Last resident of WWII ‘ghost village’ that was evacuated ahead of D-Day and has been frozen in time ever since dies aged 100

The last surviving resident of the ‘ghost village’ of Tyneham in Dorset has died aged 100.

Peter Wellman made a final visit last year to see the abandoned coastal village where he was born and brought up.

The ‘village that died for England’ was evacuated just before Christmas in 1943 so soldiers could practice house-to-house combat manoeuvres ahead of D-Day.

Around 250 people from Tyneham and the valley farms were forced out. Although they were promised they could return after the war, they were never allowed back.

The land is still owned by the Ministry of Defence, which allows the public to visit the village for 160 days of the year.  

The school that Mr Wellman went to and the church at which attendance was mandatory have been restored, but the rest is decaying with time. 

Mr Wellman, who was born in Tyneham in 1924, passed away from pneumonia on April 29 in Swanage, not far from his boyhood home.

His daughter Lynne said: ‘Dad always loved Tyneham and he visited regularly until he had a fall a few years ago. He was delighted when we took him back last year.

The ‘village that died for England’ was evacuated just before Christmas in 1943 so soldiers could practice house-to-house combat manoeuvres ahead of D-Day 

‘He loved talking to people there and telling them about the village and what life was like.

‘He moved out of Tyneham before the war due to work, but not far away. Then in 1943 everyone was forced out.

‘He had been living happily in Swanage and died peacefully in his sleep after suffering from pneumonia.’

On his last visit to Tyneham, Mr Wellman recalled his childhood: ‘We had no electricity, no mains gas and no running water – we had to pump that from near the church. There’s a tap there now.

‘I remember going to the beach and fishing and we often had mackerel. We were happy until we got moved out.’

Mr Wellman, whose family connections to Tyneham go back many generations and whose grandfather was the shepherd, attended the charming single-room school.

The school closed in 1932 due to dwindling pupil numbers. It is now a museum where visitors can learn about the area’s history.

The school’s closure meant Mr Wellman spent several years attending another school by bus before he had to leave Tynenham for good.

Peter Wellman (front row second from left) seen with his school class in 1927

Tyneham before it was cleared of its residents ahead of D-Day

Around 250 people from Tyneham and the valley farms were forced out. Although they were promised they could return after the war, they were never allowed back

The telephone box in Tyneham is now adorned with an information board

The school that Mr Wellman went to and the church at which attendance was mandatory have been restored, but the rest is decaying with time. Above: Mr Wellman during his visit last February

In a compromise move, villagers were allowed to return to be buried in the churchyard if they had lived there before the evacuation

At 14, he started work on a nearby farm where he stayed for 36 years and then he had a job in the clay industry until retirement.

Many of the villagers enjoyed long lives, a fact which Mr Wellman put down to the lifestyle.

He said: ‘Fresh air is the main thing and hard work with a good heart and a contented mind. That’s how you live.’

In 1943, the villagers were told with just a month’s notice that they had to leave and would be relocated elsewhere.

Sunday school teacher Helen Taylor pinned a hastily-scribbled note on the church door, reading: ‘Please treat the church and houses with care.

‘We have given up our homes where many of us lived for generations to help win the war to keep men free.

‘We shall return one day and thank you for treating the village kindly.’

In a compromise move, villagers were allowed to return to be buried in the churchyard if they had lived there before the evacuation. 

While still on MoD land, the ruins of the village and the walk to the beach at Warbarrow Bay are open to the public for 160 days of the year

The ruins of Tyneham seen in an old photograph. A sign reads ‘Danger Keep out’

The last such person was Dorothy Grace Grant, who passed away in 2015.

The church itself re-opened in 1973.  

Mr Wellman said he didn’t regret leaving the village because there was little there for younger people, but would have liked the residents to return.

He said: ‘They were told they could come back but they were never allowed.’

Mr Wellman recalled watching a dogfight in the sky above the fields he was working in during the war, and waving at the Spitfire pilot who downed an enemy plane.

The village was owned by the Bond family, who lived in the grand Tyneham House that is now mostly gone.

They were resistant to modernity, meaning life in the village in 1943 was much like it had been a century earlier.

After a campaign led by the late Dorset historian Rodney Legg to allow the residents back, the MoD in 1975 permitted people to visit what was left, and it has become an increasingly popular place for day trippers and tourists.

The former village forms a small part of the Royal Armoured Corps’ gunnery range

The permission came two years after former villagers calling themselves the 1943 Committee cut through barbed wire and re-opened the old post office for ten minutes until they were stopped by wardens. 

Mr Wellman was also the last person to speak with an authentic Tyneham valley voice, which has a rich, velvety Dorset burr.

The a widower had two children, two grandchildren, three great-grandchildren and two great-great-grandchildren.

Elise Neville from James Smith Funeral Directors, part of the Douch Family Funeral Group, who is arranging the funeral, said: ‘Peter is the last living link to the village of Tyneham and with him departs a piece of history.

‘So many of the small communities in and around the Isle of Purbeck have families who go back many generations, and Peter is one of them. It is a great privilege to arrange Peter’s funeral.’

His funeral will take place in Corfe Castle on May 22.

D-Day: Huge invasion of Europe described by Churchill as the ‘most complicated and difficult’ military operation in world history

Operation Overlord saw some 156,000 Allied troops landing in Normandy on June 6, 1944.

It is thought as many as 4,400 were killed in an operation Winston Churchill described as ‘undoubtedly the most complicated and difficult that has ever taken place’.

The assault was conducted in two phases: an airborne landing of 24,000 British, American, Canadian and Free French airborne troops shortly after midnight, and an amphibious landing of Allied infantry and armoured divisions on the coast of France commencing at 6.30am.

The operation was the largest amphibious invasion in world history, with over 160,000 troops landing. Some 195,700 Allied naval and merchant navy personnel in over 5,000 ships were involved. 

US Army troops in an LCVP landing craft approach Normandy’s ‘Omaha’ Beach on D-Day in Colleville Sur-Mer, France June 6 1944. As infantry disembarked from the landing craft, they often found themselves on sandbars 50 to 100 yards away from the beach. To reach the beach they had to wade through water sometimes neck deep

US Army troops and crewmen aboard a Coast Guard manned LCVP approach a beach on D-Day. After the initial landing soldiers found the original plan was in tatters, with so many units mis-landed, disorganized and scattered. Most commanders had fallen or were absent, and there were few ways to communicate

A LCVP landing craft from the U.S. Coast Guard attack transport USS Samuel Chase approaches Omaha Beach. The objective was for the beach defences to be cleared within two hours of the initial landing. But stubborn German defence delayed efforts to take the beach and led to significant delays 

An LCM landing craft manned by the U.S. Coast Guard, evacuating U.S. casualties from the invasion beaches, brings them to a transport for treatment. An accurate figure for casualties incurred by V Corps at Omaha on 6 June is not known; sources vary between 2,000 and over 5,000 killed, wounded, and missing

The operation was the largest amphibious invasion in world history, with over 160,000 troops landing. Some 195,700 Allied naval and merchant navy personnel in over 5,000 ships were involved.

The landings took place along a 50-mile stretch of the Normandy coast divided into five sectors: Utah, Omaha, Gold, Juno and Sword.

The assault was chaotic with boats arriving at the wrong point and others getting into difficulties in the water.

Destruction in the northern French town of Carentan after the invasion in June 1944

Forward 14/45 guns of the US Navy battleship USS Nevada fire on positions ashore during the D-Day landings on Utah Beach. The only artillery support for the troops making these tentative advances was from the navy. Finding targets difficult to spot, and in fear of hitting their own troops, the big guns of the battleships and cruisers concentrated fire on the flanks of the beaches

The US Navy minesweeper USS Tide sinks after striking a mine, while its crew are assisted by patrol torpedo boat PT-509 and minesweeper USS Pheasant. When another ship attempted to tow the damaged ship to the beach, the strain broke her in two and she sank only minutes after the last survivors had been taken off

A US Army medic moves along a narrow strip of Omaha Beach administering first aid to men wounded in the Normandy landing on D-Day in Collville Sur-Mer. On D-Day, dozens of medics went into battle on the beaches of Normandy, usually without a weapon. Not only did the number of wounded exceed expectations, but the means to evacuate them did not exist

Troops managed only to gain a small foothold on the beach – but they built on their initial breakthrough in the coming days and a harbor was opened at Omaha.

They met strong resistance from the German forces who were stationed at strongpoints along the coastline.

Approximately 10,000 allies were injured or killed, including 6,603 American, of which 2,499 were fatal.

Between 4,000 and 9,000 German troops were killed – and it proved the pivotal moment of the war, in the allied forces’ favour.

The first wave of troops from the US Army takes cover under the fire of Nazi guns in 1944

Canadian soldiers study a German plan of the beach during D-Day landing operations in Normandy. Once the beachhead had been secured, Omaha became the location of one of the two Mulberry harbors, prefabricated artificial harbors towed in pieces across the English Channel and assembled just off shore

US Army Rangers show off the ladders they used to storm the cliffs which they assaulted in support of Omaha Beach landings at Pointe du Hoc. At the end of the two-day action, the initial Ranger landing force of 225 or more was reduced to about 90 fighting men