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Those who watched last year’s Remembrance Service at the Cenotaph will have seen two frail elderly gentlemen being taken in their wheelchairs to lay their wreaths along with the others at that sad place.
They were Henry Allingham aged 113 and Harry Patch aged 111, and they were two of the last British survivors of the First World War. Henry died a week ago and Harry died yesterday, leaving only one British survivor, Claude Choules aged 108, now living in Australia.
The events of WWI, in which it is estimated that 16 million combatants and civilians of all nationalities were killed, are unimaginable to us. No historical or personal accounts can truly convey to us the horror of that war any more than the many cemeteries adequately represent to present day eyes the vast numbers of casualties inflicted.
It is fitting then that a National Memorial Service will be held later in the year for those involved in what was then known as The Great War and the War To End All Others. But it is more than sad that its lessons have not been learned and that deadly conflicts continue to this day.
Two minutes of silence once a year are not enough to think about such things.
.
Those who watched last year’s Remembrance Service at the Cenotaph will have seen two frail elderly gentlemen being taken in their wheelchairs to lay their wreaths along with the others at that sad place.
They were Henry Allingham aged 113 and Harry Patch aged 111, and they were two of the last British survivors of the First World War. Henry died a week ago and Harry died yesterday, leaving only one British survivor, Claude Choules aged 108, now living in Australia.
The events of WWI, in which it is estimated that 16 million combatants and civilians of all nationalities were killed, are unimaginable to us. No historical or personal accounts can truly convey to us the horror of that war any more than the many cemeteries adequately represent to present day eyes the vast numbers of casualties inflicted.
It is fitting then that a National Memorial Service will be held later in the year for those involved in what was then known as The Great War and the War To End All Others. But it is more than sad that its lessons have not been learned and that deadly conflicts continue to this day.
Two minutes of silence once a year are not enough to think about such things.
.
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