Uncovered archive reveals an account of D-Day written by a Guernsey man

• ITV Central's Mark Gough has been learning about the remarkable Guernsey man who hid his role in D-Day from his family by locking his medals and letters in a secret drawer

More than 20 years after a Guernsey man died, his family have discovered the significant role he played in D-Day.

In the vaults of a regimental museum, curators have uncovered an archive from the Normandy Landings which contained the stories from D-Day written by those there.

One of those was Major Terry Brock from La Corbiere in the Forest, a young officer with the Warwickshire regiment.

Major Brock was educated at Rugby school and attached to the Warwickshires.

He had always told his family he landed on the Normandy beaches three days after D-Day, but the newly discovered archives reveal he was at the heart of the action.

His grandson, Oliver Brock says his grandfather lied for years, he says: "What my father tells me is that his father [Major Terry Brock] told him, and his siblings that he arrived on the D-Day beaches three days after D-Day occurred, he kind of just rolled in."

Since discovering the archive, Oliver has been reading his grandfather account of the day, he reads: "Swarms of gliders of the sixth airborne division were seen to be approaching and we were amazed to see them landing all around us, sometimes too close for comfort.

"The gliders were followed by mass of transports dropping containers containing arms and supplies. And the air was soon thick with coloured parachutes."

The family themselves discovered more about his role in D-Day when they found an old leather briefcase locked away in a secret drawer, In it were more of Major Brock's documents from the war, including medals and letters which commended his courageous devotion to duty.

He had also hidden an award of a Bronze Lion from Queen Wilhelmina of the Netherlands for distinguishing himself during the operations for the liberation of the Netherlands.

Oliver says his family only found these after Major Brock had died, he says: "It was 20-something years after Grandpa died, we were clearing the house and we found a secret drawer underneath a clock that contained a tin of tobacco, two pipes and a lot of documents relating to D-Day and the activities after."

Major Brock's children discovered the pipe had a significant meaning, Oliver explains: "I remember being on a family holiday in Caen and he was looking at a pigsty and he said 'this was where I found a couple of Germans and I kind of waved my pipe at them, they thought it was a pistol so they surrendered'."

But Oliver says if he had discovered that his Grandpa was involved in D-Day when he was alive, he would not have spoken about it.

He says: "That was the generation that closed down these memories because the things that I've now come to learn that he saw and witnessed are horrific.

"They learned just to close down those memories, so the idea that he would perhaps speak about it later in life, I don't think I would have wanted to open that for him."

Major Brock is buried in the family plot at the Vale Church cemetery in Guernsey.

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