Ronald Burdett Coy
- Family History
- Military history
- Extra information
- Photographs
He was the son of Arthur and Edith Ellen Coy and the brother of William Arthur Coy. In 1921, they lived at 2, Albert Street, Radcliffe on Trent, Nottinghamshire.
Ronald Coy and Gladys Dolman married at Nottingham in 1940. They had two children - Malcolm and Marian. They lived at 78, Holborn Avenue, Sneinton Dale, Nottingham.
Hottot-Les-Bagues War Cemetery XII A 4
In August 1944, the 4th Battalion, Dorsetshire Regiment (a Territorial Army unit serving within the 130th Infantry Brigade of the 43rd (Wessex) Infantry Division) was heavily engaged in the fierce, attritional breakout battles of the Normandy Campaign following the D-Day landings.
Having suffered brutal losses during July fighting for strategic heights like Hill 112, August 1944 saw the battalion push deeper into the Normandy bocage landscape and culminate in a rapid eastward pursuit.
Coy was an early casualty sustained by 130 Brigade as they pushed past Hill 112 during the
Battle for Ondefontaine (2–5 August): Following the capture of La Bigne, the 130th Infantry Brigade was ordered to seize the village of Ondefontaine to open routes for the advancing 214th Brigade. On 3 August, the 4th Dorsets launched consecutive infantry assaults against deeply entrenched German lines from Kampfgruppe Paetsch. Pinned down by heavy mortar barrages ("moaning minnies") and direct machine-gun fire at the edge of the Bois de Buron woods, the battalion sustained heavy casualties. Following intense joint pressure from artillery, Sherman tanks, and air strikes, the 4th Dorsets cautiously advanced and cleared an abandoned, heavily shelled Ondefontaine at dawn on 5 August.
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Ronald Burdett Coy
Nottingham Evening Post 21/8/1944