A long, ongoing pligrimage

[Snapper]

As it's almost the appointed day - here are some snaps from cemeteries I have visited. I am not overly fussed if they are repeats from other threads. Feel free to join in.

 

MB

 

This picture shows Preston Cemetery in Newcastle Upon Tyne. The nearest grave is my grandfather's - Lieutentant (E) Gordon Maurice Barnes RNR who died on 16.02.1941. This picture was taken in 1998 when I made my first and only visit to his grave.

[Snapper]

Fast forward to the picturesque Canadian cemetery at Beny-sur-Mer in 2003. This is one of those must visit places on any Normandy pilgrimage. The saddest thing for me is that the authorities did not bury the three Westlake brothers together. The attached snap shows two of them, Thomas and Albert, who died on the 11th of June. They served with the Queen's Own Rifles of Canada. Their brother George died on the 7th of June and I am sorry I do not have a snap of his grave to load up just now. He served with the North Nova Scotia Highlanders.

The single grave is Lieutenant Fleming Ladd Irving, a 21 year old of the 1st Hussars who died on D-Day. This regiment operated Sherman DD tanks. Irving came from Winnipeg.

Edited January 5, 2009 by Snapper
typos

[Snapper]

At the going down of the sun.

 

Sergeant Frank Milburn DCM was twenty-nine when he was killed on D-Day with 12th (Yorkshire) Bn the Parachute Regiment. He rests in Ranville Churchyard.

[Snapper]

The shared graves of five soldiers from 10th Battalion Hampshire Regiment part of 147th Regiment Royal Armoured Corps who were all killed in action on 17th and 18th July 1944 in Normandy. They were Trooper Charles George Brant, aged 34, of Loudwater Buckinghamshire; Trooper Frederick Percival Henning, aged 32, of Southampton; Corporal Harold Edward Carr, aged 31, of Alton Hampshire; Lieutenant Basil John Drinkwater,aged 24, of Stokenchurch Buckinghamshire and Trooper Frederick Murray, aged 31, of Kingswood, Gloucestershire.

[Snapper]

Private Peter Sidney Finch, aged 22, of the 7th Battalion Parachute Regiment was killed on D Day and is buried along with many other paras at La Delivrande war cemetery. The light was beautiful during my visit in 2003 and I was using a digital camera for the first time. Even now I think I can almost step back into that afternoon with Grimmer John and our bunch.

[Joris]

Let them rest in peace, thanks for posting these pictures!

[Snapper]

Still 2003 and this time the famous American cemetery above Omaha beach at St Laurent-sur-Mer. It is a beautiful place. I remember reading a blog of sorts on an American students website about a battlefield tour made to Normandy and how the young Americans had found British headstones to be much more personal than the US type, which is in part modelled on the French. They may be right. I think American cemeteries are something of a spectacle - sending a message about collective sacrifice rather than individual. It makes no odds. The graves are all people and they are all treasured. The single grave is for the much loved Brigadier General Theodore Roosevelt Jnr MoH. He'll always look like Henry Fonda to me.

[Snapper]

Memorial crosses afixed to the war memorial on Portland in Dorset. Families killed by German bombing include the Hardings; husband and wife Frederick Charles, 28, and Kathleen, 26, and their two year old daughter Rachel who were killed in their home at 14 Augusta Rd, Portland on 12.04.1941. Six members of the Farwell family died at 15 Queen's Rd on 15.04.1941. Archer Farwell, aged 51, his wife Nellie, 51, daughters Violet Christina, 18, Marion Diana, 14, and their son Gunner Charles Walter Farwell, aged 24, who served with 522 Coast Regiment Royal Artillery, and his wife Charlotte Mabel Grace, aged 20. This was a bloody cold day to be hanging around up by the memorial. We had stunning views of Chesil Beach. I was visiting Weymouth where my childhood friend Mike lives. He is a Greek Cypriot cockney and his wife is French. Their two daughters speak the Queen's English, which is a wonder of the education system.

[Snapper]

Fusilier Stephen Satchell was killed by friendly fire in 1991 Gulf War. He was one of nine soldiers killed by US A-10 aircraft who attacked a British armoured column in disputed circumstances which the Brits and the Yanks may never agree on. Stephen is buried at Rye Harbour. It is a bleak place. The cemetery also has the mass grave of the local lifeboat crew who died together in the 1920s. The lychgate of the church records all the names of local men who served and who died in the Great War and it is sad to see that several survivors perished in the lifeboar disaster.

[Snapper]

One of the greats. Admiral Bertram Ramsay's memorial statue at Dover Castle.

[Snapper]

Sanctuary Wood. The famous trench complex at Hill 62 outside Ypres which is privately owned. This place is a bit like a car crash. You have to look, but I find it wholly inappropriate and unpleasant. It features in TV and school trips and is on the tourist trail. The atmosphere is wholly odd and creepy. I am not saying don't go..just that I don't like it.

[Snapper]

POELCAPELLE BRITISH WAR CEMETERY. The much visited grave of Private John Condon of the 2nd Battalion Royal Irish Regiment who was killed on 24.05.1915. John Condon came from Waterford, and, at the reputed age of 14, is the youngest officially recognised British military casualty of the Great War. In recent years Condon's actual age has been disputed and it is suggested he was actually eighteen. The relevant John Condon appearing on the 1901 Census was born in 1896. It is thought a discrepency came about preparing the original records for casualties used by the Imperial War Graves Commission at the time the dead of several small cemeteries were concentrated into Poelcapelle in 1923. Some people believe the grave does not even contain the remains of John Condon but is that of Patrick FitzSimmons of the 2nd Battalion Royal Irish Rifles.

[Snapper]

A sad grave at Tyne Cot.

[Snapper]

Tyne Cot. There is nothing to add.

[Snapper]

THE WATTEN KRAFTWERK NORD WEST MANNSCHAFT BUNKER AT EPERLECQUES NEAR ST. OMER, FRANCE. The Germans began work to construct this huge factory for liquid oxygen fuel and assembly of V2 rocket bombs in late 1942. It is estimated that 120,000 cubic metres of concrete were used and that a slave and forced labour workforce of around 35,000 people were involved. The site came to the attention of the British in mid 1943 and was immediately subject to a succession of air raids which did little damage to the five metre thick roof of the main building, but achieved serious damage to part of the complexe. In June and July 1944 two RAF raids by Lancasters using Tallboy 22,000lb (6 ton)bombs did little damage to the building fabric, but caused small local earthquakes making it impossible to produce the highly combustible rocket fuel for the V2 on site. It is not known how many of the slave labour force died during construction and the air attacks. The building was captured by the Canadian army in August 1944.

 

A bit arty - but I've always liked this shot.

[Grimmer]

So many happy memories, just throught you might like to see a shot of the great man in action.

 

JB

[Snapper]

It's a still life....

 

I've been watching tandem coverage of the commemorations (without sound) on Sky and the BBC this morning, here in The Sun editorial newsroom. The main preoccupation is the new series of I'm A Celebrity...Get Me Outta Here, which begins filming in Australia very soon.

 

For Australia, burdened with this motley crew of Brits, here is just one unsung hero of your own. Private Albert James Starr, aged 20 from Tenora, New South Wales who served with 20th Battalion Australian Infantry. He died on 01.06.1918 and is buried at Wimereux Communal Cemetery to the north of Boulogne-sur-Mer on the channel coast. He most likely died in the hospital there.

 

Too Far Away For Us To See, But Not Too Far To Think Of Thee.

[Snapper]

The 10th Lincolns - the Grimsby Chums - were decimated on the 1st of July 1916 at La Boiselle. The battalion included a batch of men from Bermuda. This is their memorial seat at Lochnagar crater. Just a big hole in the ground to some, but the last resting place of many hundreds of men. The reflected lad in red is my son James who was eleven when we made this, our first visit, in 2003.

[Snapper]

To return the compliment to Grimmer. Here he is at Rifle House cemetery in 2006. We were surrounded by baby frogs and toads hopping amid the gravestones. This cemetery is one of three in Ploegsteert Wood which lies on the Armentierres-Ypres road near Messines Ridge. The wood is swamp and I can tell you it is a very unpleasant place to venture in to at the best of times, so imagine having to live and fight in it. We were eaten alive by midges and mosquitoes and never found the concrete bunkers in the wood because nature forced us to beat a retreat. I recommend a crisp winter's day to visit - and must remember to do so before too long. It is an amazing place. The other cemeteries are Toronto Avenue and Ploegsteert Wood. The predominently NZ cemetery at Mud Corner is just outside the confines of the wood and if you venture back to the farm road you will come to Prowse Point cemetery. They almost overlap each other there. You might even find the barbed wire post James found which we could not fit in the car. Curses...

[Joris]

Thanks for posting these mate!

[Snapper]

It's a pleasure and I will try and do some more as and when time allows. I welcome contributions from friends - graves, cemeteries and memorials with appropriate details and comments. Remembrance Day and Armistice Day have come and gone and for many people the poppies go in the bin for another year. But not for us on HMVF. It's an all year round every day thing.

 

MB

[Snapper]

Here is the memorial to Denmark which is just inland from Utah Beach. It is important for me to include these places on my travels because they bring together people from countries it might be easy to otherwise forget. We had a glorious day there in 2005. After this we ended flying kites at Utah and making a general nuisance of ourselves. One of the funniest things my friend Richard witnessed was in the cafe there when he was visiting on a quiet day. There were a number of, shall we say, high volume American ladies in there and when it came to ordering, one of them said she would do it because she spoke French. She promptly shouted "I WANT FIVE COKES" at the staff and raised five fingers. It seems to have worked. Hands across the sea.

[Snapper]

The Memorial to the Crimea by John Bell was erected in 1859. The figure on top represents Honour while the three soldiers are a Grenadier Guard, a Fusilier and a Coldstream Guard. The monument is sometimes called the Guards Memorial, although the better known monument to the Guards from WW1 is at Horseguards. This monument stands off Waterloo Place in London, next to a statue of Florence Nightingale.

[Snapper]

Sandpits is a little cemetery close to the A26 motorway that passed Bethune on it's way down to Vimy Ridge and on to Arras. If you look the place up on the CWGC register it is officially at Fouquereuil which actually on the opposite side of the motorway to where it is located. The cemetery looks out on the little village of Goznay which has a lovely hotel in what used to be a convent. Just next to this is the communal cemetery which has yet more British graves. At Sandpits all the casualties are VIII Corps soldiers killed in 1918. The first time we visited the CWGC were relaying the access road which passes under the motorway. They were using old headstones for hardcore and we unashamedly took a few pieces to preserve at home. A large piece with a Sherwood Foresters badge on it sits on my son James' desk. Getting the blue Audi over the unmade road was a test for the old Vorsprung Durch Technik adage from the adverts.

 

There are the usual mix of people in the cemetery and one of these is a chap called Ebenezer McJannet. It's a great name, but something of a cheap shot to mock him.

 

A better alternative to show is the grave of 21156 Lance Corporal James Kinnish of 13th Bn King's Liverpool Regiment. This was a K3 Service battalion formed at Seaforth in September 1914. It formed part of the 9th Brigade of the 25th Division and was severely mauled in June 1918 necessitating a refit and reconstitution in England before a return to France. James Kinnish died on the 18th of June. He came from Onchan on the Isle of Man and had volunteered with his three brothers in 1914.

 

The inscription on his grave reads

 

A MANX VOLUNTEER OF 1914

WHO GAVE HIS LIFE FOR KING AND EMPIRE

[Rick W]

I have to ask Mark, do you just take photos of random peoples memorials, is it a hobby or it a means to an end??(cough, cough, Tower Hill photo, Iltisgun clips, cough):coffee: