UK and France will honour the brave personnel who risked their lives for freedom and peace, so from us all here at AW Group thank you to everyone who served and sacrificed during World War II.
The D-Day landings of 6 June 1944 was the largest seaborne invasion in history. Along with the associated airborne operations, it marked the beginning of the liberation of France and Western Europe.
The railway played a crucial role during the conflict, including transporting evacuees to safety, moving essential goods around Britain and sending trains to pick up the more than 338,000 troops rescued from Dunkirk.
As a company that works both in the rail and construction sectors it seems fitting to say thank you to all those that served, those at home that kept the railways running played a crucial part in the transportation of troops, civilians and goods around the UK. There are some staggering statistics on the activity just within the rail sector, all done without the complex technology we have today, in one year alone, during the conflict, 254 million tonnes of goods and more than 90 million parcels were moved by rail across the UK.
When war was declared, and the mass evacuation occurred in 1939 over 1.3 million children were evacuated in just four days to safer parts of the UK all by rail, using some 3000 special trains.
In the run up to D-day on June 6th more than 50,000 combined British and American troops were carried across the channel to repair and fix the hundreds of miles of rail track and buildings destroyed to enable Operation Overlord to take place and bring back over 300,000 troops rescued from Dunkirk and finnaly end the Second World War in Europe.
After the war the great rebuilding and construction that took part across the UK began, employing thousands of people to help rebuild the most damaged parts of London and other towns and cities that had suffered severe bombing during the years of World War II.
With today marking D-day 80 it’s hard to imagine the effect that this would have on us today in 2024, but it still does. How many of the projects that we work on within the rail and construction industry require UXO surveys? How many of us within the industry have worked on projects that have discovered ordnance whilst at work or on site? Certainly we have at AW Rail, despite all the planning that goes into working on these sites that were heavily flown over during the conflict.
Almost all of us in modern Britain have a connection to those who served during the Second World War, through either family or community heritage, and especially here on the East Kent coast where our HQ is based.
So please remember the fallen and all those who lost family, friends and colleagues, today 80 years on… D-day 80!
AW Group is a multi-disciplined construction company providing a broad range of support and manpower across building and rail projects.
Our Fields are:
AW Construction – We offer an outstanding UK-wide fit out service, taking care of everything from scheduling rollouts & ordering materials to assistance with design and onsite delivery
AW Rail – We use the very best labour force and a proactive approach to deliver first-class construction and maintenance projects across the rail industry
AW Labour – We provide a high-calibre blue collar and white-collar workforce with a diverse range of skills, to support the construction and rail industries
