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borderroamerhttps://fisherbelfast.wordpress.comThe Northern Standard, Monaghan. Reporter.
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ESSEX FARM CEMETERY

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Cross of Sacrifice at Essex Farm Cemetery

Back to World War One in Flanders, day four of our trip visited one very interesting site before returning to Ieper. The CWGC maintained Essex Farm Cemetery is just north of Ieper near Boezinge. More than 1000 servicemen of the First World War are buried or commemorated here. Of these, 103 burials are unidentified. There are special memorials to commemorate nineteen casualties known or believed to be buried at this site.

Memorial for 49th (West Riding) Division at Essex Farm Cemetery

It was the location of an Advanced Dressing Station during WWI. The concrete buildings used by the dressing stations can still be seen in the cemetery. A project to restore the surviving bunkers at the dressing stations was carried out by the town of Ieper (Ypres).

Close-up of 49th WR Division memorial. Pic. Peter Smith, Leger Battlefield Tours

The bunkers represent the largest number still visible and located together in the Ypres Salient area.

Essex Farm Cemetery seen from the nearby hill (CWGC picture)

The land south of Essex Farm was used as a dressing station cemetery from April 1915 to August 1917. The burials were made without definite plan and some of the divisions which occupied this sector may be traced in almost every part of the cemetery, but the 49th (West Riding) Division buried their dead of 1915 in Plot I, and the 38th (Welsh) Division used Plot III in the autumn of 1916.

Lt Col John McCrae (Guelph Museums picture)

It was here that Canadian doctor Lieutenant Colonel John McCrae wrote the poem ‘In Flanders Fields’ in May 1915, which I will feature separately.

LT TOM KETTLE REMEMBERED

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Tom Kettle (Pic. WikiCommons)

The following story by Patricia Killeen is taken from the US website IrishCentral.com published on September 10th. It details a commemoration held by the Irish in France including our Ambassador commemorating Lt Tom Kettle (former MP), Lance Corporal Francis Ledwidge from Slane and other members of Irish regiments in WWI.

Tom Kettle: Irish War Poet and nationalist was remembered by the Irish in France on the eve of the anniversary of his death.

On Sunday, September 8th 2019 the Irish Embassy Paris and the Irish in France Association invited Irish people living in France to the inauguration of the ‘Irish Peace Garden.’ The garden, located in the grounds of the Château de Péronne, in the heart of the Somme battlefields, pays homage to the WW1 Irish soldiers. The château also houses ‘The Historical Museum of the Great War’.

Our day out also included visiting the museum, the Church and village of Guillemont and the Ulster Tower in Thiepval.

As our Ambassador Patricia O’Brien rendered homage to the Irish WW1 soldiers, complimented the new garden, and spoke of the strong link between Ireland and France, at that moment in time I felt happy to be Irish in France. After the speeches, Peter Donegan led us through the gardens and entertained us with stories of his challenge transforming a 14th-century dried-up moat, constructed to keep people out, into a welcoming garden that drew people in.

The village of Guillemont, a short drive away and the neighboring village Ginchy, are soaked in Irish blood. More than 1,200 men from the 16th (Irish) Division were killed in the liberation of these two villages on 3rd and 9th September 1916. The church is at the very centre of the small village, which has neither a shop nor a café. However, we did locate the ‘Rue de la 16ème Division Irlandaise’!

One again French officials and the Irish Ambassador spoke. I lost the battle of keeping tears in check in the beautifully decorated church, where the dead Irish soldiers are so honored. Plaques on the wall list the different battalions of the 16th Irish Division including the Royal Dublin Fusiliers in which Thomas Kettle and many Irish Volunteers had enlisted. Our Ambassador paid homage to Kettle (economist, journalist, barrister, writer, poet, and former Member of Parliament for John Redmond’s constitutional nationalist party) who died at the Battle of Ginchy on 9th September 1916. She said she hoped that Kettle would be proud of the progress that had been made for peace in Europe and Ireland.

Lt Kettle’s name on WWI memorial at Westminster Hall

Kettle, an ardent Irish nationalist, donned the British uniform knowing many of his fellow countrymen wouldn’t understand why. He enlisted after witnessing the horrors in Belgium after the German invasion and said “while a strong people has its own self for centre, it has the universe for circumference.”

He went to war for European civilization and to fight for the freedom of another small country, fully aware that after Irish independence eventually came he would be seen as one of the ‘foolish dead,’ in contrast with the 1916 Rising ‘heroes’. In the final lines of his poem, ‘To My Daughter Betty, The Gift of God’, Kettle explained his decision: “Know that we fools, … Died not for flag, nor King, nor Emperor, But for a dream, born in a herdsmen shed, And for the secret Scripture of the poor.”

In the lead up to the centenary of the 1916 Rising, the Irish President Michael D. Higgins, acknowledged Kettle’s place in Irish history and said he was “an Irish patriot, a British soldier and a true European and understood that be authentically Irish we must also embrace our European identity’.

Francis Ledwidge, the other Irish WW1 war poet who died at the Battle of Ypres on July 31, 1917, like Kettle is now also considered as an Irish patriot and a WW1 war hero.

More Irish men, many of them members of the Irish Volunteers, died defending France than died creating an Irish republic. Many of them died for European freedom and in the hope that a grateful Britain post-war would pass the shelved Home Rule bill. On the other hand, other brave Irish men from Ulster enlisted in WW1 in the hope that the British would throw out the same Home Rule Bill!

Our final stop was at the Ulster Tower, Northern Ireland’s national war memorial, constructed in 1921 opposite the Thiepval Wood from where the 36th (Ulster) Division made its historic charge on July 1st 1916. The Irish Ambassador, the Mayor of Péronne and the Sous-Préfet de Péronne once again laid wreaths, as they had done at the Celtic cross and French monument outside the Guillemont church.

As I looked at the orange flowers in the green, white and gold Irish wreath, I remembered in ‘Observe the Sons of Ulster Marching Towards the Somne,’ how Frank McGuinness’s had described that Protestant soldiers exchanged their Orange sashes before going into battle.

Over the course of the day, I saw how revered our Irish WW1 soldiers were in France. The men, whose place in Irish history had been a long time enigma, had apparently always been honored in the French villages they defended. Tom Kettle and Francis Ledwidge were friends with many of the 16 men executed in the aftermath of the 1916 Rising. Francis Ledwidge’s poem “The Lament for Thomas MacDonagh” is considered by many to be one of the most beautiful WW1 poems.

When young people are struck down in their prime we can’t help but wonder about the outcome if they had lived. How would the combined talents of Tom Kettle, Tom Redmond and the 16 executed men have impacted the course of Irish history and the 1921 peace terms if they had been spared?

Kettle wrote from the Somme that if he were to live he would “spend the rest of his life working for perpetual peace.” He had enlisted for ‘Liberty’ and after being wounded insisted on returning to the Somme out of ‘Fraternity’, for his Dublin Fusiliers. The WW1 soldiers were denied ‘Equality’ in a world where ‘bumbling’ deciders sacrificed young men as fodder. Kettle described the Great War as ‘an outrage against simple men’.

In the Irish Peace Garden, Ambassador Patricia O’Brien expressed her hope in people’s ability to assemble and discuss. I hope many will have the opportunity to visit the Peace Garden and museum in Péronne, the village of Guillemont and the Ulster Tower for the pleasure of a great day out, and ‘lest we forget’ peace can never be taken for granted.

WWII PEOPLE’S WAR

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Examining a UK Military Police Land Rover at Wimbledon Common

A recent stay in Wimbledon and visit to Wimbledon Common along with a visit to Gap Road cemetery made me think about what the area was like during the Second World War. One description emerges from the contents of a BBC website.

Military Land Rover

WW2 People’s War is an online archive of wartime memories contributed by members of the public and gathered by the BBC. The archive can be found at bbc.co.uk/ww2peopleswar’

John Ingham WW2 People’s War 6th November 2003.

The Canadian soldier in uniform paused from pushing his bike as we left Ann’s Pantry with our meagre ration of boiled sweets. “I’m on holiday. Do you know where I can stay?” he asked, cheerfully enough.

It was a sunny day in September 1940 and we were in West Place the row of old-world cottages on Wimbledon Common. Besides the sweet shop, the boss of the Roman Well Laundry lived there, and there was the yard of Hill’s, the builders, where I sometimes used to play. I accepted the soldier’s gum, “You could live in the bush house we’ve built on the Common” I answered.
He agreed without hesitation and for several mornings I would walk from my home at 4 Northview with a bowl of porridge and some apples. In return the soldier would show our gang how to make a sling tough enough to bring down wildlife for food, like he said he did in open country in Canada. He’d make whistles from a fresh sapling branch by first slipping off the bark, cutting the nicks and then sliding the bark back in place. And he’d tell us wondrous stories.

It was an idyllic time for an eight-year old boy. As yet there were no bombs. But it couldn’t last, though not because of Hitler. One morning as I carried out breakfast a policeman with two Canadian soldiers, who turned out to be armed Military Police men, asked me the question I can hear to this day. “Certainly, I’ve seen a soldier. We are looking after him in our bush house.”

They took him away and as he left escorted by the three in uniform, he gave me a glance. Only later, overhearing my parents whisper the word Deserter, did I realise what I had done. And I remember crying.

Not long afterwards my parents decided we should be evacuated and my mother hired an open lorry driven by a man named Slim. We children sat on a settee among beds and clothes. Thankfully it did not rain and the German bombers steered clear too!

We returned before the war ended, in time to shelter from incendiary bombs on the Common. The ack-ack gun by the windmill brought down a Heinkel which burned to pieces on the Royal Wimbledon Golf Course and our front window was blown in.

When the war ended our Northview gang built the biggest-ever bonfire. I still live half a mile from the actual place of this tale, and I might even find the actual bush!

ARNHEM VICTIM

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Continuing the stories of servicemen buried in Wimbledon. Flight Lieutenant Douglas Buckie service no. 134731 is buried in the Netherlands. The RAF Volunteer Reserve Pilot from no.2 squadron died in an operation over Arnhem in December 1944 a few months after the Battle.

According to the Royal Canadian Air Force RCAF Aylmer website, he went to the No. 14 Service Flying Training School at Aylmer, Ontario. It was one of many built across Canada under the British Commonwealth Air Training Plan during World War II.

Buckie was awarded a ‘mentioned in dispatches’ in November 1942.  I am grateful to the RCAF Aylmer source for pointing out that this information was part of their research, and not part of a Dutch WWII website where I originally accessed the information and the CWGC picture below. Further information can be found at: http://rcafaylmer.blogspot.com/

Grave of Flight Lt Douglas Buckie.  Source: CWGC Website

At Gap Road cemetery in Wimbledon, London his grandmother paid for a memorial to be erected to commemorate him, so he must have had a connection with the area.

Memorial for Flt Lt Douglas Buckie

TROOPER WILLIAM REID, GEEL

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Trooper William Reid. Pic. Sherwood Rangers Yeomanry.

Remembering Trooper William Reid aged 21 from Inchicore in Dublin.

Regimental badge

A member of the Sherwood Rangers Yeomanry, he was killed 75 years ago on Sunday 10th September 1944 when his C Squadron tank was hit at the Doornboom crossroads during the battle to secure the bridgehead over the Albert Canal at Geel in Belgium.

Captain John E. Mann MC

The rest of the crew, the commander Captain John E. Mann MC, Trooper Ernest Winchester and Trooper John Saunders, were also killed. All were buried by the unit’s chaplain Reverend Leslie Skinner in St Apollonia’s churchyard at Stelen two days later, where they still lie.

CWGC Cemetery Stelen Pic. Ricky van Dyck (ww2talk.com)

The padre was the first chaplain to land on the Normandy beaches on D-Day in June 1944 with the unit.
Geel is twinned with Tydavnet and Monaghan.

Grave of Trooper William Reid (ww2talk.com)

Name: REID, WILLIAM ANTHONY
Rank: Trooper
Regiment/Service: Royal Armoured Corps
Unit Text: Nottinghamshire Yeomanry
Age: 21
Date of Death: 10/09/1944
Service No: 14427894
Additional information: Son of John and Annie Reid; husband of Kathleen Reid, of Inchicore, Dublin, Ireland.
Grave/Memorial Reference: Brit. Plot, grave 15.
Cemetery: GEEL (Stelen) Churchyard

A tank of the Sherwood Foresters Yeomanry at Stationstraat Geel on 10th September 1944. Pic. Willem van Broeckhoven in ‘September Helden’ (Geerings G).

75th anniversary of Battle of Geel is marked by the Belgian Defence Forces

BRITISH CEMETERY GEEL

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On the 75th anniversary of the Battle of Geel we remember those members of the Irish Guards and others buried in the CWGC cemetery in Geel.

They were killed in the advance across Belgium (following D-day in June 1944) establishing a bridgehead across the Albert and the Meuse canals in Geel in September 1944. Fourteen are buried at the CWGC British cemetery in Geel. Twelve headstones are pictured here. They include a Guardsman Simpson from Portadown Co. Armagh. Thanks for the pictures Leo Haeseldonckx We will remember them.

Guardsman E. Shearer

21 yr old Guardsman Edward Shearer (no family details) died on 14/09/44 3rd Battalion Irish Guards.

Guardsman William Simpson from Portadown

Guardsman William Simpson aged 20 from Portadown 3rd Bn Irish Guards died 07/09/44.

Guardsman J. Barlow

24 yr old Guardsman Jack Barlow from Macclesfield 3rd Bn Irish Guards died 07/09/44.

Guardsman E. J. Breslin

28 yr old Guardsman Edward Joseph Breslin 3rd Bn Irish Guards (a Donegal name).

Captain William R.R. Bruce, aged 32, 3rd Bn Irish Guards died 07/09/44.

Lance Serjeant T. Davidson

Lance Serjeant Thomas Davidson aged 29 from Nottingham 3rd Bn Irish Guards died 07/09/44.

Lance Corporal W. Houghton

Lance Corporal Wilfred Houghton, aged 24, 3rd Bn Irish Guards died 14/09/44.

Guardsman L. Hutchman

Guardsman Lawrence Hutchman aged 35 from Pontypridd 3rd Bn Irish Guards died 14/09/44.

Sgt Tom Johns aged 28 3rd Bn Irish Guards died 07/09/44.

Lt Humphrey O. C. Kennard

Lt Humphrey Oscar Coleridge Kennard from Chelsea, London 3rd Bn Irish Guards died 14/09/44.

Lance Corporal JJ O’Neill

Lance Corporal John James O’Neill aged 22 from Liverpool 3rd Bn Irish Guards died 14/09/44.

Guardsman Alan Parsons aged 22 3rd Bn Irish Guards of Tydd St Giles Cambridgeshire died 07/09/44.

Lance Serjeant John Proe

Lance Serjeant John Proe of Whiston, Lancashire aged 23 died 07/09/44 3rd Bn Irish Guards buried in Geel.

Guardsman Rudolph Edwin John Stone died 3rd Bn Irish Guards (no age or family details) died 07/09/44. We will never forget them.

BATTLE OF GEEL

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Moving away from WWI to WWII but staying in Belgium, this is the 75th anniversary of the Battle of Geel. A number of commemorative events are taking place, including a weekend of re-enactments and other activities.

Belgium Remembers

The Battle of Geel occurred on 10th and 11th September 1944. Many of the British soldiers who fought in the Sherwood Rangers and other regiments such as the Irish Guards are buried in the CWGC cemetery in Geel. This town in Belgium is twinned with Tydavnet and Monaghan. I notice that one of the casualties was a Trooper Reid from Dublin. He is buried at Stelen churchyard.

Trooper William Reid from Dublin

From the Sherwood Rangers Yeomanry 1939-45 page:

Remembering today….Trooper William Reid

Tpr. Reid, aged 21 from Dublin, Ireland, was killed on Sunday 10th September 1944 when his B Squadron tank was hit at the Doornboom crossroads during the battle to secure the bridgehead over the Albert Canal at Geel, Belgium.
The rest of the crew, Capt. John Mann MC, Tpr. Ernest Winchester and Tpr. John Saunders, were also killed and all were buried by Padre Leslie Skinner in Stelen churchyard two days later, where they still lie.

Geel commemoration for WWII

‘They are here!’ Remembering the liberation of Flanders by the Allies 1944/45

BARD COTTAGE CEMETERY

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Bard Cottage Cemetery

For much of the First World war, the village of Boezinge directly faced the German line across the Yser canal. Bard Cottage was a house a little set back from the line, close to a bridge called Bard’s Causeway. The cemetery was made nearby in a sheltered position under a high bank. Burials were made between June 1915 and October 1918 and they reflect the presence of the 49th (West Riding), the 38th (Welsh) and other infantry divisions in the northern sectors of the Ypres Salient, as well as the advance of artillery to the area in the autumn of 1917.

Grave of Lance Corporal Charles H. Smith, South Staffordshire Regiment

Among the graves is that of Lance Corporal Charles H. Smith, South Staffordshire Regiment. He died on 16th August 1917, aged 29, and came from Altrincham near Manchester.

Margaret Nolan, Co. Kilkenny, searching for the graves at Bard Cottage Cemetery

There are now 1,639 Commonwealth casualties of the First World War buried or commemorated in this cemetery. Of these burials, 39 are unidentified but special memorials commemorate three casualties known to be buried among them. The cemetery was designed by Sir Reginald Blomfield.

DRIVER P. MCKENNA

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Grave of Driver P. McKenna from Kilkenny

Driver P. McKenna service number 77374 was from Kilkenny, where his father Michael lived, according to the CWGC records. He served with D Battery 121st Brigade of the Royal Field Artillery.

CWGC memorial book at Bard Cottage cemetery

He died on August 19th 1917, aged 34. He is buried at Bard Cottage cemetery at Boezinge north of Ieper.

Bard Cottage Cemetery

ARTILLERY WOOD CEMETERY

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Artillery Wood Military Cemetery

Artillery Wood Military Cemetery at Boezinge near Ieper is the final resting place of the poet Lance Corporal Francis Ledwidgand the Welsh bard Hedd Wyn.

Artillery Wood Military Cemetery

he cemetery was established in 1917 after fighting in the immediate area – the Battle of Picked Ridge – had moved away and was used for burials until March 1918.

At the point of the armistice there were some 141 graves in the cemetery. Concentration from the battlefields and three smaller cemeteries (Boesinghe Chateau Grounds, Brissein House and Captain’s Farm) enlarged this to the present 1307.

Artillery Wood Military Cemetery

Artillery Wood Military Cemetery

Artillery Wood Military Cemetery