The Memorial to the "War Poets" at Poets Corner Westminster Abbey
Having visited the Memorial to the "War Poets" at Poets Corner Westminster Abbey I was curious to know where their actual graves were to be found, how they had died and what their actual epitaph's were.
My subject is War, and the pity of War. The Poetry is in the pity
1914 - 1918
Richard Aldington Cemetery on a hill above Sury en Vaux
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1892 – 1962
An obituary described him as an "angry young man", and an '"angry old man to the end".
Richard Aldington served on the Western Front in 1916-18 where he was badly gassed. He survived the war and died of a stroke after a fall in the street in Sury en Vaux, France on 27 July 1962 where he was buried in a cemetery overlooking the village.
Laurence Binyon St Mary the Virgin Aldworth
LAURENCE BINYON
1869 – 1943
AND CICELY HIS WIFE
1876 – 1962
1869 – 1943
AND CICELY HIS WIFE
1876 – 1962
During the War he served as a Medical Orderly and Stretcher Bearer for the Red Cross visiting the Front in 1916. He died after an operation at Dunedin Nursing Home in Reading on 10 March1943. His ashes were scattered at the church of St Mary the Virgin Aldworth.
Edmund Blunden Trinity Church Long Melford
EDMUND
I live still
BLUNDEN
To love still
1896-1974
Things quiet
BELOVED
& Unconcerned
POET
Edmund Blunden was commissioned into the Royal Sussex Regiment in 1915 and served in France and Belgium from 1916 to 1919 fighting in the actions on the Somme and at Ypres. Unusual for a junior infantry officer, Blunden survived nearly two years in the front line without physical injury, but for the rest of his life bore mental scars from his experiences. He was awarded the Military Cross. He died of a heart attack at his home at Long Melford, Suffolk on 20 January 1974.
Rupert Brooke Olive Grove on the Greek Island of Skyros Tris Boukes Bay
RUPERT BROOKE
1887-1915
HERE LIES THE SERVANT
OF GOD
SUB-LIEUTENANT IN THE
ENGLISH NAVY
WHO DIED FOR
DELIVERANCE
OF
CONSTANTINOPLE
FROM THE TURKS
1887-1915
HERE LIES THE SERVANT
OF GOD
SUB-LIEUTENANT IN THE
ENGLISH NAVY
WHO DIED FOR
DELIVERANCE
OF
CONSTANTINOPLE
FROM THE TURKS
He was commissioned into the Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve as a temporary Sub-Lieutenant shortly after his 27th birthday and took part in the Royal Naval Division's Antwerp expedition in October 1914. He sailed with the British Mediterranean Expeditionary Force on 28 February 1915 but developed sepsis from an infected mosquito bite. He died at 4:46 pm on 23 April 1915 in a French hospital ship moored in a bay off the island of Skyros in the Aegean on his way to the landing at Gallipoli. As the expeditionary force had orders to depart immediately, he was buried at 11 pm in an olive grove on Skyros, Greece. The site was chosen by his close friend, William Denis Browne, who wrote of Brooke's death:
"...I sat with Rupert. At 4 o’clock he became weaker, and at 4.46 he died, with the sun shining all round his cabin, and the cool sea-breeze blowing through the door and the shaded windows. No one could have wished for a quieter or a calmer end than in that lovely bay, shielded by the mountains and fragrant with sage and thyme".
"...I sat with Rupert. At 4 o’clock he became weaker, and at 4.46 he died, with the sun shining all round his cabin, and the cool sea-breeze blowing through the door and the shaded windows. No one could have wished for a quieter or a calmer end than in that lovely bay, shielded by the mountains and fragrant with sage and thyme".
Wilfrid Gibson
Wilfrid Gibson had poor eyesight which meant he would never be sent to the front. He joined the British Army but remained in England and worked initially as a driver with the Army Service Corps before transferring to a job as a clerk to a medical officer. Unlike most other poets who were officers, he wrote his poetry from the point of view of the ordinary foot soldier. He died on 26th May 1962
Robert Graves Deyá Church Majorca
Robert Graves
Poeta
1895-1985
Robert Graves enlisted almost immediately at the outbreak of World War I in August 1914 taking a commission in the Royal Welch Fusiliers. During the early 1970s Graves began to suffer from increasingly severe memory loss, and by his eightieth birthday in 1975 he had come to the end of his working life. He survived for ten more years in an increasingly dependent condition until he died from heart failure on 7 December 1985 aged 90. He was buried the next morning in the small churchyard on a hill at Deià, on the site of a shrine which had once been sacred to The White Goddess of Pelion.
Julian Grenfell Eastern Cemetery Boulogne-sur-Mer
CAPTAIN
THE HON. J. H. F.
GRENFELL
D. S. O.
THE ROYAL DRAGOONS
26TH MAY 1915
USOUL DUM VIVUM ET
ULTRA
THE HON. J. H. F.
GRENFELL
D. S. O.
THE ROYAL DRAGOONS
26TH MAY 1915
USOUL DUM VIVUM ET
ULTRA
Julian Grenfell had always set his heart on a military career. In 1910 he obtained a commission, and joined the Ist (the Royal) Dragoons at Muttra. A year later, the regiment was transferred from India to South Africa. Shortly after the outbreak of the European War Grenfell returned to England with his regiment and in early October 1914 accompanied the regiment to France. Within a few weeks his gallantry and soldierly abilities had won him a great reputation: 'he set an example of light-hearted courage which is famous all through the army in France,' wrote a distinguished officer in a contemporary letter, 'and has stood out even among the most lion-hearted'. He was awarded the Distinguished Service Order, for a daring feat of individual reconnaissance in November1914, and in January 1915 he was mentioned in dispatches. On 13 May 1915, near Ypres, he was wounded in the head, and on 26 May he died in hospital at Boulogne. He was buried in the military Eastern Cemetery at Boulogne-sur-Mer on the hills above Boulogne.
Ivor Gurney St Matthew’s Church Twigworth
IVOR
GURNEY
Composer
Poet of the Severn
And
Somme
Ivor Gurney volunteered for the Gloucester regiment on the outbreak of the First World War. He was initially turned down because of his defective eyesight, but as the British Army was short of men, was allowed to join in 1915. After training at Salisbury he was sent to Riez Bailleul on the Western Front in May 1916. Three months later he was transferred to Albert during the Somme offensive. On 7th April 1917, he was shot in the arm and sent to the army hospital at Rouen. The following month he rejoined his regiment at Arras. In July 1917 Gurney was transferred to the 184 Machine Gun Company and was moved to Buysscheure and joined the forces preparing for the offensive at Passchendaele. He was gassed at St. Julien on 10th September 1917 and was sent to Edinburgh War Hospital in November 1917.
After the war Gurney spent time in the Newcastle General Hospital, Lord Derby's War Hospital in Warrington and the Middlesex War Hospital in St. Albans. Gurney was finally discharged from hospital and the army on 4th October 1918.He was unable to make a living from his writing and over the next three years worked as a farm labourer, as a pianist in a cinema and as a clerk in the Gloucester Tax Office.
He suffered from a severe manic depressive illness and after several failed attempts at suicide was sent to a mental asylum in Gloucester. On 28th September 1922, Gurney was certified insane and he was transferred to the City of London Mental Hospital at Dartford.
He died of bilateral pulmonary tuberculosis at the City of London Mental Hospital on 26th December, 1937. Five days later he was buried at St Matthew’s Church, Twigworth in Gloucestershire.
After the war Gurney spent time in the Newcastle General Hospital, Lord Derby's War Hospital in Warrington and the Middlesex War Hospital in St. Albans. Gurney was finally discharged from hospital and the army on 4th October 1918.He was unable to make a living from his writing and over the next three years worked as a farm labourer, as a pianist in a cinema and as a clerk in the Gloucester Tax Office.
He suffered from a severe manic depressive illness and after several failed attempts at suicide was sent to a mental asylum in Gloucester. On 28th September 1922, Gurney was certified insane and he was transferred to the City of London Mental Hospital at Dartford.
He died of bilateral pulmonary tuberculosis at the City of London Mental Hospital on 26th December, 1937. Five days later he was buried at St Matthew’s Church, Twigworth in Gloucestershire.
David Jones Brockley & Ladywell Cemetery Crofton Park Lewisham
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David Jones tried to join the Artists' Rifles when war was declared in the summer of 1914 but was rejected because of insufficient chest expansion. He managed to enlist in the newly formed 15th (London Welsh) Battalion of the Royal Welch Fusiliers on 2 January 1915. The Battalion was raised from Welshmen living in London and native Londoners.
After training in London, north Wales and Winchester much hampered by a lack of equipment Jones' Battalion embarked for France in December 1915 as part of the 38th Welsh Division. After a period in the Front Line around the La Bassée sector his Battalion moved to the Somme in the summer of 1916. During the attack on Mametz Wood on the 10-11 July he was wounded and was subsequently returned to England to convalesce. In the autumn of 1916 he served as an observer with the 2nd Field Survey Company at Ploegsteert Wood. On his eventual return to the Line, Jones saw action again on the Ypres salient at Bosinghe, Pilkem Ridge, Langemark and Passchendaele. Suffering from severe trench fever, Jones was evacuated in February 1918 and saw out the rest of the war in Ireland. He died at the Calvary Nursing Home at Sudbury Hill, Harrow on 28 October 1974 after many years of ill health. He is buried with his parents in Ladywell Cemetery in south-east London.
Robert Nichols St Mary’s Lawford
HERE LIES
THE ENGLISH POET
ROBERT NICHOLS
BORN SEPTEMBER 6TH
1893
DIED DECEMBER17TH 1944
THE ENGLISH POET
ROBERT NICHOLS
BORN SEPTEMBER 6TH
1893
DIED DECEMBER17TH 1944
Robert Nichols who lasted from 1914-16 - saw him participate in the Battle of Loos in 1915 in the role of artillery officer. His front-line service was however brief after just a few weeks serving in the trenches he was invalided with shell-shock and syphilis in 1915. The shell shock caused him to be sent home to England in 1916. Subsequently serving with the British Ministry of Labour and Ministry of Information.
As a result of chronic disorder both in his emotional and in his financial affairs, at the end of the 1930s he settled in France just in time to see the German occupation, and in June 1940 he was on the last ship to carry British refugees from the Cote d’Azur.
He died in his home in Thetford Vermont as a result of the complications of prostate cancer on Thursday October 14 1944.
As a result of chronic disorder both in his emotional and in his financial affairs, at the end of the 1930s he settled in France just in time to see the German occupation, and in June 1940 he was on the last ship to carry British refugees from the Cote d’Azur.
He died in his home in Thetford Vermont as a result of the complications of prostate cancer on Thursday October 14 1944.
Wilfred Owen Communal Cemetery Ors
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LIEUTENANT
W. E. S. OWEN. MC.
MANCHESTER REGIMENT
4TH NOVEMBER 1918
AGED 25
Wilfred Owen felt pressured by the propaganda to become a soldier and volunteered on 21st October 1915. He spent the last day of 1916 in a tent in France joining the Second Manchesters. He was full of boyish high spirits at being a soldier. Within a week he had been transported to the front line in a cattle wagon and was "sleeping" 70 or 80 yards from a heavy gun which fired every minute or so. He was soon wading miles along trenches two feet deep in water. Within a few days he was experiencing gas attacks and was horrified by the stench of the rotting dead; his sentry was blinded, his company then slept out in deep snow and intense frost till the end of January. That month was a profound shock for him: he now understood the meaning of war.
He escaped bullets until the last week of the war, but he saw a good deal of front-line action: he was blown up, concussed and suffered shell-shock at Craiglockhart and he was admitted to the psychiatric hospital in Edinburgh. He was sent back to the trenches in September, 1918 and in October won the Military Cross by seizing a German machine-gun and using it to kill a number of Germans.
On 4th November he was shot and killed near the village of Ors. The news of his death reached his parents home as the Armistice bells were ringing on 11 November. He is buried at the military Communal Cemetery at Ors.
Herbert Read St Gregory’s Minster Stonegrave KIrkbymoorside
HERE LIES
HERBERT READ
Knight poet anarchist
Son of HERBERT EDWARDREAD
& ELIZA STRICKLAND
Born at MUSCOATES
December 4 1893
Died at Stonegrave
June 12 1968
And His Wife MARGARET
Nee LUDWIG
27 March 1905-10 March19 61
Herbert Read volunteered in January 1915 as a second lieutenant in the Yorkshire Regiment (Green Howards) and rose to the rank of Captain. He served in France and Belgium from 1915 to 1918, winning the MC in 1917 and the DSO in 1918 and being mentioned in dispatches. he was promoted to rank of captain and for three years he fought as an Infantry Officer. He was a natural leader and he was courageous and daring. He died at Stonegrave on 12 June 1968.
Isaac Rosenberg Bailleul Road East Cemetery St Laurent-Blangy
BURIED NEAR THIS SPOT
22311 I. ROSENBERG
ROYAL LANCASHIRE
REGIMENT
1ST APRIL 1918 AGED 27
ARTIST & POET
Isaac Rosenberg enlisted in October 1915 and was assigned to the 12th Suffolk Folk Regiment, a 'bantam' battalion (men under 5'3"). After turning down an offer to become a lance corporal, Private Rosenberg was later transferred to the 11th Battalion, The King's Own Royal Lancaster Regiment.
He was sent to the Somme on the Western Front in France, He died in the town of Fampoux having just finished night patrol, he was killed at dawn on April 1, 1918 by a German raiding party and there is some dispute as to whether his death occurred at the hands of a sniper or in close combat.
He was first buried in a mass grave, but in 1926, his remains were identified and reinterred at Bailleul Road East Cemetery, Plot V, St. Laurent-Blangy, Pas de Calais France.
Siegfried Sassoon St Andrew’s Churchyard Mells
SIEGFRIED
LORAIN
SASSOON
1886-1967
RIP
Siegfried Sassoon joined the British Army just as the threat of World War I was realised, and was in service with the Sussex Yeomanry on the day the United Kingdom declared war (4 August 1914). He broke his arm badly in a riding accident and was put out of action before even leaving England, spending the spring of 1915 convalescing. He was commissioned into 3rd Battalion (Special Reserve), Royal Welch Fusiliers as a second lieutenant on 29 May 1915 and in November was sent to the 1st Battalion in France.
Sassoon's periods of duty on the Western Front were marked by exceptionally brave actions, including the single-handed, but vainglorious, capture of a German trench in the Hindenburg Line. Armed with grenades he scattered 60 German soldiers:
"He went over with bombs in daylight, under covering fire from a couple of rifles, and scared away the occupants. A pointless feat since instead of signalling for reinforcements he sat down in the German trench and began reading a book of poems which he had brought with him. When he went back he did not even report. Colonel Stockwell then in command raged at him. The attack on Mametz wood had been delayed for two hours because British patrols were still reported to be out. The 'British patrols' were Siegfried and his book of poems. 'I'd have got you a D.S.O., if you'd only shown more sense,' stormed Stockwell".
Sassoon's bravery was inspiring to the extent that soldiers of his company said that they felt confident only when they were accompanied by him. He often went out on night-raids and bombing patrols and demonstrated ruthless efficiency as a company commander. Deepening depression at the horror and misery the soldiers were forced to endure produced in Sassoon a paradoxically manic courage, and he was nicknamed "Mad Jack" by his men for his near-suicidal exploits. On 27 July 1916 he was awarded the Military Cross; the citation read:
"2nd Lt. Siegfried Lorraine Sassoon, 3rd (attd. 1st) Bn., R. W. Fus. For conspicuous gallantry during a raid on the enemy's trenches. He remained for 1½ hours under rifle and bomb fire collecting and bringing in our wounded. Owing to his courage and determination all the killed and wounded were brought in".
Sassoon was also later (unsuccessfully) recommended for the Victoria Cross. Despite his decoration and reputation, he decided in 1917 to make a stand against the conduct of the war. At the end of a spell of convalescent leave, Sassoon declined to return to duty. He sent a letter to his commanding officer titled "Finished with the War: A Soldiers Declaration" Forwarded to the press and read out in Parliament by a sympathetic MP the letter was seen by some as treasonous:
"I am making this statement as an act of wilful defiance of military authority or at best condemnatory of the war government's motives. I believe that the war upon which I entered as a war of defence and liberation has now become a war of aggression and conquest".
Rather than court-martial Sassoon, the Under-Secretary of State for War, Ian Macpherson decided that he was unfit for service and had him sent to Craiglockhart War Hospital near Edinburgh where he was officially treated for neurasthenia ("shell shock"). Before declining to return to active service he had thrown the ribbon from his Military Cross into the river Mersey. Sassoon despite all this was promoted to lieutenant and having spent some time out of danger in Palestine eventually returned to the Front on 13 July 1918. Sassoon was almost immediately wounded again—by friendly fire after he was shot in the head by a fellow British soldier who had mistaken him for a German near Arras, France. As a result he spent the remainder of the war in Britain. By this time he had been promoted acting captain. He relinquished his commission on health grounds on 12 March 1919, but was allowed to retain the rank of captain.
Siegfried Sassoon died on 1 September 1967 one week before his 81st birthday of stomach cancer and is buried at St Andrew's Church, Mells in Somerset.
Charles Sorley Memorial for the Missing Dud Corner Cemetery Loos-en-Gohelle
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SUFFOLK REGIMENT
CAPTAIN
SORLEY C. H.
CAPTAIN
SORLEY C. H.
Charles Sorley enrolled at the University of Jena and studied there until the outbreak of World War I. After Britain declared war on Germany. He was detained for an afternoon in Trier but released on the same day and told to leave the country. He returned to England and volunteered for military service, joining the Suffolk Regiment. He arrived at the Western Front in France as a lieutenant in May 1915 and quickly rose to the rank of captain at the age of twenty.
He was killed in action near Hulluch where he was shot in the head by a sniper at the Battle of Loos on 13 October 1915.
He was killed in action near Hulluch where he was shot in the head by a sniper at the Battle of Loos on 13 October 1915.
Edward Thomas Agny Military Cemetery Pas de Calais
SECOND LIEUTENANT
P. E. THOMAS
ROYAL GARRISON
ARTILLERY
9 ARIL 1917
Thomas enlisted in the Artists Rifles in July 1915, despite being a mature married man who could have avoided enlisting". He was promoted Corporal and in November 1916 was commissioned into the Royal Garrison Artillery. He was killed in action soon after he arrived in France at the battle of Arras on Easter Monday 9 April 1917. Although he survived the actual battle, he was killed by the concussive blast wave of one of the last shells fired as he stood to light his pipe.
He is buried in the Pas de Calais Military Cemetery at Agny in France Row C Grave 43.
He is buried in the Pas de Calais Military Cemetery at Agny in France Row C Grave 43.
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