Nat Gould

Myles Tyrer Gould 1921-1944

Myles Tyrer Gould was born in 1921, the son of Philip Gould 1870-1942 and his wife nee Maria Augusta Stewart 1882-1962.

He followed his father into a military career, training at the Royal Military College, Sandhurst.

Royal Irish Fusiliers in France 1940

From the Officer Training Unit at Sandhurst he was commissioned as Second Lieutenant on 31 December 1939 into the Royal Irish Fusiliers, which was his father's regiment (1). The regiment was unique in having a Gaelic motto Faugh-a-Ballagh meaning "Clear the Way".

When the Second World War broke out in 1939 the Royal Irish Fusiliers joined the British Expeditionary Force in France.

When the German Army attacked through the Ardennes in May 1940, they moved forward into Belgium to meet the oncoming forces, but the German Army unexpectedly broke through the French defensive lines. The British Army was outflanked, and had to make a fighting retreat.

The Royal Irish Fusiliers were allocated the unenviable task of mounting a fighting rearguard at the La Busee Canal, so facilitating the evacuation from Dunkirk (2).

By 1944 Lt. Gould was attached to the Black Watch (Royal Highlanders).

During the fighting in Normandy, following the D day landings on Sword Beach, he was wounded in action.

Lt. Myles Tyrer Gould died of his wounds on 17 June 1944, aged 23 years.

He was buried in the War Cemetery at La Delivrande, Douvres in the Department of Calvados in Normandy (3).

His gravestone is inscribed with the regimental badge of the Royal Irish Fusiliers and the epitaph "In perfect honour, perfect truth / You trod the golden paths of youth" (4).

(1) Supplement to the London Gazette 5 January 1940 page 68.

La Delivrande Cemetery

(2) Irish Brigade: Royal Irish Fusiliers "The Faughs" http://www.irishbrigade.co.uk

(3) The photographs of the war cemetery and gravestone are shown by kind permission of Steve Rogers, The War Graves Photographic Project www.twgpp.org

(4) The words are taken from the poem Fratri Dilectissimo by John Buchan (1875-1940). It was inscribed to his brother William Henderson Buchan, who died in 1912 from illness contracted in the Himalayas. It was first published in The Marquis of Montrose (1913) and reprinted in Poems, Scots and English (1919) pages 73 to 75.
The Latin words may be translated "To a dearest brother" but these fail to capture the meaning of the inherent loveable and delightful quality of the brother in the original Latin. The words were well chosen, perhaps by his mother or sister, and play subtly between the word "golden" and the family surname.