[Misc] At the going down of the sun and in the morning, we will remember them

[WATFORD zero]

Thanks for that [MENTION=6886]Bozza[/MENTION].

 

[LamieRobertson]

Nicely done [MENTION=6886]Bozza[/MENTION]

Remembering those who gave so much, so we can enjoy what we now have.

In Flanders' fields the poppies blow

Between the crosses, row on row,

That mark our place: and in the sky

The larks, still bravely singing, fly

Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the dead. Short days ago

We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,

Loved and were loved, and now we lie

In Flanders' fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe;

To you from failing hands we throw

The torch; be yours to hold it high,

If ye break faith with us who die

We shall not sleep, though poppies grow

In Flanders' Fields.

 

[lawros left foot]

https://youtu.be/EB6UiUA7Wjk

 

[nickbrighton]

strange that the BBC decided to muffle the sound of and commentate over the bugle playing the last post before the Silence at 11:00. The news reader felt it necessary to talk over it, saying how the BBC would be falling silent at 11., and welcome viewers from BBC 1

A lack of respect

 

[lawros left foot]

It might be about the Aussies, but the sentiment is the same.


When I was a young man I carried me pack
And I lived the free life of the rover
From the Murray's green basin to the dusty outback
I waltzed my Matilda all over
Then in 1915 my country said: Son,
It's time to stop rambling, there's work to be done
So they gave me a tin hat and they gave me a gun
And they sent me away to the war
And the band played Waltzing Matilda
When the ship pulled away from the quay
And amid all the tears, flag waving and cheers
We sailed off for Gallipoli
It well I remember that terrible day
When our blood stained the sand and the water
And how in that hell they call Suvla Bay
We were butchered like lambs at the slaughter
Johnny Turk, he was ready, he primed himself well
He rained us with bullets, and he showered us with shell
And in five minutes flat, we were all blown to hell
He nearly blew us back home to Australia
And the band played Waltzing Matilda
When we stopped to bury our slain
Well we buried ours and the Turks buried theirs
Then it started all over again
Oh those that were living just tried to survive
In that mad world of blood, death and fire
And for ten weary weeks I kept myself alive
While around me the corpses piled higher
Then a big Turkish shell knocked me arse over head
And when I awoke in me hospital bed
And saw what it had done, I wished I was dead
I never knew there was worse things than dying
Oh no more I'll go Waltzing Matilda
All around the green bush far and near
For to hump tent and pegs, a man needs both legs
No more waltzing Matilda for me
They collected the wounded, the crippled, the maimed
And they shipped us back home to Australia
The armless, the legless, the blind and the insane
Those proud wounded heroes of Suvla
And when the ship pulled into Circular Quay
I looked at the place where me legs used to be
And thank Christ there was no one there waiting for me
To grieve and to mourn and to pity
And the Band played Waltzing Matilda
When they carried us down the gangway
Oh nobody cheered, they just stood there and stared
Then they turned all their faces away
Now every April I sit on my porch
And I watch the parade pass before me
I see my old comrades, how proudly they march
Renewing their dreams of past glories
I see the old men all tired, stiff and worn
Those weary old heroes of a forgotten war
And the young people ask "What are they marching for?"
And I ask myself the same question
And the band plays Waltzing Matilda
And the old men still answer the call
But year after year, their numbers get fewer
Someday, no one will march there at all
Waltzing Matilda, Waltzing Matilda
Who'll come a-Waltzing Matilda with me?
And their ghosts may be heard as they march by the billabong
So who'll come a-Waltzing Matilda with me?

 

[vegster]

I knew my late grandfather served in WW1 and was wounded but survived the war and had five children... My daughter took advantage of the Ancestry offer of free access to records and found out he was in The Machine Gun Corps. This was a surprise to me as I thought he was a standard private, poor fellow he must have seen some awful sights.

 

[maltaseagull]

strange that the BBC decided to muffle the sound of and commentate over the bugle playing the last post before the Silence at 11:00. The news reader felt it necessary to talk over it, saying how the BBC would be falling silent at 11., and welcome viewers from BBC 1

A lack of respect

We were following online and ready to stand for the 2 minutes at 11:59 CET. We had BBC on but they were still talking (Maybe online was delayed)
We swapped to Sky which showed several locations but there was no clear end to the 2 minutes as far as I saw.

 

[Wellesley]

View attachment 142063

Private DAWSON, FRED
Service Number 82431
Died 10/11/1918 in France
Aged 18 years 5 months
"D" Coy. 11th Bn.
Royal Fusiliers
Son of Joseph and Ann Dawson,
Buried TERLINCTHUN BRITISH CEMETERY, WIMILLE

My Great Uncle Fred. Died on the day before the Great War ended, 103 years ago yesterday, aged 18

That is such a sad, thought provoking and tragic story. It really brings home the importance of remembrance. Thanks for posting. Excellent picture by the way.

 

[Badger]

strange that the BBC decided to muffle the sound of and commentate over the bugle playing the last post before the Silence at 11:00. The news reader felt it necessary to talk over it, saying how the BBC would be falling silent at 11., and welcome viewers from BBC 1

A lack of respect

It was all a bit strange. She talked over the bugle before the 2 minutes silence. Then it wasn't obvious when it started. Then there was a bugle playing from somewhere during the 2 minutes, which I don't think is normal, is it? Then no indication it had ended, other than showing some men laying wreaths.

 

[nickbrighton]

We were following online and ready to stand for the 2 minutes at 11:59 CET. We had BBC on but they were still talking (Maybe online was delayed)
We swapped to Sky which showed several locations but there was no clear end to the 2 minutes as far as I saw.

Online is always a bit delayed, and you could hear on the tv the last post being sounded in the background after the silence started at one location all of which is fine. Its the act of remembrance, not that its all perfectly in sync that matters.

I always stop what im doing for the last post and the two mins, even if its not as close to the exact time as I would like,

 

[maltaseagull]

Online is always a bit delayed, and you could hear on the tv the last post being sounded in the background after the silence started at one location all of which is fine. Its the act of remembrance, not that its all perfectly in sync that matters.

I always stop what im doing for the last post and the two mins, even if its not as close to the exact time as I would like,

While I was watching on Sky there were ignorant tw*ts walking around the people standing and observing the silence.
Do they really either not know or care?
No respect some people!

I can remember many years ago whilst being in a shop when the silence was being observed for the 9/11 attack victims and people were moving past us carrying on shopping.

Did they really either not know or care?
No respect some people!

 

[Badger Boy]

There was no lack of respect there, just bad timings.

It was well observed in my household. My father served in the Navy during World World 2 and was on HMS Sheffield during Naval engagements. He wasn't an Uncle Albert type who would talk about his experiences and he'd be one of the youngest men onboard so he lost most of his Brethren before he passed in 2001, far too young.

 

[Bry Nylon]

BBC4 broadcast some very powerful documentaries this week, focusing on the Somme (Tuesday evening) and Passchendaele (Wednesday evening), using a mixture of archive footage and the recollections of British soldiers and nurses serving at the front, plus those who were children at the time, with fathers fighting abroad.

The stilted footage and the vivid recollections of the former soldiers and nurses went some way to reflect the unmitigated and hellish horror of what happened in those godforsaken fields all those years ago, in so far as footage can, for those us fortunate enough to never have had to experience it first hand. However, for me some of the most poignant sections were the memories of those who were children during WWI, with fathers at the front.

One contributor was 9 when her father was killed in action and as her mother had to go out to work, she was left with the responsibility of effectively running the house and bringing up her younger siblings - whilst also trying to come to terms with never seeing her dad again. She recalled standing outside a toy shop one Christmas eve with her younger brothers and sisters, looking at the toys in the window. A woman (who obviously knew the family's circumstances), stopped and told them go inside the shop to look at the toys inside and get out of the rain. When they came to leave the shop a short while later, the same woman was there with two big bags - full of the toys they'd been looking at in the window display.
"Get yourselves straight home," she said to them, handing them the bags. "And tell your mother you've met Mrs Christmas."

Oddly, that story probably affected me more than any other - and brought home the huge sacrifice that those left behind endure too.

Anyway, apologies for the long post but if you have a chance, the BBC4 documentaries are truly humbling and well with catching up with.

 

[Fignon's Ponytail]

My Great Grandfather served in the East Kent Regiment (The Buffs) and was injured twice during the Great War...and both times returned to his unit. I dont have any photos of him, but have his diaries at home which have been passed down to me...quite an amazing story of his time with the infantry in the trenches...and also his time as a Police Officer when he came out of service. He was stationed at Dover Castle for a time, and my Grandmother was actually born there - so despite being Sussex born & bred myself, Kent holds some very special memories for me.

This is a photo of some of the Buffs in 1915/16...who knows, maybe one of them is him....sadly I shall probably never know.



Every year I spend time remembering those that served (inc. my grandfather who was on the convoys in WW2, my brother-in-law (still with us), & his friends who were lost in Iraq & Afghanistan in more recent years) & last year I did a Remembrance Sunday cycle ride around the county visiting various memorials etc. I cant believe I had never been there before, but I made sure I stopped at the cemetery on Bear Road to pay my respects to the fallen after finding out there was a large section for Commonwealth War Graves. If, like me, you never realised it was there, the graves are on the left hand side cemetery as you go up Bear Road...and pretty much next to the entrance. There are also a few war graves dotted around in the cemetery on the other side of the road as well.
I shall be returning this Sunday....



This final image is of my son parading at the Cenotaph a couple of years back at a memorial service for the Royal Navy. One of my proudest moments as a father....

 

[Weststander]

BBC4 broadcast some very powerful documentaries this week, focusing on the Somme (Tuesday evening) and Passchendaele (Wednesday evening), using a mixture of archive footage and the recollections of British soldiers and nurses serving at the front, plus those who were children at the time, with fathers fighting abroad.

The stilted footage and the vivid recollections of the former soldiers and nurses went some way to reflect the unmitigated and hellish horror of what happened in those godforsaken fields all those years ago, in so far as footage can, for those us fortunate enough to never have had to experience it first hand. However, for me some of the most poignant sections were the memories of those who were children during WWI, with fathers at the front.

One contributor was 9 when her father was killed in action and as her mother had to go out to work, she was left with the responsibility of effectively running the house and bringing up her younger siblings - whilst also trying to come to terms with never seeing her dad again. She recalled standing outside a toy shop one Christmas eve with her younger brothers and sisters, looking at the toys in the window. A woman (who obviously knew the family's circumstances), stopped and told them go inside the shop to look at the toys inside and get out of the rain. When they came to leave the shop a short while later, same the woman was there with two big bags - full of the toys they'd been looking at in the window display.
"Get yourselves straight home," she said to them, handing them the bags. "And tell your mother you've met Mrs Christmas."

Oddly, that story probably affected me more than any other - and brought home the huge sacrifice that those left behind endure too.

Anyway, apologies for the long post but if you have a chance, the BBC4 documentaries are truly humbling and well with catching up with.

A wonderful story. A small act gave so much pleasure for others.

 

[el punal]

Such a poignant thread and I hope you’ll forgive my indulgence for my post as I believe it has some relevance.

In a few weeks time, 18th December to be precise, will be the 80th anniversary of my Dad, who was an RAF bomber pilot, having his aircraft shot down whilst on operations over France. He, and his colleagues, were flying Short Stirlings of 7 Squadron out of RAF Oakington near Cambridge. Their mission was to attack the German cruisers Tirpitz and Gneisenau which were docked in the port of Brest. It was a daylight operation taking part in late December 1941. The number of casualties that day was high. My Dad’s plane was attacked by German fighters and he and his crew had no option but to bail out as his aircraft was so badly damaged.

Dad survived and he was taken prisoner of war and sent to Stalag Luft III - the P.O.W. camp made famous by the Great Escape. He was fortunate to survive, two of his crew and many more on that operation did not. One of the saddest points about all of this was that the fate of my Dad and his surviving crew members was unknown. It was assumed that his plane had been shot down over the sea and the crew had perished. Letters of condolence were sent to relatives informing them of the worst.

I have my Dad’s log book and the last entry recorded was the date, the names of his crew, bomb load, flight number, and target. In the remarks column, written by the station commander, it simply stated - “A/C failed to return”.

Thanks Dad, and to all who served. We will remember.

 

[lawros left foot]

Five years ago I wrote a piece about a soldier from Sussex for a thing about the Somme. Today seems like an appropriate time to get it out. I'm not sure how long it'll come out in here, apologies if it's too long:

View attachment 142065

I decided to write this a few weeks ago after hearing some students on a train debating whether we should still be commemorating the First World War when there are no survivors left.

On 1st July there will be events around the country recognising the hundredth anniversary of the first day of the Battle of the Somme. It’s a battle that risks being lost in numbers – the nearly 20,000 British men killed and the almost 40,000 more wounded, many in the first 60 minutes, the 1.5 million shells fired by the artillery ahead of the attack, supposedly to cut the 14 miles of German wire (which it failed to do), the 141 days the battle officially lasted for.

As always every number is a personal story. That chap in the photo is a story behind a number too, but more on that later.

30th June, the day before the Battle of the Somme began, became known as the Day Sussex Died – the Sussex Regiment (Southdown Battalions) being used for a diversionary attack which resulted in 365 men killed or missing for what is generally considered neglible impact, a catastrophically optimistic action that scarecly gets a mention anywhere and which saw men from all over Sussex among the dead.

The next day, that first day of the Somme, Sussex suffered again with many more killed. Others were wounded and would die over the coming weeks and months. George Fellows of Lewes left a wife and eight children when he succumbed to wounds at home on 13th July 1916 and is buried now in that town not far from Eastport Lane where he lived. On that same day, a few minutes walk up the hill also in Lewes the Pelling family lost their son Ernest, also to wounds from the Somme having returned home to Bull Lane. Death abroad. Death at home. The war was never some remote event.

The names and the unimaginable impact go on and on for every single one of those numbers we’ll hear spoken about in the coming weeks, they aren’t just numbers though, but people. Which brings me back to the man in the photo. This is one of those mostly anonymous photos you see for sale when family albums get split up, the photos piled in boxes and sold off cheap as curiosities. I picked this one up off eBay and would like to think I can return it to someone in his family, because this one is unusual in that it has a name on it – G. Morley.

His cap badge shows he was in the Sussex Regiment. I’ve looked into it and he’s almost certainly George Morley, a chimney sweep from Hastings, married to Sarah and with five children – in the 1911 census two of the children have his wife’s maiden name (or name from a first marriage) so he was perhaps a father and a step-father.

George was killed in action near the Somme, at Beaumont Hamel. Not as part of the main battle, but after the history books say it had finished, on 16th December 1916, aged 35. There was no major British action that day, and George was one of the hundreds killed every day in the war, in the endless grinding attrition of snipers and shells fired speculatively across no man’s land, a life of family, of potential and hope disposed of so casually and wastefully it’s impossible to comprehend.

The regimental diary in the week building up to 16th December is full of the names of places that resonate with anyone who has studied the history of the First World War: Mametz, High Wood and more – as George’s battalion moved through broken, damaged landscapes to the front line. Places fought over for much of the duration and still littered with explosives even today. High Wood had only been captured a few weeks before George’s death, after multiple failed, costly attacks, only being finally overrun when 3000lbs of explosives were tunneled underneath and detonated.

This is the landscape George went into, a ruined, desolate place, with no recognisable roads, ruined buildings, rats, shattered trees and and unburied bodies everywhere, and constant danger in a cold, wet winter.

He went into the front line on the 15th December, and on the 16th some men, including George, were sent out at night to dig supporting trenches in the chalky soil “80 to 130 yards” to the rear – an exposed, dangerous job hence being done in darkness, though of course after little or no sleep. Apparently the day had been “quiet except for occasional shelling” yet the digging group were hit that night, the deaths reported in the diary as “4 O.Rks [other ranks] killed, 3 wounded.”

Again no names, just numbers. Instant anonymity for those four men which somehow seems to suggest little value was placed on them. His wife and children would have heard via a standard emotionless telegram just before Christmas.

George has no known grave – he’s one of the 70,000+ on the Thiepval Memorial who don’t. Another number that’s so big it obscures the reality of the fact each is an individual man.

Looking at the register of names on the Thiepval Memorial, the page which has George Morley on has 31 other Morley’s from all over the country (there’ll be more on the preceding and following pages). There’s another George too, whose name is below his however it has been crossed out, presumably because at some point remains were found. There’s certainly an awful story there too.

In the photo George’s cap is battered, far more than the pristine, sharp lines you normally see in such photos, we don’t of course know why but there’ll be a reason, something it represents in his character. And his face is confident, his hands are relaxed have none of the awkwardness often seen. His posture – everything about him – is comfortable and certain. And above all he’s human.

When you hear people talk about the Somme, about the numbers, about names we no longer recognise, and the horrors we have no possibility of relating to, it can be hard to take it in. So think of those men of Sussex and their families and maybe map the geography of their lives in your mind. Most of their streets are unchanged. Many of their houses still stand.

Think of George with his cigarette and battered cap and wife and children and all those like him, because it isn’t a list of anonymous names, it’s people we’re remembering.

A couple of years ago someone got in touch with me having come across this - they were doing their family history and were descended from George. The photo is now with his family again, exactly where it should be.

 

[Hampden Park]

 

[Is it PotG?]

 

[Brovion]

Lawrence Binyon.s poem "For the Fallen" includes
They shall grow not old
As we that are left grow old
Age shall not weary them
Nor the years condemn
At the going down of the sun
And in the morning
We will remember them

What is , unfortunately, not noticed by most is the order of words four and five in the first line. They are "GROW NOT" and not " not grow". Important that it is got right

When I was a boy I always assumed that poem was written at the end of the war. I was absolutely staggered to find out that it was actually published very soon after the start of the war in September 1914. Obviously written after Mons and maybe after Le Cateau, but before the Somme, Loos, Paschendale, Gallipoli, etc etc etc. Even the first battle of Ypres was in the future.