Now that the Centenary of the signing of the Armistice has passed it would be easy to forget the reason for the signing of the Armistice and why we hold Remembrance Sunday.
Many years ago my wife and I started to visit the battlefields, cemeteries, and memorials to the dead of the Great War. When I joined the Littleport branch of The Royal British Legion I decided to make an effort to find and photograph the cemeteries and memorials to the men from Littleport listed on our war memorial. I was unable to visit all of the memorials, one is in Baghdad for example, but with the help of other people I managed to get photographs of the majority. These photos, together with what local information I could gather, and extracts from the Battalion war diaries from the period they died, have been gathered into a document that now resides with the Littleport Heritage Centre and is available for anyone to read; though copying is forbidden.
Over the next few issues of this magazine I intend to précis the information present in the main document. Please remember these men.
Harry Starling, 2nd Battalion Suffolk Regiment, reported Missing in Action on 27th August 1914 at Le Cateau. He was not recorded as a prisoner of the Germans and so was presumed dead. He is commemorated on panel 21 of the Menin Gate, Ieper.
Bertie Lord, 5th Dragoon Guards (Princess Charlotte of Wales’s), was Killed in Action on 31st October 1914. He is commemorated on panel 5 of the Menin Gate, Ieper.
William Cheney, Lance Corporal, 2nd Battalion Coldstream Guards, was Killed in Action on 14th November 1914. He is buried in Grave 6, Row J, Plot IV, Sanctuary Wood Cemetery.
These are the men of Littleport who died in 1914. Part of the original British Expeditionary Force (B.E.F) ‘The Old Contemptibles’.