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Duizen British Cemetary

Mike Shimwell

New member
Just outside Arras in northern France is the small British cemetary at Duizen. Around 3,000 men lie here, who fell between 1918 and 1920. Some 2,700 British soldiers, together with Australian and other Commonwealth comrades.

It is worthy of note that war deaths were counted up to around 1920 or 1921, but that the subsequent deaths from injuries sustained during the Great War are not included in the numbers usually discussed.

Those who died in such violence now lie in a place of peace and their graves serve as a reminder to those of us who now live in freedom of the horror they faced, and that others, both solider and otherwise, still face today.

Sue's grandfather joined the British army aged around 13 or 14 and served in the Great War. He was gassed at Pashendaele in 1917 and returned home to recover. In fact his lungs bore the scars all his life and he was unable to undertake robust physical work again. He was demobbed in 1919 aged 20, barely old enough to start fighting, never mind to have fought in the trenches.

Mike


Duizen British Cemetary - over 3,000 men lie here
1000304.jpg



Care is still evidenced in flowers by the graves
U25074I1416353008.SEQ.1.jpg



The fallen of all faiths lie side by side
U25074I1416353009.SEQ.2.jpg



In memoriam
U25074I1416353009.SEQ.3.jpg
 

Asher Kelman

OPF Owner/Editor-in-Chief
Very crowded, yet well maintained. The first shot is a real nice tribute.

Reginald

.......and a somber reminder of the horrors of war and mass weapons, especially poison gas!

I appreciate that you rediscovered this important "moral treasure of memory" for us, Reginald.

Thanks!

Asher
 

Asher Kelman

OPF Owner/Editor-in-Chief
Just outside Arras in northern France is the small British cemetary at Duizen. Around 3,000 men lie here, who fell between 1918 and 1920. Some 2,700 British soldiers, together with Australian and other Commonwealth comrades.

It is worthy of note that war deaths were counted up to around 1920 or 1921, but that the subsequent deaths from injuries sustained during the Great War are not included in the numbers usually discussed.

Those who died in such violence now lie in a place of peace and their graves serve as a reminder to those of us who now live in freedom of the horror they faced, and that others, both solider and otherwise, still face today.

Sue's grandfather joined the British army aged around 13 or 14 and served in the Great War. He was gassed at Pashendaele in 1917 and returned home to recover. In fact his lungs bore the scars all his life and he was unable to undertake robust physical work again. He was demobbed in 1919 aged 20, barely old enough to start fighting, never mind to have fought in the trenches.

Mike


Duizen British Cemetary - over 3,000 men lie here
1000304.jpg



Care is still evidenced in flowers by the graves
U25074I1416353008.SEQ.1.jpg



The fallen of all faiths lie side by side
U25074I1416353009.SEQ.2.jpg



In memoriam
U25074I1416353009.SEQ.3.jpg

Mike,

Sorry for the time of suffering in Sue's family. Trenches were indeed filled with poison gas. My uncle was marched off to war with a wooden fake rifle as they didn't have enough real ones for all the new recruits! He was also gassed. He was then buried alive and lime was added to stop the stench of the piles of dead soldiers. He crawled out of the mass grave. He spent the rest of his life, crippled in a wheelchair! That seems a long time ago, as a horror of the past from some more primitive time. We even banned weapons like poison gas voluntarily. So all the more shock and disgust at Russia's defense of Assad's use of Sarin against the Sunni in Syria!

Asher
 
Mike,

Sorry for the time of suffering in Sue's family. Trenches were indeed filled with poison gas. My uncle was marched off to war with a wooden fake rifle as they didn't have enough real ones for all the new recruits! He was also gassed. He was then buried alive and lime was added to stop the stench of the piles of dead soldiers. He crawled out of the mass grave. He spent the rest of his life, crippled in a wheelchair! That seems a long time ago, as a horror of the past from some more primitive time. We even banned weapons like poison gas voluntarily. So all the more shock and disgust at Russia's defense of Assad's use of Sarin against the Sunni in Syria!

Asher

These two stories trigger indescribable emotions. When such a thing happens to someone close to us, it shakes our fundamental faith in divine justice and all that. The agony that the three thousand families would have suffered is difficult to comprehend. And this is just a fraction of the war's casualty. I wish we humans try to learn from our own history.

Reginald
 

Asher Kelman

OPF Owner/Editor-in-Chief
These two stories trigger indescribable emotions. When such a thing happens to someone close to us, it shakes our fundamental faith in divine justice and all that. The agony that the three thousand families would have suffered is difficult to comprehend. And this is just a fraction of the war's casualty. I wish we humans try to learn from our own history.

Reginald

It might be better if we taught children that "we are descended from apes".

Then, compassion....

Asher
 
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