Francis Kearney
115th Infantry Regiment HQ, 29th Infantry Division
During the Second World War, Francis (Frank) Kearney was a ‘Radio Man’, serving as part of the 115th Regiment HQ, 29th Infantry Division and stationed in Bodmin from the period of 1943-1944.
For a year, these strange-sounding, youthful, restless, homesick US soldiers mixed with local people, sharing the uncertainty of life together with dances, parades, movies, talent nights, parties, blackouts and air raids, joys and dreams, fears and sorrows. It is this world that set the stage for roughly 70,000 marriages between US soldiers and British women, including the love story of Frank Kearney and Edith Doreen Govier.
On 4 September 2021, Susan Kearney, the daughter of Frank and Doreen, joined us via Zoom, live from the USA to deliver a talk about her parent’s romance. This personal story casts light on life in Bodmin during the American build-up to the D-Day Invasion, the intermingling of the lives of the American troops and local Cornish people, and the story of British war brides in general. Click the link below to watch this talk in full.
BACK to the 29th…