Tallon | George
Biography
Son of Richard Harrison Tallon and Daisy Tallon of Burneside, Westmorland.
George Tallon was born on 16 March 1923 in Burneside, a village south of the Lake District in Cumbria. Apart from their parents, the family consisted of three children; George, Dick (Richard) and Betty (Elizabeth) Tallon.
After leaving school, George went to work at the local paper mill, Paper Mill James Cropper, until World War II broke out in 1940.
George is keen to join the army, but after 82 days of training as a private in the infantry of the 6th Battalion of The Border Regiment in Edinburgh, he is immediately discharged due to “incorrect statement regarding age at enlistment”. He was only 16 years old at the time and was asked to return when he was “the right age for it”.
On 29 January 1942, he re-enrols in the army in Carlisle and undergoes his basic training as a soldier. The 1st battalion of The King’s Own Scottish Borderers, to which George belongs, is part of the invasion of Normandy on D-Day (6 June 1944). Via Caen, they advance through Belgium to the Netherlands.
In the letters George writes to his mother, he mentions that he is very surprised by the many canals and rivers and the seemingly endless rainy weather. It reminds him of home.
In August 1944, to his own surprise, George was promoted to corporal. “We are having a hard fight here in Holland,” he writes in one of his letters to his mother. And on 10 October 1944, he writes: “I think I saved the life of one of our men when we crossed the last canal. He was bleeding to death on the side of the road and I carried him to a dressing station. There they immediately took care of him and said he would be fine.”
Even during the Battle of Overloon, George was still writing home that he hoped to move on to Germany soon (“but then we’d have to be careful”), that there wasn’t really that much news and “keep smiling”.
He will not receive his mother’s last letter of 28 October 1944. George Tallon is killed on 1 November 1944 near Vierlingsbeek, presumably west of railway line and east of Overloon.
Corporal George Tallon is temporarily buried at the Schaartven, near A. van de Wijst in Overloon. He is reburied at Overloon War Cemetery on 13 May 1947.
The letters
