General Chat

On this day, November 4, 1918 - a week before the war ended Wilfred Owen was killed in action.

Anthem for Doomed Youth
Wilfred Owen

What passing-bells for these who die as cattle?
Only the monstrous anger of the guns.
Only the stuttering rifles' rapid rattle
Can patter out their hasty orisons.
No mockeries now for them; no prayers nor bells,
Nor any voice of mourning save the choirs,--
The shrill, demented choirs of wailing shells;
And bugles calling for them from sad shires.
What candles may be held to speed them all?
Not in the hands of boys, but in their eyes
Shall shine the holy glimmers of good-byes.
The pallor of girls' brows shall be their pall;
Their flowers the tenderness of patient minds,
And each slow dusk a drawing-down of blinds.

THE DAY THE EARTH STOOD STILL

We marched up the hill as quiet as mice the enemy hurdling quickly,
Soldiers around me prepared their guns for open fire.

The guns went off and soldiers went down but all with a reason,
Just to leave the world with pride and the ones they love to remember them.

I felt a hurting in my heart making me fall down with them,
Staying still forever along with the world.

I knew I wasn't coming home not today but I will know,
That today was the day the Earth stood still.

GR Poppy appeal/promise failure. Shame! :-P

THE FINAL LETTER

Daddy told me he’d be back soon,
That he was woeful, he’d been gone since June.
He told me all was fine,
That he and his comrades felt simply divine.
Even though I was only eight,
I could imagine why he’d be a little late.
Thoughts of booming and banging from the guns of men,
Kept me up till half past ten.
Why, oh why, had he gone away,
Now the world felt so dull and grey.
In the back of my mind I understood,
That he was doing only good.
My dearest father was giving all he possessed,
So me, and you, could live without being depressed.
So when I got the final letter,
I felt a tiny bit better.
My loving dad had shone with bravery and pride,
He’d faded away with a bounce in his stride.
He’s not the only one,
Who wasn’t able to outrun a rattling gun.
Let us never forget,
We are in the soldier’s debt.

HOW WE SURVIVED

Left in a field to die, this soldier asks why,
Seeing faces all around, life is lost with no bounds.
We will remember this night, when we didn’t fight,
It makes me wonder, the enemy is under plunder.

The guns sounding so near, the fighting from the rear,
Nothing happening now, all I can think is how.

Bodies lay all about, they shout, I close my eyes and dream, of home.

GR have now put up a poppy at last.


Thank you GR. Better late than never

Nice to see the poppy at the top of this page. On the counter in my shop, we offer pins to go with your poppies. We also had self adhesive poppies in the box. they were mixed in with the normal ones
:-)

WARS OF YESTERDAY

Bombs exploding in the air
This occasion so unrare
All of this meant to scare
No time for victims to prepare
So many countries are involved
Trying to get this thing resolved
All this telling of our past
Which we seem to forget so fast
These are the wars of yesterday
Remembering back in dismay
Hoping not to come again
If they do where and when
These are the wars of yesterday
Remembering back in dismay.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~


Cannot see the GR Poppy because I have had a Remembrance Poppy top left corner of my desk top since I started this thread .
shaun

Commemorating the past.

Remembering all the fallen this cold November day,
For all they sacrificed for us so we can live work and play.
Never will they be forgotten we keep them in our hearts,
We thank them for our freedom and hope that peace can start.
Allow all war soon be over let us learn from the past,
Let’s treat each other with kindness so no flag fly half-mast.

Remembering



ALWAYS REMEMBER.

ALWAYS remember them.

LEST we forget we will always have gratitude for those who fought in the war.

ATTENTION is given to the people that have been in battle.

YEARS have gone by since the World Wars have happened.

STAND with pride while listening to the national anthem.

RED poppies are worn to remind people.

EARTH would be a better place for everyone if there was no conflict.

MEN and WOMEN lost their lives while fighting in war.

EXPLORE a new war monument.

MANY soldiers never came home from war.

BATTLES have come and gone and there is still battles going on today.

EVERYONE should never forget those who have given their lives for peace.

REMEMBER THEM.

They went with songs to the battle, they were young.
Straight of limb, true of eyes, steady and aglow.
They were staunch to the end against odds uncounted,
They fell with their faces to the foe.
They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old;
Age shall not weary them , nor the years condemn.
At the going down of the sun and in the morning,
We will remember them.
We will remember them.

http://goo.gl/WlprwE

Munition Wages
Earning high wages?
Yus, Five quid a week.
A woman, too, mind you,
I calls it dim sweet.

Ye'are asking some questions –
But bless yer, here goes:
I spends the whole racket
On good times and clothes.

Me saving? Elijah!
Yer do think I'm mad.
I'm acting the lady,
But – I ain't living bad.

I'm having life's good times.
See 'ere, it's like this:
The 'oof come o' danger,
A touch-and-go bizz.

We're all here today, mate,
Tomorrow – perhaps dead,
If Fate tumbles on us
And blows up our shed.

Afraid! Are yer kidding?
With money to spend!
Years back I wore tatters,
Now – silk stockings, mi friend!

I've bracelets and jewellery,
Rings envied by friends;
A sergeant to swank with,
And something to lend.

I drive out in taxis,
Do theatres in style.
And this is mi verdict –
It is jolly worth while.

Worth while, for tomorrow
If I'm blown to the sky,
I'll have repaid mi wages
In death – and pass by.

"I felt then, as I feel now, that the politicians who took us to war should have been given the guns and told to settle their differences themselves, instead of organizing nothing better than legalized mass murder."

-Harry Patch

Thank you Guinevere for the quote by Harry Patch.
He knew better and had more time to think about it than anybody else.

JOCK GREY SAID…

There ain’t no angels in foxholes,
Jock Grey once said to me.
He was looking at a different scene;
That I could clearly see.
Just tension and maybe boredom
And expectation among the boys,
Just waiting for the action,
Waiting for the noise
That soaks into your being
Once it all kicks off again;
Then it’s all action and panic
Shouting and screaming men.
There’s no glory down in foxholes
Ask any man who’s been there.
God and King and Country, no
Let me live is all you care;
And whether it’s hot or cold
Dry or wallowing in mud
Only one thing is certain
You’ll see lots of blood.
There ain’t no pride and glory
Just a sense of desolation;
If there is a god he ain’t gonna
Just back one lot of nations.
He’s probably packed his bags
Closed heaven down in haste,
Sickened by the carnage;
The awful bloody waste.
Perhaps that awful god
Hangs his head in shame
That they dare to do this killing
In his honour and his name.
Let the fountain pen warriors write
Of war’s glory and war’s pride
How many have seen a foxhole
Let alone been down inside.
I could see his shoulders heave
See the blankness in his gaze
Feel the raw emotion before
He came back from those days.
No there ain’t no angels in foxholes.
I wish they’d get that right.
Now whose round is it lads?
The beer’s bloody slow tonight.

To Germany, by Charles Hamilton Sorley

You are blind like us. Your hurt no man designed,
And no man claimed the conquest of your land.
But gropers both through fields of thought confined
We stumble and we do not understand.
You only saw your future bigly planned,
And we, the tapering paths of our own mind,
And in each others dearest ways we stand,
And hiss and hate. And the blind fight the blind.

When it is peace, then we may view again
With new won eyes each other's truer form
And wonder. Grown more loving kind and warm
We'll grasp firm hands and laugh at the old pain,
When it is peace. But until peace, the storm,
The darkness and the thunder and the rain.

Some mothers' sons lie in watery graves
Far from home, unseen by human eye.
They gave their all so we could live a life,
Theirs cut short by battles, wars and strife.

No graveside mourning for these families.
No knowing where their loved ones lie.
Only tears from parents deep in thought,
Only prayers for all those lost and sought.


A family tribute.

Guinevere,you beet me to it regarding Harry Patch, the following are interviews Harry had with the bbc, there are 15 altogether.

Harry Patch: Never spoke about the war until he turned a 100 years old he was born 17 June 1898.

A rude awakening.
I had a brother who was a regular soldier. He was in Africa when the war broke out. He was a sergeant major in the Royal Engineers, who fought and was wounded at Mons. And they kept him in England after that, as an instructor. He never went back and he used to tell me what the trenches were like. I didn’t want to go. I knew what I was going to. A lot of people didn’t and when they got to France they had a rude awakening.

The trenches were about six feet deep, about three feet wide - mud, water, a duckboard if you were lucky. You slept on the firing step, if you could, shells bursting all around you. Filthy.

~~~~~~~~~~
Infected by lice.
From the time I went to France - the second week in June 1917 - until I left 23rd December 1917, injured by shellfire, I never had a bath. I never had any clean clothes. And when we got to Rouen on the way home they took every stitch of clothing off us: vest, shirt, pants, everything and they burnt it all. It was the only way to get rid of the lice. For each lousy louse, he had his own particular bite, and his own itch and he’d drive you mad. We used to turn our vests inside out to get a little relief. And you’d go down all the seams, if you dared show a light, with a candle, and burn them out.

And those little devils who’d laid their eggs in the seam, you’d turn your vest inside out and tomorrow you’d be just as lousy as you were today. And that was the trenches.

~~~~~~~~~~~~
Fighting for their lives.
You daren’t show above otherwise a sniper would have you. You used to look between the fire and apertures and all you could see was a couple of stray dogs out there, fighting over a biscuit that they’d found. They were fighting for their lives. And the thought came to me – well, there they are, two animals out there fighting over dog biscuit, the same as we get to live. They were fighting for their lives. I said, ‘We are two civilised nations - British and German - and what were we doing? We were in a lousy, dirty trench fighting for our lives? For what? For eighteen pence a flipping day.’

Written by a Private in 'A' Company 2nd Battalion Sherwood Foresters 1915, from the trenches

THE RED, RED ROAD TO HOOGE

On parade, get your spade,
"Fall in" the Pick and Shovel Brigade,
There's a carrying fatigue for half a league
And a trench to dig with a spade.
Through the dust and ruins of –––* town,
The 17 inch shells battering down,
Spitting death with their fiery breath
On the Red, Red Road to Hooge

Who is the one whose time is come,
Who will not return when work in done
Who will leave his bones on the blood-stained stones
On the Red, Red Road to Hooge
Onwards "The Sherwoods" never a stop,
To the sand-bagged trenches and over the top
It was over the top is a bullet you stop
On the Red, Red Road to Hooge

The burst and roar of a hand grenade
Welcomed us on the Death Parade
The Pit of Gloom, the Valley of Doom,
The crater down at Hooge
Fall many a soldier of the Rhine
Must stop tonight in a pit of lime
Tis a pitiless grave, for a brave or knave
In the Crater down at Hooge.

Hark to the din of a fusillade
Brig your rifle and bring your spade,
And fade away at brewak of day
In a hole you'll fill at Hooge,
Call the Roll and another name
Is sent to swell the Roll of Fame
So we carved a cross to mark the spot
Where our chums had fell at Hooge

Not a deed for paper for which man will write
Of a glorious charge in the dawning light,
The Press who wait won't tell the tale
Of the slaughter done at Hooge.
But our General knows and his praise we won
For the glorious work our lads had done,
Through shot and shell, through the Gates of Hell On the Red, Red Road to Hooge.

Harry Patch interviews continued.

Life in the trenches.

You got tots of rum.There were many a man who didn’t like rum, didn’t drink it. It used to warm you up. Life in the trenches, well…can you imagine now, going out from this room along the corridor and there is a trench dug across the lawn. Six feet deep and three feet wide. There is water and mud in the bottom. You sit on a trench at the side to sleep, don’t matter whether it is wet, fine, hot or cold. Four days you are there and you got to stick it. That was the conditions.

If any man tells you he went into the front line and he wasn’t scared – he’s a liar. You were scared from the moment you got there. You never knew. I mean, in the trench you were all right. If you kept down, a sniper couldn’t get you. But you never knew if the artillery had a shell that burst above you and you caught the shrapnel. That was it.
~~~~~~~~~~

Shell shock.

You were in that trench. That was your front line. You had to keep an eye on the German front line. You daren’t leave. No. I suppose if you left, and some of them did, they were shot as cowards. That is another thing with shell shock – I never saw anyone with it, never experienced it – but it seemed you stood at the bottom of the ladder and you just could not move. Shellshock took all the nervous power out of you.

An officer would come down and very often shoot them as a coward. That man was no more a coward than you or I. He just could not move. That’s shell shock. Towards the end of war they recognised it as an illness. The early part of the war – they didn’t. If you were there you were shot. And that was it. And there’s a good many men who were shot for cowardice and they are asking now … that verdict be taken away. They were not cowards.

~~~~~~~~~~~

Sleep in the trenches.

Rats as big as cats. Anything they could gnaw, they would - to live. If you didn’t watch it, they’d gnaw your shoe laces. Anything leather, they would nibble that. As you went to sleep, you would cover your face with a blanket and you could hear the damn things run over you.

As you to sat on the firing step, you could have a doze. Not much more. Half-past seven in the morning, stand-to and you’d have an inspection. Last thing at night, you’d have an inspection. You had to sleep in between.

Harry Patch interviews continued.

No Man’s Land.

Probably you’d hear something in No Man’s Land. It might have been a working party. You reported it. The officer would have a look through his field glasses. If it was any good and it wasn’t British, give them a burst. Number One would give them a shot or two out of the Lewis gun, and after firing that Lewis gun from one aperture, we would always move down the trench. This was because, if it was spotted by a German observer there, the range was sent back to their artillery. Staying put was an invitation for half a dozen rockets. If you stayed where you were, you chanced it.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Going ‘over the top’

Never forget it. We crawled, couldn’t stand up - a sniper would have you. I came across a Cornishman, he must have been from ‘A’ or ‘B’ companies who were the assault companies when we went over. ‘C’ and ‘D’, we were support. I came across a Cornishman, he was ripped from his shoulder to his waist – shrapnel.

Now a bullet wound is clean, shrapnel will tear you all to pieces. He was laying there in a pool of blood. As we got to him, he said, ‘Shoot me.’ He was beyond all human aid. Before we would pull out the revolver to shoot him, he died. I was with him in the last seconds of his life. hen he went from this life, to whatever is beyond.

Now what I saw in the way of sights at Passchendaele and at Pilkem - the wounded lying about asking you for help - we didn’t have the knowledge, the equipment or the time to spend with them,
I lost all my faith in the Church of England.

And when that fellah died, he just said one word: ‘Mother.’ It wasn’t a cry of despair. It was a cry or surprise and joy. I think - although I wasn’t allowed to see her - I am sure his mother was in the next world to welcome him. And he knew it. I was just allowed to see that much and no more. And from that day until today - and now I’m nearly 106 years old - I shall always remember that cry and I shall always remember that death is not the end.

You’ve got a memory. You’ve got a brain about the size of a tea cup. I’ve got a memory that goes back for 80 or 90 years and I think that memory goes on with you when you die. And that’s my opinion. Death is not the end.

Last verse of 'Before Action' by W N Hodgson. Written at the end of June 1916. He was killed in action on the first day of the Battle of the Somme, 1 July 1916, aged 23.

~
I, that on my familiar hill
Saw with uncomprehending eyes
A hundred of thy sunsets spill
Their fresh and sanguine sacrifice,
Ere the sun swings his noonday sword
Must say good-bye to all of this; –
By all delights that I shall miss,
Help me to die, O Lord.
~