A long, ongoing pligrimage

[Joris]

More pictures of the canadian cemetery in both summer and winter. The Canadian Cemetery is one of only two in the Netherlands and they tried to concentrate all Candians in these cemeteries. However a lot of other cemeteries contain Canadians too.

 

This is one of the most beautifull cemeteries I've visted, it's situated on the rolling hills near Groesbeek and smack in the middle of the 82nd Airborne landingzones.

 

 

 

Memorial of the Missing, they contain the names of British soldiers which have no know grave.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Joris]

Last pictures for now, this is the Reichswald cemetery located in Germany just across the border from Groesbeek. This cemetery was created with the intention to concentrate all British airman that died over Germany. Before being buried here these airmen were scattered all over Germany. Concequently, this is one of the bigger CWGC cemeteries in Europe. Besides the airmen the casualties of operation Vasity have been buried here too so a lot of paratroopers and gliderpilots and troopers are buried here.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

"believed to be buried in this cemetery"

 

I've revisited this cemetery at least twice more but do not have those pictures at hand now.

[Tony B]

Belive it or not, the inclusion of the Cross and Sword at CWWG cemeteries provocked speechs in the Westminster Parliment. originally it was planned to have no croses at all.

[Snapper]

Last year I saw pictures from the CWGC book Remembered and one of the photos that inspired me was of Sai Wan cemetery on the island of Hong Kong. So, when I got a chance to visit the place this October, there was no way I would not find the time to visit this place. Of course, a cemetery is more than just a place filled with headstones. To me all the war cemeteries tell a story and I wish there was a way of finding out more about the individuals who rest there.

 

Sai Wan was the site of an artillery battery which put up a brave fight against overwhelming Japanese numbers. When the gunners surrendered they were shown no mercy by their captors. It seems apt then, for the place to be a cemetery. Many of the burials come from Taiwan, where allied prisoners died in the mines, and there are also a large number of Dutch graves. One of the most significant contingents are the Canadians of C Force, two infantry battalions and supporting troops who arrived without any acclimatisation, no vehicles or heavy weapons (they were diverted to Manila) and little training.

 

It is a beautiful place and quite spectacular. The stunning thing was the heat. It was +30 degrees C and I have never enjoyed such conditions on the Somme or in Flanders!

[Snapper]

Thirty-one year old Private Colin Donald Nicol served with the 5th Bn Royal Norfolks and he died while a prisoner of the Japanese on 28.07.1944.He had been captured at Singapore in February 1942 and I am assuming he is one of many POW's taken to Taiwan, then known as Formosa; to work as a slave labourer in the Kinkaseky copper mine where many good men died. He came from Southend On Sea and we really hoped he might have been an Old Southendian to assist John and Lesley's project which may well move on to WW2 now that the first book is out, but Colin Nicol must have studied elsewhere. I suppose it is highly likely that his family may never have visited his grave so we feel we did a small service to our town by saying thanks. God bless him.

[Snapper]

This fellow is Lance Bomdardier Frederick Schnepel of 4 Medium Battery. Hong Kong Volunteer Defence Corps. He died on 15.12.1941 during the Japanese invasion. He came from Kowloon. The HKVDC were a volunteer organisation a bit like the TA. A great many of them died during the invasion and in captivity.

[Snapper]

These two ladies died in 1946. Both were nursing staff CWGC tells us.

Matron Norah Kathleen Westaway ARRC, aged 51. Queen Alexandra’s Royal Naval Nursing Service died 14.03.1946 daughter of Engineer Rear-Admiral Albert Westaway. The ARRC means Associate of the Royal Red Cross, an award for nurses. This means the award of the Royal Red Cross 2nd Class. (1st class of the RRC is listed as MRRC for Member)

Sister Doris Bowyer Queen Alexandra’s Imperial Military Nursing Service. died on 01.05.1946. I haven't found any more info on her.

[Snapper]

Major Lucien Jack Algernon Feilden.was aged 35 when he died on 19th December, 1941. He served with the Hong Kong & Singapore Royal Artillery, attached to Headquarters from the British Royal Artillery. He came from Bury St Edmunds.

[Snapper]

Pte Owen William Fox came from Hong Kong. 20. 3rd Coy Hong Kong Volunteer Defence Corps.He was just twenty when he died on 19.12.1941

while serving with the 3rd (Eurasian) Company. He was not allocated to a specific platoon within the company.

 

Major Leslie George MBE served with the 11th Sikh Regiment. He was thirty-two when he died on 28.09.1945.

[Snapper]

Here's another GV of the cemetery. I was looking out for snakes at this juncture.

[Snapper]

There are five posthumous George Cross recipients in Stanley Cemetery on Hong Kong Island. They were all either shot by firing squad or beheaded after months of torture and starvation having been arrested for their involvement in the British Army Aid Group. This was a clandestine organisation set up to smuggle in drugs and food to prisoners, organise escapes and distribute news. A good many members of the BAAG were executed or died in captivity and they were by no means all white european men.

 

Colonel Lanceray Newnham, GC MC, of the Middx Regiment and BAAG was fifty-four when he was executed on 18.12.1943.

 

Flight Lieutenant Hector Gray, GC AFM, was thirty-two when he was executed on 18th December 1943. He was the holder of the Air Force Medal having been a crew member with the RAF's Long Range Development Flight which broke the world distance record when flying from Ismailia, Egypt, to Darwin, Australia; in November 1938.

 

Captain Douglas Ford of the Royal Scots was executed by firing squad on 18th December, 1943. He was arrested on 10th July.

 

Forty-seven year old John Fraser, GC MC & Bar, was Assistant Attorny General of the Colonial Service in Hong Kong. He was executed by firing squad on 29th of October, 1943. He operated a clandestine wireless service for the covert British Army Aid Group while a prisoner of war. Following his arrest he was subjected to months of torture and starvation before his execution. He won the Military Cross twice in the First World War serving as a machine gun officer with the Royal Scots Fusiliers in 1916 and then with the Machine Gun Corps in 1917.

 

Captain Matreen Ahmed Ansari, GC, was 27 when he was beheaded along with over thirty other prisoners at some time between 20th and 29th of October. In May 1942 he was arrested by the Japanese because as the son of the Begum of Hyderabad, the Japanese attempted to coerce him to denounce the British in favour of Indian nationalism. He was tortured and mutilated during this time but refused to give in. He was arrested for organising an escape attempt in May 1943 and suffered five months of brutal torture before his execution. He never renounced his alliegance to Britain.

[Snapper]

Here are three of the graves...of Fraser, Ansari and Ford.

[Snapper]

Here are the graves of Gray and Newnham and a GV of the cemetery. It is such a sad place. There are graves of little children and even one which is just for an unidentified skull. There is a fine monument to Chinese soldiers who have no known grave.

[Tony B]

Mark, never heard of BAAG before. where can I find out more? Fine men desrve their story told.

[Snapper]

I totally agree, they seem well worth a lot more coverage. There isn't much - but the author Tony Banham is close to publishing a book on them. He is based in Hong Kong and written two books about the Jap invasion and associated nightmares. He also runs a stunning website called Hong Kong War Diary. He's agreed to do an interview. I just have to get my brain round the questions!

 

MB

[Snapper]

On 14th March, 1942 a DC-2 of CNAC crashed shortly after take off at Kunming killing the crew and several passengers. The plane was No31 and was the last DC-2 in the airline's fleet. Two of the passengers are buried in Sai Wan cemetery. They were Major-General Lancelot Ernest Dennys MC late of the 1st Punjab Regiment; he was head of the British Military Mission to China; and Lieutenant Douglas Robson,36, of the Royal Indian Navy Volunteer Reserve. He was the son of William Robert Longstaffe Robson and Maud Mary Robson; husband of Diana Salisbury Robson, of Gillingham, Dorsetshire. It is likely he was a naval intelligence officer.

[Snapper]

Closer to home - this is the grave of 2nd Lieutenant William Scott Crawford of the 14th Bn London Regiment (London Scottish). He died on 15th April, 1917 and was buried in Signal Trench cemetery at Heninal. His grave was later destroyed by shellfire and he is now recorded with a special memorial at Wancourt British cemetery near Arras. He was twenty-nine and lived at Herne Hill in London. He worked for The Times in the City Office and was a native of Arbroath.

[Snapper]

One more for today.

 

This grave is at Longueau, just outside Amiens. It's easy to imagine the poor soul buried here is one of that great number of tank crewmen killed in 1918 during the eventual repulse of the German offensives of March and April.

[N.O.S.]

I hate to say it but that looks like bullet damage on the Longueau stone - guess a few cemeteries got in the way of fighting in the second war?

[Tony B]

There is an old adage 'The longest journey begins with one step'. Very true, despite living five minutes walk from a public cemetery with a CWWGC section, till now I've never taken a close look. the cemetery at St Mary Cray Kent, contains Polish graves, and suprisingly perhaps for a UK cemetery two unknown RAF graves, some of these graves were casualties from a raid on Biggin Hill, supposedly the insparationn for the scene from the Battle of Britian were the WACS casualties are laid out after the raid . The othe one near by is at Orpington. Due to the use of Orpington Hospital by the Canadians during the Great War, there are mostly Canadian graves. Though oddly outside the intial area is a line of CWWGC headstones from inter war years, dating from 1919 through to 1931. Also just outside the ara is the head stone of John R Lammas MM Royal Enginners. Th MM being awarded on 8th July 1943, whilst attached to the 54th East African Feild company.

 

The other local hospital Queen Mary's Sidcup, was a pionner of plastic surgery for Great War victims , as mentioned in the Time Team Special on the Vampire dugout. Never ignore your own doorstep.

Left St Mary Cray Right Orpington

[Snapper]

Fantastic stuff, Mr B. Really interesting. Many thanks for stepping out into the frost. It's interesting to hear of interwar graves and the BofB story is worth knowing more about. It just proves it is worth looking in your local churchyard or cemetery for the history on view.

[Tony B]

Thank you Sir! Local history can be just as rewarding as farther afeild, it is also a lot cheaper. :-D

[Tony B]

A bit of futher research at St Mary Cray, on 30th August 1940 in the second of two raids on Biggin Hill worshops, stores a barracks and WAAF's quarters were hit. Thirty nine were killed. Ninteen are buried at SMC including E.L.Button an Australian WAAF. Also unusually are two 'Airman of the 1939/1945 War' one dated 11th September 1940, the other 12th October 1940. Aditionally First Officer W N Estes Air transport Auxilary.

Though mostly RAF but including 3 Royal Australian Air Force two royal New Zealand Air force and one Royal Canadian Air force. the only Great War grave is that of Captain A.L. Cowlney Intelligenc eCorp 23 July 1917 , aged 65.

There are also three Polish graves, the stone having a triangular top. All this about four hundred yards away as the crow flies (For me the railway is in bettween)

[Snapper]

I would imagine your two unidentified airmen may have been burnt beyond recognition or the graves are just parts of their bodies. What a shame a date could not be found to match names to them.

 

Polish graves are very distinctive, as are Czech and Dutch. I have some pictures to post of them from Hong Kong. There is a Yugoslav buried at Sutton Road in Southend and I've snapped a Soviet Russian buried at Bayeux. Imperial Russians can be found in northern France from WW1 as you will know.

 

It's a bit indvidious "collecting" grave stones, but I find them interesting - especially the personal inscriptions and seeing the vast array of emblems on British Commonwealth graves is educational. In Hong Kong I snapped one from UNRRA - a United Nations Refugee Rehab group - and a Filipino Guerilla Army officer. I want to do something fitting with all this stuff one of these days. They all count. I realise I find this all much more therapeutic and meaningful than snapping MVs and stuff, however much I enjoy it; because it is like putting something back and a little bit noble which appeals to my minimal notions of vanity.

 

Grimmer John and I worked out an idea to make a 366 'page' memorial to them all as a kind of illustrated calendar. It would be an endless - actually continuous - task and a joy to do - hence it is a pilgrimage. It's from the heart and I would not bar former enemies from it. Seventeen year old panzer grenadiers were victims, too.

 

More contributions please (with thanks)

 

MB

[Snapper]

Brothers Henry and Thomas Hardwidge were from the Rhondda Valley and served with 15 Bn Welsh Regiment. On 11.07.1916 Corporal Thomas Hardwidge was wounded by rifle fire and his brother Lance Corporal Henry Hardwidge ran out to help him. They were both killed by snipers and are buried in Flatiron Copse cemetery at Mametz on the Somme. Their brother Morgan was also killed in the region but has no known grave and is recorded on the Thiepval Monument. Two other sets of brothers are buried in Flatiron Copse. It is one of my favourite cemeteries - which, again, makes me sound a trifle odd. Walking from the cemetery to the Red Dragon and then over to the Queen's Nullah is a special thing to do. Mametz Wood is privately owned like many locally, for the breeding of game birds - and I haven't ventured far into it. Grimmer and I sneaked in a little way once and shell holes etc were clearly visible. We found shell cases in the maize fields around it...or more to the point, Grimmer did. He is a relic magnet of sorts...the bastar...