Armistice Day Service, Jacobs Well War Memorial
WORPLESDON PARISH COUNCIL
ARMISTICE DAY SERVICE, JACOBS WELL WAR MEMORIAL
JUNCTION OF CLAY LANE/QUEENHYTHE ROAD, JACOBS WELL
10.53 AM – SATURDAY 11 NOVEMBER 2017
ORDER OF SERVICE
Welcome by Dr P Cragg - Chairman Worplesdon Parish Council
Piper - Kenneth Thomson – “The Bloody Fields of Flanders”
Dr P Cragg – Chairman Worplesdon Parish Council:
Millions died in World War 1 and the many conflicts of the 20th century and more recently Iraq, Libya and Afghanistan. We cannot hold the hands of the dead in consolation, but we can remember them. Particularly this year we remember the Battle of Passchendaele:-
This battle, also known as the Third Battle of Ypres, took place on the Western Front, from July to November 1917, for control of the ridges south and east of the Belgian city of Ypres in West Flanders. Passchendaele lay on the last ridge east of Ypres, 5 miles from a railway junction at Roulers, which was vital to the supply system of the German 4th Army.
Further operations and a British supporting attack along the Belgian coast from Nieuwpoort, were to have reached Bruges and then the Dutch frontier. The resistance of the Germans, unusually wet weather, the onset of winter and the diversion of British and French resources to Italy, following the Austro-German victory at the Battle of Caporetto (24 October – 19 November), enabled the Germans to avoid a general withdrawal, which had seemed inevitable in early October. The campaign ended in November, when the Canadian Corps captured Passchendaele, apart from local attacks in December and in early 1918. Yet more thousands of young men were slaughtered.
We mourn the loss of these lives each year on Armistice Day. We should also regret the enormous loss of talent these lives represent. This year let us think of the pain in the hearts of the bereaved left at home.
May I read to you?
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No grave is rich, the dust that herein lies
Beneath this white cross mixing with the sand
Was vital once, with skill of eye and hand
And speed of brain. These will not re-arise
These riches, nor will they be replaced;
They are lost and nothing now, and here is left
Only a worthless corpse of sense bereft,
Symbol of death, and sacrifice and waste
John Jarmain
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If I should die, think only this of me:
That there is some corner of a foreign field
That is for ever England. There shall be
In that rich earth a richer dust concealed:
A dust whom England bore, shaped, made aware,
Gave, once, her flowers to love, her ways to roam,
A body of England`s, breathing English air,
Washed by rivers, blest by suns of home. “The Soldier”, verse 1. By Rupert Brooke
Laying of wreaths – In memory of the fallen may I ask Worplesdon Parish Council to lay a wreath.
Followed by the Jacobs Well Village Association
“At this place we particularly remember the American airmen who lost their lives in Jacobs Well in 1944:
MERCER W. AVENT, JOHN R. HILLMER, JOHN E. WRIGHT, DALE E. DELLENGER “
11am – 2 minute silence
They shall grow not old
As we that are left grow old.
Age shall not weary them
Nor the years condemn.
At the going down of the sun
And in the morning.
We will remember them.
ALL: We will remember them.
“For the Fallen”
Laurence Binyon 1869 – 1943
Piper Kenneth Thomson – Lament “Flowers of the Forest”
Before we leave may I read you an individual lament by a young girl, for the loss of her soldier beau, as she sits by his grave in the fields of France?
The Meuse and Marne have little waves; The slender poplars o`er them lean.
One day they will forget the graves. That give the grass its living green.
Some brown French girl the rose will wear. That springs above his comely head;
Will twine it in her russet hair, Nor wonder why it is so red.
His blood is in the rose`s veins, His hair is in the yellow corn.
My grief is in the weeping rains. And in the keening wind forlorn.
Flow softly, softly, Marne and Meuse; Tread lightly all ye browsing sheep;
Fall tenderly, O silver dews, For here my dear love lies asleep.
The earth is on his sealed eyes, The beauty marred that was my pride;
Would I were lying where he lies, And sleeping sweetly by his side.
The Spring will come by Meuse and Marne, The birds be blithesome in the tree.
I heap the stones to make his cairn. Where many sleep as sound as he.
Katharine Tynan
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