MEMORIALS OF THE WAR

Taranaki Daily News, 7 October 1931, Page 3

MEMORIALS OF THE WAR

TOUR Or FRANCE & BELGIUM SOLDIERS' CEMETERIES VISITED. TALBOT HOUSE AND ALL HALLOWS. Recent visits to the British cemeteries in the, war zones and to the war memorials were described by Mr. T. C. List lasi night in an address to the New Plymouth grope of the Toe II movement. Special reference was made to Talbot House at Poperinghe and to All Hallows Church in London, both of which have a very special significance in the movement. Mr. List said he had . been very much impressed by the work done by the War Graves Commission and by the improvements that had been effected between 1924 and last year. He first visited Poperinghe in the summer of 1924 in company with Padre Mullineaux, who had been with the New Zealand forces in the salient throughout the struggles for the defence of that historic corner of the Allies’ line. The padre, who had visited Taranaki some years ago, was head of the St. Barnabas order, which had its headquarters at Calais, and whose mission was to arrange and organise visits by relatives of fallen British soldiers to the cemeteries in Belgium air’ northern France. Referring to the war cemeteries in the neighbourhood of Poperinghe, Mr. List said that at Lyssenhoek contained about 11,900 graves, many of which belonged. to New Zealanders, some of them Maoris. In 1924 the surroundings were cold, dank, w-ater-logged and forbidding, but to-day that had all been changed. The cemetery was a beautiful, parklike place and one was impressed by the interest, reverence and loving care of the workmen. 1 PASSCHENDAELE OFFENSIVE. From this locality he and his party went on to Passfhendaele, passing through Gravenstafel, the starting point in the great and sanguinary Passchendaele offensive of 1917. Here was a Cross of Remembrance erected by the New Zealand Government, a replica of which had been presented to the New Plymouth cemetery by Mr. and Mrs. C. H- Burgess. The cross was planted around with New Zealand shrubs and flowers, including a number of veronicas and olearias, most of them doing quite well in their new environment. 1 The only visible evidences of war in the Passchendaele countryside were the pill-boxes, some of which were nine to ten feet thick and reinforced with massive steel bars. Ho'w our men captured these formidable structures was a mystery. But for the pill-boxes, the country had been cleaned up and drained, the trenches levelled and farm buildings re-erected. Waterloo farm thereabouts w r as afterwards the headquarters of the advance force. A view- of the terrain supplemented by the padre's explanation indicated, the hopelessness of the attack under the prevailing conditions. With the exception of the cathedral and Cloth Hall, all Ypres was re-built and cleaned up. Pending the reinstatement of the cathedral the parish church was being used. The Cloth Hall, however, was to be left in its present bombarded condition as a reminder of the war years. At-Messines there was another Cross of Remembrance to fallen New Zealanders. At this place, too, was the great hole excavated by a mine. It was now a lake, the French having found it too big a job to fill it in. following the line on which the New Zealanders were engaged through to Arras and the Somme, the party saw a third Cross of Remembrance at Tjongueval. Cemeteries at Tynecot, Caterpillar Valley, G cavillers, The Buttes were visited and some beautiful memorials were seen, those to the South Africans, Newfoundlanders and Ulstermen being particularly striking. INSPIRING MENIN GATE. The wonderful, inspiring Menin Gates erected by the British Government in honour or the men who fell in the salient greatly impressed the visitors. They travelled to Ypres from Lille via the Menin Road of immortal memory, the road along which so many thousands had marched to the front, many of them never to return. There was a most, inspiring atmosphere about that gate, .upon the panels of which were mentioned the names of 54,000 fallen. Altogether the war had cost Britain 1,090,000 men,' of whom 310,000 were listed, as missing. In France there were 759,000 British graves, 675,000 of which were marked with headstones. One panel on the gate commemorated 2384 missing New Zealanders, the inscription being as follows: “To the 2384 soldiers of the New Zealand Expeditionary Force who fell in the Ypres Salient; those who have no known grave are commemorated on memorials in Tynecot cemetery, Passchendacle, The Buttes, New British Cemetery, Polygon Wood and Messines Ridge British Cemetery.” The Menin Gate memorial itself was one of the most striking and impressive in the world. Certainly nothing to Unital it was seen outside the Scottish war memorial on Edinburgh Castle, which stood alone as the most beautiful, the most dignified, the most enduring and the most complete of all memorials. The Menin memorial was difficult, if not impossible to describe. It had to be seen to be appreciated. Pictures could give some idea of its impressiveness, but it had to be seen in its setting to realise what a wonderful architectural triumph it was. The designers also had succeeded in portraying and conveying to the beholder the spirit of the armies the memorial commemorates. Most of the British armies engaged in the work of defending the salient passed over the Menin Road on their way to the trenches. Hundreds of thousands never returned. They died that others might live and enjoy their liberty. They died to dethrone war and all the horrors they suffered in that awful salient, Across the gates appeared these simple yet significant words: “To the armies of the British Empire, who stood here from 1914.-18, and tothose of their dead who have no known grave.” One lingered in such hallowed ground and the atmosphere of such a memorial. Talbot House in Poperinghe was one of a row of Flemish buildings. The lower storey, before the shell fire became too concentrated, was used as a residence, while the loft was used for the storage of hops. This house was commandeered by Padre “Tubby” Clayton. The loft was transformed into a chapel, and the lower rooms were con-

verted into a club or rest-rooms for officers and men going to or coming from the salient. Over 100,090 soldiers had worshipped in the chapel. Over the doo. of the house were the words, “All rank abandon all ye who enter here.” The altar was, appropriately, a carpenters’ table, and the candle-sticks were made from Belgian bedposts. The form of the lamp was adapted from the catacomb models, with the addition _of a double cross from the arms of Ypres. In the chapel was Gilbert Talbots cross from his grave at Hooke. The chapel was reached by a steep, narrow ladder. The whole building had been renovated since he first saw it in 1924, said Mr. List, but its original features had been retained. It was still the shrine and inspiration of Toe H, and no one could visit it without remembering the brave spirits who made their last communion at its crude, yet significant, altar and table. The Mayor of Poperinghe described it as “a refuge of consolation for thousands and thousands of British troops who found there succour for body and soul.” AU Hallows Church was near Tower HUI, London. Its memories went back 1290 years, for it was established as far back as A.D. 685. It was over 200 years old when Alfred made himself Master of London. In the fire of London in 1087 the early church was destroyed. It was then rebuilt and was a shrine for the Kings who occupied the tower. In 1666, during the second great fire of London, it was just saved. It was one of only eight city churches that survived. - Features of the church were the beautiful iron work, brasses, the oak work of the pulpit and its intricate tracery. In the Lady Chapel, founded by Richard Couer de Lion, was the central shrine of Toe H. There was a magnificent casket containing the first Toe H Lamp of Maintenance given by the Prince of Wales in 1922 in memory of his personal friends who fell in the war. Nearby hung an oil painting of Lamp and Tomb, also given by the Prince, THE FOUNDER’S SWORD. , In a plain sword rest on the north side of the chapel was now the sword of the late Major Edmund Street, D. 5.0., a foundation member of Toe H. This sword the Prince brought back with him from Canada, and here placed in repose on December 15, 1923, a “symbol of the spirit in action in a grandly dangerous -world.” Beneath were inscribed some ringing words of John Bunyan. The Mortuary Sword, known as the “Sword of the Sanctuary,” was presented in 1926 by William Leigh Groves, of Windermere, and lay before the altar with the blade pointing eastward, symbolic of a prayer for the peace of the nations, that it might lie there so long as they were at peace with their fellow-men. Before the altar steps was a sculptured bronze recumbent figure; a work of art and a work of love. The sculptor, Cecil Thomas, lay in the next bed in hospital to his friend, Alfred Forster, younger son of Lord and Lady Forster, to whom Australia owed, among much else, the beginning of Toe II in the Commonwealth. The likeness was exact, but, by the wish of the donors, no name was inscribed, in order that the figure might symbolise and represent those elder brethren “who by their faithfulness unto death” made the supreme sacrifice. Round the base ran the lines from Laurence Binyon’s “For the Fallen,” which are used throughout Toe II in the ceremony of the Lighting of the Lamp. 14TII CENTURY WORK. As recently as 1926 there was discovered beneath the south aisle a mortuary crypt, now dedicated as a chapel to St. Francis of Assisi, and used for private prayer and compline. It was a well-preserved, specimen of 14th century work. The discovery included an upper gallery in which, beside a small window, there was embedded in the chalk foundations a stone that might well be of the greatest antiquarian and religious interest. It bore traces of runic design or influence, and. might possibly be a fragment of an old churchyard cross, so old as to have been re-used about 1320, when the wall was built. In the crypt chapel there were four wooden battle crosses from the war cemeteries overseas, where they were now replaced by stone memorials. The survivors of the first Talbot House felt that there was so much good in that spirit of the front line comradeship, cheerfulness, self-sacrifice, in the cause of a great ideal, that they determined not to let it die, but to hand it on to their younger brothers; so that century after century the torch should pass, and the old hopes, the old ideals, be kept alive, and the undying spirit of Youth be stirred to work unceasingly for all that the “elder brethren" had died to achieve. The torch in the church had never gone out since first lit. The font cover, the work of Grinling Gibbons, was of one piece of lime wood. When the Queen visited All Hallows a short time ago she asked that the font cover should be cleaned. This had been done and cost £75. The original sum paid to the carver for the work was £l3. SCOTLAND’S NATIONAL SHRINE. Mr. List made a brief reference to Scotland’s national shrine and. war memorial at Edinburgh. Scots from every corner of the world had contributed to this most inspiring casket of memories. It was felt that the peak of the rock, around which Scottish life and history had surged for centuries, should be dedicated to the purposes of a war memorial that would ultimately develop into a treasure house for the national history of Scotland. There the memorial stood to-day, the deliberate and abiding gesture of Scots the world over, a great act of reverence and of love that would hearten generations to come. Never was a memorial built that linked so intimately the immediate with the remoter past and that gave to wliat was new the dignity that the older lacked. The American memorial in Edinburgh to Scots from that country who helped their native land in its hour of need was beautiful and singularly impressive. It was a life-size figure of a youn<r Scot in bronze, his hand shading lus eyes aa he looked upwards towards Edinburgh Castle, the symbol of Scotland’s imperishable and indomitable spirit. The face was strong and noble in outline, depicting quiet courage, patriotism and indomitable will. Behind this figure were relief figures in bronze marchnig in war kit, their faces showing the°same quiet resolution as that of their leader. Mr. List was accorded a vote of thanks on the motion of Mr. S. Hartnell, seconded by the Rev. Fordham Clark.