A thoughtful donation

Project Vernon has received a welcome cheque for £303.59 from the PayPal Giving Fund:

"These funds are a grant that was made possible by donors who gave to PayPal Giving Fund and recommended that we use the funds to benefit your charity".

It transpires that these were the proceeds from a Facebook Birthday Fundraiser dedicated to Project Vernon back in July.

To do the same, go to https://socialgood.fb.com/charitable-giving/birthday-fundraiser and select THE VERNON MINE WARFARE AND DIVING MONUMENT as the recipient.

Daily Telegraph publishes image of maquette

The Daily Telegraph has published this image of sculptor Mark Richards with his half life-size maquette of the Vernon Minewarfare & Diving Monument.

The full one-and-a-quarter life-size bronze version will be installed next spring at Gunwharf Quays, the former site of HMS VERNON in Portsmouth.

Latest artist's impression

Here's the latest 'artist's impression' of the Vernon Minewarfare & Diving Monument in situ in Pool B at Gunwharf Quays in Portsmouth, the site previously occupied by HMS VERNON. It is based on a 3D printed model using a laser scan of the half life-size maquette.

The finished bronze structure, due to be installed next spring, will be one-and-a-quarter life-size and will be dedicated to all those involved with minewarfare, diving and EOD - past, present and future.

Thank you sculptor Mark Richards for doing such a fantastic job!

Scanning of the Maquette

A significant milestone has been achieved with Project Vernon, the campaign to erect a monument at the marina, residential and retail development at Gunwharf Quays, formerly HMS VERNON, in Portsmouth to celebrate all those - past, present and future - involved with minewarfare & diving operations.  The bronze sculpture is due to be installed next spring where it will be seen by an annual footfall of 8 million visitors.

Laser scanning of the half life-size model was conducted on Thursday 8 August. This will enable casting of the one-and-a-quarter life-size bronze sculpture and, eventually, miniatures in various materials.

These photos show the enormous complexity of the task and the fine detail sculptor Mark Richards has applied to his creation without making it a characterless static 'teaching aid'. He said that balancing such a large inanimate object as a moored mine with the dynamic human life forms of the divers so that they work in harmony was his greatest challenge and his greatest cause of satisfaction.

For further background, information and pictures, go to the Project Vernon website at www.vernon-monument.org.uk/ or the Project's Facebook group at www.facebook.com/groups/vernonmonument/

Monitoring progress on the model of the sculpture

On 16 July, Project Vernon volunteers David Sandiford, Grenville Johnson MBE, Martyn Holloway and Rob Hoole accompanied sculptor Mark Richards and his assistant Emma Lilley to the Morris Singer foundry at Lasham in Hampshire to witness some of the processes it will use to cast the Vernon Minewarfare & Diving Monument in bronze. The monument is due to be installed next year in Pool B at Gunwharf Quays in Portsmouth, the former location of HMS VERNON.

On 6 August, a panel of Project Vernon volunteers, constituting members of the main supporting organisations (MCDOA, AORNFCD, MWA, TCA and RNCDA), visited the studio of distinguished sculptor Mark Richards in Ludlow, Shropshire and approved his final design of the Vernon Minewarfare & Diving Monument. The Project Vernon panel comprised Grenville Johnson MBE, Colin 'Scouse' Kidman QGM, David Sandiford, John 'George' Turnbull and Yours Truly (Rob Hoole), seen here flanking sculptor Mark Richards and his assistant Emma Lilley.

This is Mark Richards’ studio, a converted school which was previously a workhouse.

This is the half life-size model from which the one-and-a-quarter life-size bronze sculpture, and eventually miniatures, will be produced.

N.B. The supporting scaffolding poles will not appear in the finished product!

Newest donations

From the USA

A huge thank you to a generous benefactor in the USA who has made a four figure donation towards the Project in honour of his father who was a 'P' Party (Port Clearance) diver at the end of the Second World War.

‘P’ Party divers at Antwerp in October 1944

Incredibly, despite clearing continental ports including Cherbourg, Caen, Dieppe, Le Havre, Boulogne, Rouen, Calais, Antwerp, Ostend, Terneuzen, Zeebrugge, Flushing, Amsterdam, Rotterdam, Hamburg and Bremen (where 60 mines were found and dealt with alone), not a single member of a ‘P’ Party was lost during operations. The sole fatality was AB William Brunskill of 'P' Party 1571 who died from his injuries on 19 Dec 1944 after a German V-2 rocket hit the Cinema Rex in Antwerp where he had been watching a film three days previously.

From Hong Kong

In view of the current situation in Hong Kong, we are particularly grateful to the Commanding Officer and five members of the Hong Kong Police EOD (Explosive Ordnance Disposal) Team for their donation, received today, of £500 towards the Vernon Minewarfare & Diving Monument.

Tony Chow - CO Hong Kong Police EOD Team

According to the associated email, the team took over the clearance diving role in HK from the RN following the handover in 1997 and they still remember the late CPO(D) Stephen 'Darby' Allan who was killed in an explosive incident in South Sudan in 2010 after leaving the RN (see entry for 26 Nov 10 and linked entries in News Archive 32 of the MCDOA website).

The Hong Kong Police EOD Team is responsible for all EOD operations in HK, including IEDD, CMD, CBRN and underwater. The six operators making the donation are cross-trained in the underwater role and they provide round-the-clock coverage. There have been frequent underwater jobs since the RN left, mainly to do with conventional munitions found by dredging operations or found by civilian scuba divers. The objects range from MK XIV mines to large aircraft bombs and all types of shells.

As the legacy of the RN operations in HK, the six current underwater operators were keen to donate the funds to the Vernon project. I'm sure all members of our community will join me in expressing our gratitude to these members of the team for their extraordinary generosity and congratulate them on the work they do.