World War One

[Louis]

Aerial view of the bombarded barracks at Ypres.

 

[Louis]

1918, London, U.S. soldiers in recovery with the Big Ben behind.

 

[Louis]

Then & now...
French troops march front the Petit Palais (1916)

 

[Louis]

A police patrolling with his "take cover" sign, London, 1917.

 

[Louis]

Then & now...
London, nov 11, 1918: a jubilant crowd outside Buckingham Palace celebrates the end of the WW1. The royal family appears on the balcony.

 

[Louis]

American Army field hospital inside ruins of church, France, 1918.

 

[Louis]

"...Unloading wounded Americans from the trucks which brought them from the hospitals to the famous Parisian cafe 'Les Ambassadeurs,' where the American Red Cross gave them an entertainment on the 4th of July afternoon in 1918..."

 

[Rico]

Bela Lugosi as young lieutenant in Austro-Hungarian army in WW1 , later became famous actor in role of Dracula and other horror films, taken in 1916.

 

[Hedgehog]

On November 7th, 1920, in strictest secrecy, four unidentified British bodies were exhumed from temporary battlefield cemeteries at Ypres, Arras, the Asine and the Somme.

None of the soldiers who did the digging were told why.
The bodies were taken by field ambulance to GHQ at St-Pol-Sur-Ter Noise. Once there, the bodies were draped with the union flag.
Sentries were posted and Brigadier-General Wyatt and a Colonel Gell selected one body at random. The other three were reburied.
A French Honour Guard was selected and stood by the coffin overnight of the chosen soldier overnight.
On the morning of the 8th November, a specially designed coffin made of oak from the grounds of Hampton Court arrived and the Unknown Warrior was placed inside.
On top was placed a crusaders sword and a shield on which was inscribed:
"A British Warrior who fell in the GREAT WAR 1914-1918 for King and Country".
On the 9th of November, the Unknown Warrior was taken by horse-drawn carriage through Guards of Honour and the sound of tolling bells and bugle calls to the quayside.
There, he was saluted by Marechal Foche and loaded onto HMS Vernon bound for Dover. The coffin stood on the deck covered in wreaths, surrounded by the French Honour Guard.
Upon arrival at Dover, the Unknown Warrior was met with a nineteen gun salute - something that was normally only reserved for Field Marshals.
A special train had been arranged and he was then conveyed to Victoria Station, London.
He remained there overnight, and, on the morning of the 11th of November, he was finally taken to Westminster Abbey.
The idea of the unknown warrior was thought of by a Padre called David Railton who had served on the front line during the Great War the union flag he had used as an altar cloth whilst at the front, was the one that had been draped over the coffin.
It was his intention that all of the relatives of the 517,773 combatants whose bodies had not been identified could believe that the Unknown Warrior could very well be their lost husband, father, brother or son...
THIS is the reason we wear poppies.
We do not glorify war.
We remember - with humility - the great and the ultimate sacrifices that were made, not just in this war, but in every war and conflict where our service personnel have fought - to ensure the liberty and freedoms that we now take for granted.
Every year, on the 11th of November, we remember the Unknown Warrior.
At the going down of the sun, and in the morning, we will remember them.

 

[Nathangun]

Sniff 07

 

[Louis]

Canadian Mobile Workshop for the repairing of Ross rifles and Lewis Guns at Vimy Ridge, May 1917.

 

[Gunner]

An aspect of the war no one really thinks about.
Good post.

 

[Louis]

1915, British soldiers on motorcycles in the Dardanelles, part of the Ottoman Empire, before the battle of Gallipoli.

 

[Gunner]

Passchendaele before and after the battles of Ypres

 

[Hedgehog]

Lincolnshire Regiment marching through Leighton Buzzard town in 1914..The regiment was billeted in the town during the winter of 1914 on exercises before going to France..

 

[Louis]

@Hedgehog ... Any member of your family participated in the war?

 

[Hedgehog]

@Hedgehog ... Any member of your family participated in the war?

@Louis My father was a Air Raid Watchman, he did have brothers who were involved in the war, those are some of the things I or we should find out more about, I often wished that I had asked
more questions about family being young it never cross's your mind at the time

 

[mTk]

Leighton Buzzard.
That sounds familiar.

 

[Louis]

Hey Ted @Hedgehog ... Then & Now ... maybe
Tell me if I'm right. I had to search your image for more than half an hour on Google Street. "High St". say the map. Near your house maybe?

In another image that I found of his city and that surely corresponds to that same day and in the same street, he says the following textually:
"Major John Storer (on horseback) observes the 8th Battalion, Lincolnshire Regiment, marching through Leighton Buzzard, Bedfordshire. Formed in Sept. 1914, the battalion trained in Hertfordshire and Bedfordshire in the winter of 1914-1915, when this photograph was taken. The Battalion landed at Boulogne on 10 Sept 1915. Major Storer was killed a few weeks later, on 25 Sept. at the Battle of Loos. His name can be found on the Loos Memorial to the Missing. The inexperienced battalion lost 22 out of its 24 officers at Loos, while 471 other ranks were reported as killed, wounded or missing. Commanding officer lieutenant colonel Harold Walter was among the casualties".

 

[Hedgehog]

Good detective work there @Louis

Leighton Buzzard.
That sounds familiar.

That's the place I live Terry, been here now for 48years after moving from London