COPP Heroes of Hayling ISLAND
The COPP Heroes Memorial Fund has been established to raise awareness of the COPP (Combined Operations Pilotage Parties) contribution to the allied war effort in WW2, and to raise funds to create a fitting memorial to these wartime heroes, on the Seafront at Hayling
The top secret COPP Depot was set up in 1943 on Hayling Island under the instruction of Lord Mountbatten. Small teams of sailors and soldiers trained as frogmen and canoeists for covert beach reconnaissance and other essential clandestine operations prior to the Allied landings on enemy occupied territory throughout the world.
There are now very few members of the unit still with us:
John Ashford COPP 3 and COPP 10
Major [later Major General] Logan Scott-Bowden RE, COPP 1
Lieutenant Jim Booth RNVR, COPP 9
Corporal David Owen, COPP 7
Peter Palmer, COPP 4 and 6
Roger Gilbert, COPP HQ
John Ainsworth Davis
Nick Goodyear, COPP 5
John Peacock, COPP 8
John Bowden, COPP 6
The proposed memorial
Logan Scott-Bowden is now quite frail, but Jim Booth is very lively, and has recently been back to see his former base on Hayling Island. Jim Booth spent the first years of the war on the North Sea convoys, before volunteering for Combined Operations. He was a member of the COPP X-Craft teams on D-Day, and later saw similar action in the Far East. Jim spent his final service years as skipper of the minesweeper HMS Vallay, clearing German mine-fields in the Mediterranean, so all told, he had quite a busy war.
On Hayling Island there is nothing to commemorate the bravery of this small band of servicemen, and after 65 years, still so little is known of their exploits locally or nationally.
Location of
Hayling Island
To put that right, we are now working to create a permanent memorial to Hayling’s Heroes - the men of the COPP unit and we are honoured to have as the patron of COPP Heroes Memorial Fund, His Royal Highness, The Prince of Wales.