Montgomery laid to rest

Press, Volume CXVI, Issue 34119, 3 April 1976, Page 15

Montgomery laid to rest

I (N.Z. Press Assn—Copyright) . LONDON, April 2. Field-Marshal Viscount Montgomery of Alamein was bade fareswell in Windsor yester(day, Royalty, military; (chiefs, and a crowd ofj thousands paying homage. j Eighth Army and D-Day! (veterans rubbed shoulders i with field-marshals and the j elite Brigade of Guards at Windsor Castle. They were five deep in the: narrow streets of Windsor; | as the funeral procession i (made its way to St George’s! < Chapel. Inside the chapel, ticket-; (only guests were cram-: med together under the glare iof television lights. Included were the New; Zealand High Commissioner 1 (Mr Hugh Watt) and hi’wife, and the senior New I Zealand Army officer in London, Colonel John Morris. The New Zealand Re I | turned Servicemen’s Associ-1

.ation was represented by Mr (Wynne Mason, who lives in England. During a hymn, "The Strife is o'er, the Battle done, now is the Victor’s Triumph won ”. Lord Montgomery’s banner was laid over the altar. While a lone guardsman sounded the “Last Post” and “Reveille,” television viewers throughout Britain saw a photograph of Lord Montgomery, in battledress and beret, leaning over a tank turret. Outside the chapel, they were still waiting in their thousands — housewives, children, and old soldiers — when the coffin made its last journey from the chapel to a 250-year-old yew tree in Binestead, Hampshire. The seven-minute burial service was private, and attended by members of the family and close friends. But villagers still gathered it the gates to the churchyard, and boys from the nearby Montgomery of Alamein School formed a guard jf honour. As the "Last Post’ was rounded again, the coffin vas lowered in’o the erase.