Routes of Remembrance

On Saturday the 30th of May The Veterans Charity team attended the 82nd anniversary of the D-Day landings at the magnificent Trebah Gardens, Cornwall.

They took with them the Rick Rescorla wreath as he grew up seeing tens of thousands of U.S. Army troops preparing to help launch the Liberation of Europe.

As his wreath is heading to New York for the 25th anniversary of 9/11 in September we left our second poppy plaque there as a tribute to those troops, sailors and airmen who never came home.

The plaque and wreath are made from shells from the Atlantic and the English Channel a subtle salute to those with no known grave but the sea.

That isn't all we left behind.

Sand from all 5 D-Day beaches was left as a reminder of those who got their boots on the beach.

The Routes of Remembrance Waterways Wreath is off on The Massive Adventure...literally!

The captain of the Narrow Boat 🚢 "The Massive Adventure" is the second vessel to take the wreath on a further adventure along the nations waterways supported by Forces Veterans Afloat Registered Charity 1211509.

Thank you for inviting The Veterans Charity along, we look forward to new opportunities to work together in 2026 and beyond!

The Rick Wreath as we call it, joined The Veterans Charity and other guests at the Rick Rescorla memorial in Hayle to mark his 87th birthday.

It was a wonderful sunset and the event was timed to commence at 1939hrs and conclude at 2001hrs to reflect Ricks date of birth and the year he was tragically taken.

The wreath will feature in more visits in the Duchy, before heading to London and then onto New York City in September for it's final RV.

United War Veterans Council, Inc.

Today, Routes of Remembrance remembers Tom Uren — Australian soldier, prisoner of war and survivor of one of the darkest chapters of the Second World War. 🇦🇺🚂

Serving with the Australian Army, Uren was captured by Japanese forces after the fall of Timor in 1942. He would later be transported to work on the infamous Thailand–Burma Railway — remembered by many simply as the “Death Railway.”

Built through jungle, mountains and disease-ridden terrain under brutal conditions, the railway cost the lives of thousands of Allied prisoners of war and Asian labourers. Starvation, exhaustion, beatings and tropical disease became part of daily life for those forced to build it.

Tom Uren later recalled the extraordinary resilience, comradeship and humanity shown by prisoners despite the suffering around them. Like many POWs, survival often depended upon the courage and kindness shown between men enduring unimaginable hardship together.

The railway itself became one of the defining transport routes of wartime suffering — a route built at immense human cost through occupied Southeast Asia.

Following the war, Uren returned home and devoted much of his life to public service, social justice and remembrance, becoming one of Australia’s most respected political figures and veterans’ voices.

At Routes of Remembrance, we remember not only the railway itself, but the men forced to build it and the journeys from which so many never returned.