The Somme
This year sees the 90th anniversary of the Battle of the Somme and the cemeteries and memorials on the Somme will be the focus of intense media attention this July. This has got me thinking again. I have been researching my family history for some time and have a great-uncle, Sydney Arthur Watts, who was a private in the Buffs (East Kent Regiment). He was killed on the 2nd December 1917 aged just 22, at the Battle of Cambrai and became one of more than 7,000 servicemen of the United Kingdom and South Africa who died in this campaign in November and December 1917 and whose graves are not known. The only record of Sydney's death is his name etched on the Cambrai memorial and an entry in the Commonwealth War Graves Commission.
http://www.cwgc.org/search/casualty_details.aspx?casualty=1757710
The memorial stands on a terrace at one end of Louverval Military Cemetery.
My maternal grandmother (Sydney's sister) played an important rôle in my upbringing and often spoke of Sydney and the loss she still felt all those years on. On my 18th birthday she gave me his Buffs Regiment cap badge as a keepsake (well, the War Office said it was his when they gave it to the family in 1922 - a token gesture). I still have it and cherish it.
My gran introduced me to the war poetry of Lieutenant Colonel John McCrae, who died of pneumonia while on active duty in 1918. McCrae's "In Flanders Fields" remains to this day one of the most memorable war poems ever written. It is a lasting legacy of the terrible battle in the Ypres salient in the spring of 1915 and to the futility of war. It brings a lump to my throat each time I read it. I would like to share it with you.
IN FLANDERS FIELDS
by John McCrae
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.
http://www.cwgc.org/search/casualty_details.aspx?casualty=1757710
The memorial stands on a terrace at one end of Louverval Military Cemetery.
My maternal grandmother (Sydney's sister) played an important rôle in my upbringing and often spoke of Sydney and the loss she still felt all those years on. On my 18th birthday she gave me his Buffs Regiment cap badge as a keepsake (well, the War Office said it was his when they gave it to the family in 1922 - a token gesture). I still have it and cherish it.
My gran introduced me to the war poetry of Lieutenant Colonel John McCrae, who died of pneumonia while on active duty in 1918. McCrae's "In Flanders Fields" remains to this day one of the most memorable war poems ever written. It is a lasting legacy of the terrible battle in the Ypres salient in the spring of 1915 and to the futility of war. It brings a lump to my throat each time I read it. I would like to share it with you.
IN FLANDERS FIELDS
by John McCrae
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.