He landed with an RN beach commando on D-Day, with responsibility for the care and evacuation of the wounded. Memorably, he transported a portable harmonium on to a French beach just after D-Day and claimed to have held the first Anglican service on French soil after the landings.
In July 1944 he joined 48 (RM) Commando, participating in the landing at Walcheren, when he swam ashore and accompanied the unit as far as the Rhine. He was awarded the DSC.
In early 1945 he went to the Far East and Hong Kong as senior chaplain of the Commando Brigade. He maintained his connection with the Royal Marines to the end of his life.
On leaving the Navy in 1947 Wood became rector of St Ebbe’s, Oxford, and exercised an influential ministry among the first generation of postwar students, most of them ex-servicemen like himself.
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Remembering Bishop Maurice Arthur Ponsonby Wood (1916-2007) [I]–His Obituary
He landed with an RN beach commando on D-Day, with responsibility for the care and evacuation of the wounded. Memorably, he transported a portable harmonium on to a French beach just after D-Day and claimed to have held the first Anglican service on French soil after the landings.
In July 1944 he joined 48 (RM) Commando, participating in the landing at Walcheren, when he swam ashore and accompanied the unit as far as the Rhine. He was awarded the DSC.
In early 1945 he went to the Far East and Hong Kong as senior chaplain of the Commando Brigade. He maintained his connection with the Royal Marines to the end of his life.
On leaving the Navy in 1947 Wood became rector of St Ebbe’s, Oxford, and exercised an influential ministry among the first generation of postwar students, most of them ex-servicemen like himself.
Read it all.