Spent a couple of hours at the National Memorial Arboretum on what turned out to be a gloriously sunny and windy Bank Holiday Monday. I really feel fortunate to live within half an hour of this place and it does become a refuge. The NMA continues to flourish and thrive and even though I’m such a regular visitor there is always something newly dedicated or I see something previously seen but with a new perspective or meaning. I cannot congratulate the designers, management and staff highly enough for what they are achieving here, one only has to look at the visitors, the diversity of their ages and their reasons for being there, to realise that during the short lifetime of the Arboretum, it has already captured the hearts of the Nation. From the old man in Blazer and Beret who struggled out of his wheelchair to salute a monument to his comrades to the child planting a poppy cross for the Great Grandfather she never knew, all have found a place where they can show and share their gratitude to those who have served their Country well.
I started off, as I always do, by making my way to the area which holds Memorials to those who served in the Far East. The walk up to the FEPOW building now offers a nice view of the building across the newly planted ATS grove.
On the way we pass the area dedicated to the Halton Brats (receiving some remedial work) and the Memorial to the RAF Regiment.
Having read a lot recently about the war in the Far East I find myself profoundly moved by the original lych gate from Changi which has now found a permanent home here. Sitting on its benches I can’t help wondering about all those who sat there almost seventy years ago after they’d buried their friends, or were contemplating their own futures while racked with another bout of malaria, dysentery or beri-beri.
Moving further up the path there is a short section of rail from the Sumatra Railway which has examples of the tools the prisoners used whilst building the railway.
There is also a section from the Burma Railway.
The FEPOW Prayer stands prominent on one of the plinths in this area….
And those that are left grow old with the years
Remembering the heartache, the pain and the tears,
Hoping and praying that never again
Man will sink to such sorrow and shame
The price that was paid we will always remember
Every day, every month, not just in November.
But many of the Memorials, quiet, understated, are personal too and only tell a fraction of the story which, for the majority, remains largely untold.
7663330 Private Frederick William Burgess was 26 at the time of his death and hailed from Bearsted, Kent. It seems likely he was captured during the Fall of Singapore.
The Memorial to the Hong Kong Volunteer Defence Corps is new…
2,000 strong in 1941, 730 men of that unit had died, either killed in action or as a result of captivity, by the end of the war.
We see these names on Memorial and we see them remembered as soldiers, sailors or airmen. We sometimes forget that they were husbands, brothers, sons, fathers and grandfathers and that they had lives before they served their Country, although for all too many, the service and sacrifice was final and supreme.
More later.
Regards,
kev35
By: me109g4 - 5th May 2011 at 14:37
Many thanks for posting, as a brit living in the USA there are a lot of things I never knew existed, and this is one of them. I can see why people spend a lot of time there, truly spectacular. JT
By: Steve Bond - 5th May 2011 at 09:02
I second all that, this is a wonderful place; if you have never been, go!
By: Old Lass - 4th May 2011 at 22:37
Thank you for a really lovely post, its good that people have such a wonderful place to visit in memory of loved ones or hero’s from past times.
Ann
By: kev35 - 4th May 2011 at 21:32
The whole place is far too large for me to get round in a single day. It really needs a couple of days to be able to see everything and to take it all in.
There are quite a lot of Memorials to the RAF, both large and small. The next one here is to the Far East Air Force, names which will be familiar to many.
This was a nice touch.
As was the small plaque attached to it.
Self explanatory, there were several more in the same vein.
The new RAFA Memorial is absolutely stunning in the sunshine.
The WAAF Memorial is new as well and the way the trades are cut out of the roundel to be displayed on the plinth works particularly well.
214 Squadron (Federated Malay States)
Some Memorials are to those who found themselves a long way from home.
402565 Sergeant Clive Edward Wigram Clifford, RAAF, was 23 at the time of his death on the night of 24th March 1942. He was navigator on Lancaster I R5493 of 44 Squadron which had taken off from Waddington at 19:50 on a Gardening sortie in the Lorient area. A sea plot was heard from the aircraft around 23:00 hours and it is believed that the aircraft was shot down by flak from the Ile de Croix. The entire crew are commemorated on the Runnymede Memorial.
Flight Sergeant Lyster Warren-Smith, RAFVR.
Sergeant Richard Alfred Marston, RAF. He was 28 and came from Southern Rhodesia.
Sergeant Alastair Fraser Murdoch, RAF. Aged 22.
Sergeant Clive Edward Wigram Clifford, RAAF.
Sergeant John Boyd, RAFVR. Aged 24 he was from Dalmuir, Dunbartonshire.
Sergeant Edward Burgess Cluff, RAFVR.
Sergeant William Harold Flower, He was 31 years of age and came from Goole, Yorkshire.
Flight Sergeant John McNally Davidson, RAF. He was 29 and from Salisbury, Wiltshire.
The casualty repatriation file for Sergeant Clifford reveals that although no bodies were recovered, fragments of battle dress and a wallet belonging to him were recovered. After the war, the wallet was returned to his parents, Dr. William and Mrs. Doris Adrienne Clifford.
I’m always struck by the sheer magnitude of the Merchant Convoy grove, a plantation of some two and a half thousand trees, each one signifying a British flagged merchant vessel lost during the war.
Even on such a windy day, the centre of the grove is an absolute oasis of stillness and silence. A Bofors gun is present in tribute to the DEMS gunners who sailed aboard merchant vessels.
It is perhaps fitting that the Fleet Air Arm continue to provide an escort for the convoy of the lost.
The final two are of the new Armed Forces Memorial and the Basra Wall. I went up to the AFM but did not take any photo’s as there were families there paying their respects to their fallen.
The Basra Wall is impressive but I was particularly taken with the reflections visible in the brass plaques.
I think that’s about it for this visit.
Regards,
kev35
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May 4, 2011 at 4:00 pm