WarGraves

Their Name Liveth For Evermore

A Pilgrimage to the Battlefields of the Western Front
Chris Davies - Head Verger

In May of 2017 my Dad and I visited the First World War battlefields of the Nord Pas-de-Calais in France and the Ypres Salient in Belgium. A pilgrimage we had initially done in 2009 to find the graves of two of my father’s great uncles, Bombardier Bernard Rallison of the Royal Artillery killed in action 23rd June 1916 near Ypres and 2nd Lieutenant Victor Edward Rallison of the Manchester Regiment killed in action on 7th April 1917 near Arras. We had been the first of any of our family to visit their graves and felt it only right to go back during the centenary of the First World War.

Back in 2014 at the beginning of the centenary commemorations of the outbreak of the war I had done extensive research into the men on St James’s war memorial. I quickly became intrigued by their stories. Men who had lived in our parish and worshipped, sung and prayed in our Church. These were members of our community a century ago who, for whatever complex motivation, joined a generation of young men who answered the call to serve King and Country and paid for it with their lives. Not all ages were known but of those that were the oldest was Captain Harry Pulman aged 47; the youngest, Private John Deal, killed during the Battle of the Somme in 1916 aged just 19.

While I was planning my family pilgrimage I resolved to find and visit the graves or memorials of the men from St James’s who fought and died in the same region as my family members. A region that covers some of the most ferocious battlefields of the Western Front including the Somme, Ypres, Langemark and Passchendaele.

On 16th May 2017 we left Folkestone for Calais with our sights set of finding and paying our respects to members of what the American novelist Gertrude Stein called The Lost Generation. Over the course of the next three days we drove more than 500 miles, visited over 30 cemeteries and memorials and visited the graves or memorials of more than 360,000 men from the armies of the British Empire, France and Germany. Alongside our family members we were able to visit the grave or memorial of 17 St James’s parishioners.

The sites that we visited were hugely moving and served as poignant reminders to an entire generation, obliterated. My father told me that what affected him the most was the thought that each grave or name on a memorial that we walked past was a soldier killed, but behind them stood an entire family torn apart by grief. What struck me most vividly was that many of these men were around my age, swept along on a wave of nationalist sentiment of the superiority of Britain and her Empire, filled with confidence, pride and the spirit of adventure. They were unwittingly led like lambs to the slaughter, on the back of outdated military tactics and policy, wholly unprepared for the full horror of 20th century mechanised warfare.

We visited lots of the well-known sites, unmissable on any tour of the battlefields, but we also visited many smaller British cemeteries to find more of the men of St James’s or simply stopped off at cemeteries we passed. Many of these lie on quiet rural roads and (apart from the large ‘tourist’ sites like Theipval and Vimy Ridge) we often enjoyed these spaces accompanied only by the birdsong. Each cemetery is beautifully maintained by the Commonwealth War Graves Commission and while they varied in shape and style all had striking similarities. The small white headstones of identical size and shape regardless of rank, most contain a simple Lutyens stone of remembrance inscribed with the commemoration “Their Name Liveth For Evermore” and the cross of sacrifice which stands before the silent rows of graves. Christian, Jewish, Muslim, Sikh and Hindu soldiers are all commemorated in the same way differentiated only by the religious symbol on their headstone. Perhaps the most moving graves, however, were those marked with a simple cross and inscribed “A Soldier of the Great War Known unto God”. Thousands of them across the Western Front.

Notable Cemeteries and Memorials Visited:

Tyne-Cot Cemetery - Near Ypres, the largest Commonwealth military cemetery in the world, final resting place for 11,954 Commonwealth soldiers of which 8,369 are unidentified. The Memorial to the missing at Tyne-Cot commemorates 33,783 British and 1,176 New Zealand soldiers who fell in the Ypres Salient but whose bodies were never found or identified. Included on the memorial are parishioners Private George Beggerstaff and Captain Ernest William Coster who were killed less than a week apart in September 1917.
Menin Gate, Ypres - Located at the eastern exit of Ypres, the Menin Gate marks the starting point for one of the main roads out of the town that led Allied soldiers to the front line. The memorial’s many panels bear the names of 54,895 British and Commonwealth soldiers missing on the Ypres Salient including our own Lieutenant Vere Douglas Boscawen.
Theipval Memorial, Somme Battlefields - Designed by Sir Edwin Lutyens, the architect who designed the Cenotaph on Whitehall and 196 Piccadilly next door to the Church on the site of the old vestry hall. Theipval bears the names of 72,195 men of the British Empire who fell on the Somme between July 1915 and February 1918 but as the memorial states “To whom the fortune of war denied the known and honoured burial given to their comrades in death.” Commemorated on the memorial are Private John Deal and Rifleman Albert Ernest Oldring from St James’s who both died on the same day, 15th September 1916.
Dud-Corner Cemetery – Loos, France so named because of the large number of un-exploded shells found at the site after the end of the war, Dud Corner surrounded by the Loos Memorial bearing the names of 20,610 men killed and never identified during and after the Battle of Loos which began in 1915. This includes St James’s parishioners Privates Edward Pinnock and Eric Leon Boiling.
Arras Memorial - Arras, France – Another Lutyens design located in the Faubourg d'Amiens British Cemetery, this memorial commemorates 34,785 British, South African and New Zealand soldiers, who were killed in the Arras sector between the spring of 1916 and 7 August 1918 but have no known grave. Included on the memorial is Private Herbert Benjamin Pratley.
London Cemetery – Neuville Vitasse, France – On the outskirts of the town of Arras, this small cemetery contains the remains of 747 British soldiers including my Great Great Uncle, Victor Edward Rallison. However, along the back wall of the cemetery stands a memorial panel commemorating the names of 138 men buried in four nearby cemeteries whose graves were destroyed in later battles. Among them is Lieutenant William Curry Godson from the parish.
French National War Cemetery at La Targette, France - In the small village of Neuville-Saint-Vaast this cemetery, covers nearly 50,000 square metres. 11,443 French soldiers from the First World War and a further 668 from the Second World War lie at rest here in ordered lines of small white crosses.
Neuville-St Vaast German War Cemetery, France - Less than a mile up the road towards Arras from La Targette. The largest German military cemetery in France, this cemetery contains the remains of 44,833 German soldiers of which more than 8,000 were never identified. Perhaps most poignant, given the atrocities of the Holocaust during World War 2, are the 129 graves of Jewish German soldiers who fought, died and were buried alongside their Christian countrymen.
National Canadian Memorial - Vimy Ridge, France - This imposing monument, centrepiece of a memorial park planted with native Canadian flora, sits atop the low ridge initially occupied by the German Sixth Army. On Easter Monday (9th April) 1917 four divisions of the Canadian Expeditionary Force launched an assault on the ridge finally capturing it on 12th April after sustaining over 10,000 casualties. The monument commemorates the names of 11,169 Canadian soldiers missing presumed dead on French battlefields but also serves as a focal point for Canadians to remember over 60,000 countrymen who fell in the First World War. Vimy Ridge is widely held by Canadians as point of national unity, symbolizing Canada’s coming of age as a nation. Much of the ground within the park remains pock-marked and scarred by shell craters and trench lines made 100 years ago.
38th Welsh Division Memorial – Mametz Wood, France – Opposite the tranquil scene of Mametz wood, a fearsome Welsh Dragon stands atop a small plinth, clutching in its claws a piece of barbed wire. This mythical beast, a symbol of Welsh identity overlooks the land across which the men of the 38th Welsh Division advanced on the heavily fortified wood in the in the opening days of the Battle of the Somme. Between 7th and 12th July 1916 many regiments of the division lost close to 2/3 of their men killed or wounded after charging across open ground under heavy machine gun fire and then ferocious hand to hand combat. When the wood was finally taken on 12th July more than 4,000 men had been killed or wounded.
St Julien Memorial at Vancouver Corner - Near Langemark, Belgium a small but poignant memorial park containing no burials but commemorating the 18,000 soldiers of the 1st Canadian Division who withstood the first mass use of chlorine gas as a weapon between 22nd and 24th April 1915. Over a 48-hour period over 1/3, some 6,000 men, suffered horrific injuries and, of those 6,000 over 2,000 perished.
Langemark German War cemetery, Belgium – On the outskirts of the village of Langemark, this cemetery, shaded by German oak trees, contains the remains of around 44,530 German soldiers, 11,813 of them unidentified. 24,917 men are buried in a single mass grave just behind the entrance. At the entrance, carved onto panels of German oak are the names of 3,000 of the Student Soldiers, university students who volunteered and were given just six weeks training before being sent to some of the bloodiest battlefields of the Western Front.
Pool of Peace, Heuvelland, Belgium – Also known as the Spanbroekmolen Mine Carter this quiet lily-pad covered pond surrounded by trees is the 12m deep and 129m diameter crater of one of 19 mines detonated underneath the German front line by the British Army on 7th June 1917. Now it is a place of quiet reflection far removed from the carnage of a century ago.
Essex Farm Cemetery – 2km north-west of Ypres lies Essex Farm cemetery which stands alongside Essex Farm Bunker, a casualty clearing station located just 1,800 meters from the frontline in 1915. It was here on 3rd May 1915, the day after he witnessed the death of a close friend, that Canadian army surgeon Lt. Colonel John McCrae penned one of the most famous poems of the war ‘In Flanders Fields’. In the cemetery lies the grave of Rifleman Valentine Joseph Strudwick, killed by a shell on 14th January 1916 aged just 15. Strudwick was one of many boys who lied about their age to enlist in the army for regular meals, clothing and pay or just the promise of adventure.
Ors Communal Cemetery – Ors, France. A local French cemetery in the village of Ors, south east of Cambrai, at the bottom of which sits a small plot maintained by the Commonwealth War Graves Commission. Here are buried 63 British soldiers who were all killed in the same action on the same day trying to bridge the Sambre–Oise Canal. That day was 4th November 1918, just one week before the war ended. Buried in the cemetery is war poet Wilfred Owen whose works such as ‘Dulce et Decorum Est’, ‘Futility’ and ‘Anthem for Doomed Youth’ stand in stark contrast to the nationalistic and triumphalist poetry of many of his peers. Owen’s mother received the telegram notifying her of his death on 11th November 1918 while the church bells were ringing out to mark the end of the war.
St Mary's ADS Cemetery – Haisnes, France – The very last cemetery that we visited both in 2009 and 2017. Our reason for visiting was to pay our respects at the grave of Lieutenant John ‘Jack’ Kipling, son of author Rudyard Kipling. Kipling was a keen imperialist and patriot who wrote propaganda speeches for the British government. Using his connections, despite Jack’s chronically poor eyesight, Kipling obtained his son a commission into the Irish Guards on 15th August 1914, 2 days after his 17th birthday. Just over a year later, barely six weeks after he’d turned 18, John Kipling was killed in action during the Battle of Loos 27th September 1915.

The First World War affected millions of people all over the world and tore whole communities and families apart. In towns and cities up and down the country war memorials commemorate the sacrifice made for King and Country. It was a truly humbling experience bridge the years between the St James’s community of a century ago and today, to spend time in quiet cemeteries sitting on the green grass while the birds sang overhead to try and imagine the awful suffering endured by these young men. Individuals who I felt that I had come to know over the last few years since I first read their names on the memorial. Men my own age who went to war with a sense of excitement and adventure but who never came home.

May they, and all who gave their lives, rest in peace. Their name liveth for evermore.

Chris Davies, 2017