Lest We Forget: Unknown Soldiers symbolize all who died

By Gillian Slade on November 8, 2018.

gslade@medicinehatnews.com @MHNGillianSlade

They represent those who died in service for their country and were buried in unmarked graves — Tomb of the Unknown Soldier in Ottawa, grave of The Unknown Warrior in Westminster Abbey, London, England, and Tomb of the Unknown Soldier at Arlington National Cemetery, U.S.

How these graves came to be, the decisions regarding retrieving the remains of a soldier to represent all of those in unmarked graves, and how they are still honoured and protected today is worthy of note.

It is the symbolism, remembering all the soldiers buried in unmarked graves and seamen buried at sea, said Lawrence Gordon of Medicine Hat, who in 2014 was finally able to receive the remains of his uncle. He’d been killed in the line of duty on Aug. 13, 1944 while on patrol with his U.S. Army unit after the D-Day landings in Normandy. His remains were eventually found after a search by his family that had taken decades.

The tomb of the unknown soldier is a monument that can provoke strong emotions, said Gordon. Equally moving are war cemeteries and to observe gravestones that are marked as “Unknown Soldier” as these could be one of the people listed as “missing”.

Gordon has visited the Arlington National Tomb of the Unknown Soldier twice and observed the changing of the guard.

“It’s truly something that is awe inspiring. It’s been guarded continuously since July 2, 1937,” said Gordon.

Visiting one of the memorials to unknown soldiers is a wonderful way to show respect for those who made the ultimate sacrifice, said Gordon.

The Unknown Warrior, Westminster Abbey, Nov. 11, 1920

Rev. David Railton had the idea in 1916 after having been an army chaplain on the Western Front. He had seen a grave marked with a cross and a note written in pencil “An Unknown British Soldier.”

Railton wrote to the Dean of Westminster requesting that an unidentified British soldier from the battlefields in France be buried in Westminster Abbey, where kings and people of great importance are buried, to represent the many soldiers in unmarked graves, according to online reports.

On Nov. 7, 1920 the remains of four soldiers were exhumed in France and taken by field ambulance, to Saint-Pol-sur-Ternoise near Arras, in four separate coffins that were each draped in a Union Flag.

Brig. L. J. Wyatt and Lt.-Col. E.A.S. Gell of the directorate of graves registration and inquiries were alone in a room with the coffins, neither knowing from which battlefields the bodies had been exhumed. According to written reports Wyatt, with closed eyes, placed his hand on one of the coffins. The others were taken away for reburial.

The selected coffin was transferred under guard to the local castle library with the French Eighth Infantry Regiment standing vigil overnight. The coffin was then placed into a casket made out of oak from trees at Hampton Court Palace. A medieval crusader’s sword, chosen by King George V from the Royal Collection, was fixed on top. There was also an iron shield with the inscription: A British Warrior who fell in the Great War 1914-1918 for King and Country.

With pomp and ceremony it was taken to the harbour and piped aboard H.M.S. Verdun that was escourted by six battleships to Dover, England, where it was given a 19-gun salute. It was then taken by train to Victoria Station.

On the morning of Nov. 11 the casket was taken on a gun carriage of the Royal Horse Artillery, drawn by six horses, to Westminster Abbey. Along the way the King and Royal Family, plus ministers of state, joined the procession. As it entered the Abbey it was flanked by a guard of honour of 100 recipients of the Victoria Cross.

The guests of honour included 100 women who had lost a husband or son in the war.

The coffin was interred in the western end of the nave in soil that had been specially brought from each of the main battlefields.

Servicemen stood guard as tens of thousands of mourners filed past in silence, according to a variety of reports online.

The grave was covered with black Belgian marble and it is the only tombstone in the Abbey that people are forbidden to walk on.

Traditionally royal brides place their wedding bouquets on the tomb. This was done most recently by Princess Eugenie.

Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, Ottawa May 28, 2000

At the request of the Royal Canadian Legion, establishing a memorial to Canadian soldiers buried in unmarked graves became a focus of the Canadian government in 2000 as part of the Canada Millennium Partnership Program.

The Commonwealth War Graves Commission was asked by the government to select one of the 1,603 graves of unknown soldiers buried near Vimy Ridge.

Grave seven, in row E, of plot eight, was selected by the Cabaret-Rouge British Cemetery in Souchez, France near Vimy Ridge.

It was the site where the first large battle took place with all four Canadian divisions fighting together in a combined force, according to online reports.

The remains of the soldier were exhumed on May 16, 2000 and the coffin was flown in a Canadian Forces aircraft to Ottawa on May 25. It was accompanied by a guard of honour made up of 45 people, a chaplain, Royal Legion veterans and two representative of Canadian youth.

The Unknown Soldier lay in state for three days on Parliament Hill. The coffin was moved on a RCMP horse-drawn carriage to the National War Memorial on May 28. Governor General Adrienne Clarkson and Prime Minister Jean Chretien along with veterans, Canadian Forces and RCMP were in the funeral procession.

A crowd of 20,000 people watched as the silver maple casket, with full military honours, was re-interred in a sarcophagus in front of the war memorial.

A handful of soil from each of Canada’s provinces and territories, and from the former grave near Vimy Ridge, was placed on the casket before the tomb was sealed.

The original headstone of the unknown soldier is the focal point of Memorial Hall in the Canadian War Museum. The hall was designed so that sunlight frames that headstone only once a year — Nov. 11 at 11 a.m.

Tomb of the Unknown Soldier in Arlington National Cemetery, Virginia, U.S.

On Nov. 11, 1921, an unidentified American soldier from the First World War was returned from France and interred in a three-level marble tomb. The remains of the soldier were selected from four identical caskets by a highly decorated war hero — Sgt. Edward Younger, who had been wounded in battle. He selected one casket, the third from the left, by placing a spray of white roses on it. The remaining three caskets were reburied in the Meuse Argonne Cemetery, France.

At the funeral ceremony for the Unknown Soldier he was posthumously awarded the Victoria Cross on behalf of King George V of the United Kingdom.

Since then other tomb crypts have been added for unknown soldiers from the Second World War, the Korean War and Vietnam.

See Friday’s Medicine Hat News for another Remembrance Day story about a war bride who served in the Second World War as an aircraft spotter before meeting a Canadian sailor and falling in love.

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