Film to tell regiment's 'poignant' war battles

The Suffolk Regiment met King George VI during a tour of Western Command in October 1941

A new documentary film is to tell the "poignant" story of one regiment that faced major battles during World War Two.

The Suffolk Regiment is to be featured in the new film called The Bloodiest Square Mile.

It details the regiment's battles in Normandy and is due to be released on the 80th D-Day anniversary on 6 June.

Producer and presenter Angus Robertson said the idea came about thanks to his father.

"He was a captain in the Army in charge during D-Day with the Norfolk Regiment, who were on the same beach as the Suffolks at Sword Beach," Mr Robertson explained.

"He led a landing craft of soldiers up the beach at 09:00 BST."

Mr Robertson said he was about seven or eight when he asked his father to tell him his war stories.

Decades later, in 2016, he turned his father's story into a film that "turned out quite well" and now sits as an archive piece in the Imperial War Museum.

Mr Robertson then got the idea to tell the story of the Suffolk Regiment.

The team behind the film said it was excited to see its release on D-Day

After making contacts within the Suffolk Regimental Association, Mr Robertson had the opportunity to meet Lt Col Tony Slater - a former Army officer in the regiment who had seen his first film and wanted to get involved with the next.

In 2019, Col Slater invited him to go to Normandy for the 75th anniversary of the D-Day landing so they could meet.

"That was the beginning of it," Mr Robertson continued.

"We met in a field with my creative collaborator Graeme Hodges and with others from the Suffolk Regiment."

They were joined by Major Ken Mayhew and other members of the regiment in "the middle of nowhere at a crossroad", Mr Robertson said.

"There was a big group of us standing by the roadside before a car turned up and out came this tall, distinguished man with a row of medals on his chest and a scarf around his neck and a walking stick."

Maj Mayhew then began to tell his war story, 75 years to the day he had fought a battle to dislodge the German army on this key crossroad.

Maj Mayhew died in 2021 at the age of 104

The filmmakers were able to shoot "an enormous amount" of content this day, however, after returning home, the Covid-19 pandemic hit and the project was put on hold.

Mr Robertson and Mr Hodges were able to get going again following this, with the film now due to be released in a matter of days.

"It tells the story of these two huge battles the Suffolks fought - the first at Chateau de La Londe and the second at the crossroads at Tinchebray-Bocage," Mr Robertson explained.

"It's remarkable in the sense that the regiment people all know about Chateau de La Londe but very few people know about what happened at the crossroads - a second major encounter for the Suffolks in five weeks of solid, hard fighting.

"They lost something like 300 men altogether in a period of five weeks, dead or wounded. It's quite a poignant story."

Mr Robertson said the film, that will be available to watch on The Bloodiest Square Mile website, had already had great reviews from people within the military and historical circles.

As well as this, the Suffolk Regiment Museum in Gibraltar Barracks, Bury St Edmunds that tells the regiment's history from 1685 up to 1959, has been undergoing a renovation and will reopen on 3 July to visitors.