Your thoughts on this???

Cheers Owen yeah thats the grave I thought it was the 14-18 war but seem to remember the name etc. being British.

If he is a Indian Soldier as it seems he is, that's a bit crap putting him in the corner like that.


Could it be he was a Muslim Indian so buried facing Mecca?

 

Could it be he was a Muslim Indian so buried facing Mecca?


No - he's facing westwards.

Dave

 

Being impatient/selfish now, and wondering if you got to Ft de Malmaison at all and found those German graves?

Unfortunately, I'm afraid that I didn't - simply had too much to do in too little time and so had to skip my planned Reims area stop. I'll be going back specifically to that area in the next couple of months though, so will get the pics then.

Dave

(PS. nothing spooky about getting Bej Nath's grave photo really, just co-incidence - for real spookiness, I got a couple of "decidedly odd" photos at Ft.de Douaumont which I'm going to get someone to look at when I get home (not really a believer in the paranormal, but there is something quite strange on these!)

 

What do you think of this Austrian number plate I took the other week?


Fantastic!

 

The evening of the 24th (4 days! - God, it seems a lifetime ago already!!!)

Dave


I ws there on the 22nd..Funny that

 

The "Aristo's" at Wormhoudt that I mentioned earlier...





Dave

 

Can I ask a question Dave ? ... why did they put a Private in the same grave as the Earl ?? was he his batman or something - ( though he was a different regiment ) ??

Annie

 

Check out the following thread where it is well covered.

http://www.ww2talk.com/forum/nw-europe/3169-wormhoudt-massacre.html

Thank you for the link.

What a terrible incident. My heart goes to the men who were the victims--both those that died and those that survived.

tom

 

Can I ask a question Dave ? ... why did they put a Private in the same grave as the Earl ?? was he his batman or something - ( though he was a different regiment ) ??

Annie

I was thinking that but didn't want to ask.....It would be nice to think that the answer is something along the lines or dying together buried together.

 

12th Lancers were not brigaded in the BEF orbat. Perry was 2nd Northamptons (5 Div). I'll do some looking-up to see if they were (officially) together.

The usual reason for a common grave is that of identification, either at the time or because they were identified and locally buried at the same location in 1940 but were no longer identifiable post-war.

 

Many of the Wormhoudt communal cemetery graves are in pairs. Most came from isolated graves and elsewhere and were buried by the local populous in (if memory recalls) 1941 when the occupying forces gave them permission to do so. Apart from the reasons given by Rich, many of these were so buried because it was easier and quicker to just dig one grave than two, especially when space and time was limited.

As far as I know, there is no link between Perry and the earl.

Dave

 

Going back to Bej Nath, he was an Indian driver who was buried separately because he was 'black' - and not of the British Isles. This summer, the Cloth Hall in Ypres had a fascinating exhibition on the WW1 & 2 soldiers garnered from the four corners of Empire, skulls who made up numbers and were given about as much respect as the pack-horses. The notion of him facing Mecca is heartening but incorrect - this was just a useful place to keep 'him' away from the 'others'. The Belgian-run site [link below] esquelbecqmil has him as in the 'Indian plot - A1'
The [pink] lotus flowers just pictured are the national flower of India. They were laid there on June 3rd this year in recognition of the fact that probably no member of his family ever knew where he ended up.

 

The Warricks graves - chilling , a definate chill when you consider that they were simply murdered.

Within my own area of interest one of the tragic stories I came across was that of Sgt Gale who was killed at Killadeas in 1944.
By pure chance I was corresponding with a gentleman who had passed through 131(c) OTU and I asked him if he knew anything about the death of sgT Gale . ( Who was there at the same time as him).
It turned out the poor lad was struck by a still truning propellor , as it was said to me "he was still alive when we took him from the water" , poor lad died later that day in the Erne Hospital Enniskillen.

That they were youngsters never fails to impress on me the utter wastefulness of war both in viewing 14-18 and 39-45 headstones , seeing the youngsters comeing back from overseas agian it is such a waste of young life when all is said and done.

Below Sgt Gale who is buried in Irvinestown Church of Ireland , County Fermanagh.