Paul Tirel

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Jersey's Great War heroes:

Paul Tirel


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French soldier Paul Tirel


This is one of a number of articles published by the Jersey Evening Post on 10 November 2018, the day before the 100th anniversary of the end of the Great War. They tell the stories of a number of Jerseymen and Jerseywomen who were distinguished by their bravery during the war. Some survived to recount their own experiences, others perished in the conflict and never saw their native island again.

See full list of articles

Anne-Marie and Alice Tirel

Carpenter Paul Tirel was forced into the war while his wife was three months pregnant and sadly never met his only child.

But thanks to more than 300 touching letters that he sent home, his daughter Alice and her grandchildren have had the chance to get to know his kind, gentle and loving nature.

Both Private Tirel and his wife, Anne-Marie, were born in France, but it was in Jersey that they met and fell in love.

By the summer of 1914 they were married and expecting their first child, but with the outbreak of war, Paul, who was just 18, was called into the French army.

While stationed in St Lo, Normandy, he started to send postcards home at regular intervals. Written partly in French and partly in English, many of the letters, which were often pages long, were tenderly signed off 'heaps of love from your dearest husband'. Some were sent from Les Sables-d'Olonne, a west coast seaside town, where he was sent for treatment and recuperation after suffering a bullet wound in his shoulder.

After recovering he came very close to returning home, travelling to St Malo to catch a boat to Jersey, but it was cancelled at the last moment, and he could only send a postcard to his wife and newly born daughter.

Later he was part of the 136th Regiment sent to fight at the Somme, and it was there that his final letter was written.

And even in his last note, penned the day before he died in Chilly on 4 September 1916, there was nothing to suggest despair or unhappiness. It read: 'I am in good health and I hope you are the same, Baby. Heaps of love and kisses from your own darling husband and daddy'.

Private Tirel was awarded three French military medals and his name can now be found on the war memorial at Grouville.

Paul Tirel's medals
Letters and postcards from a loving husband
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