Rest In Peace

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In a poignant ceremony yesterday, an unidentified soldier killed in the Battle of Fromelles on 19 July 1916 in northern France was reburied with full military honours in a new military cemetery nearby.

The bodies of 250 men were buried by German forces in mass graves and were excavated in 2008. Since then, DNA samples have been taken to try to identify as many soldiers as possible.

A ceremony to bury the last of the soldiers and mark the 94th anniversary of the battle is expected to take place on 19 July.

The Commonwealth Graves Commission does a superb job in honouring fallen troops. These cemeteries remind us of the futility of war and the sheer waste and sacrifice of the men involved.

May these rest in peace.
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We Will Remember Them

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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.
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