Update: Memorials to the Missing of Fromelles

By office volunteer, Annette Gaykema. Further to Frances Casey’s blog post of July 2009, records held at the Australian War Memorial and the National Archives of Australia can shed further light on Sidney Frank William Harold Green. Like all First World War Australian service records, his file has been digitised by the National Archives. In this file [...]

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Memorials to the Missing of Fromelles

article by UKNIWM Project Officer, Frances Casey The anniversary of the Battle of the Somme on 1st July has made me think recently of that equally disastrous attack, intended as a diversion and strategic support to the main Somme offensive, which took place at Fromelles on 19th July 1916. In the news, following the discovery of [...]

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Last French WW1 veteran dies

Lazare Ponticelli, the last surviving French veteran from the First World War, has died at the age of 110.  He is expected to received a state funeral and France will declare a national day of remembrance.  Ponticelli was born in Italy in 1897, but moved to France as a child.  At the outbreak of the First World War [...]

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‘I am the enemy you killed, my friend…’

Today’s blog post was written by one of our volunteers, Richard. ‘I am the enemy you killed, my friend…’ Wilfred Owen ‘Strange Meeting’ The reference in an earlier blog post to memorials to nationals of enemy countries may seem strange, although in recent times new memorials have been erected with inscriptions intended not to cause offence [...]

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Reminders of a French invasion

On this day 25 years ago, Henry VIII’s flagship the Mary Rose was raised from the bed of the Solent where it had lain for 437 years.  The Mary Rose had capsized on 19 July 1545 as it sailed out to meet the French fleet. A few days earlier, hundreds of French troops had invaded the Isle of Wight.  [...]

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