Soldier awarded a Victoria Cross after Arnhem to be commemorated in plaque unveiling in Winterborne Monkton.
by Peter Metcalfe.
Lionel Queripel was born in the manor house at Winterborne Monkton in July of 1920 and spent the first six years of his life in Dorchester. He was educated at Marlborough College and joined the Royal Sussex regiment at the start of the Second World War. Capt Queripel was evacuated from Dunkirk at the fall of France in 1940 and fought at the battle of El Alamein in 1942 in the western desert. He transferred to the Parachute regiment in 1944 and was killed in action at the battle of Arnhem on 19 September 1944. Queripel was awarded a posthumous Victoria Cross for his remarkable bravery and is buried in the Commonwealth war cemetery at Arnhem Oosterbeek in Holland.
It was Major Nick Speakman from the Keep Military Museum who discovered that a Victoria Cross winner had been born near Dorchester. We decided that, as there is no memorial to him locally, we would place a plaque to his memory and bravery in the church at Winterborne Monkton, where he was baptised in August 1920.
In order to place a plaque in the church a faculty is required, and permission only granted from the church authorities in the Salisbury Diocese. The churchwarden Mrs Judy Norman has worked tirelessly filling in forms and contacting Salisbury by phone and email to persuade the authorities to grant us this permission. Our unveiling ceremony will take place at 2pm on Monday 19 September, being the 78th anniversary of Capt Queripel VC being killed in action at the battle of Arnhem.
The ceremony will be attended by close family members, representatives of the Royal Sussex and Parachute regiments, a number of senior retired military personnel and local dignitaries.
If you’d like to find out more about Devon and Dorset’s military history, visit The Keep Military Museum on Barrack Road in Dorchester www.keepmilitarymuseum.org.