The British Army Museum deserves a nomination. Having done some ‘research’, they have come to the conclusion that the soldier buried in the tomb of the unknown warrior in Westminster Abbey was probably white, because of “racial bias”. Yep. That poor soul, who made the trip from France to the UK in 1920, was chosen because he was white rather than black or Asian. Of course, it never occurred that the actual reason he was chosen to be interred at the Abbey, was because the vast majority of the soldiers on the Western Front…WERE FUCKING WHITE!
I am sick of this fucking woke, navel gazing bullshit infecting the British military. The Army have just spent a small fortune hiring “diversity” experts. And they have concluded that if the British Army wants to be the best in the world the future lies in….Feminism. I shit you not. What a bunch of cunts.
Nominated by: Quick Draw McGraw
and seconded by: Sgt Maj Cunt
I want to second QDM’s cunting. A mate of mine who still serves in one of the three Armed Forces has been asked to form a team to carry wreaths at a Remembrance event that will be televised. Being a vain cunt, but also good at drill, he volunteered his services. He was told that, from above, only dar quays and females need apply. So despite having volunteers (of the wrong hue), departments at his unit have been ordered to nominate individuals that will keep the BBC happy. Because those individuals are being voluntold against their wishes, they are throwing sickies to get out of the practice days.
He is also collating a list of volunteers to collect Poppy money in a large city. Funny old thing, no uniform wearing dar quays have volunteered for that either.
Nearly all the BAME blokes and lasses I served with were top notch. For example, the Infantry is bolstered by the fearsome Fijians. But BAME service personnel are a minority for a bleeding obvious reason – we are a predominantly white country!
As a postscript to everything –
I remember, years ago, seeing some TV prog about the British Empire, can’t recall exactly what it was but there was this sequence shot in India showing a disused British cemetery from the time of the raj, which was full of the graves of old soldiers and their families, but at the time of filming was used by kids as a place to play cricket (or football, can’t recall which) and the presenter did his piece with this going on in the background. At the time I thought it a bit disrespectful but that it was their country and we no longer had any say in matters. Fast forward to these days – and can you imagine the furore if the graves of BAME people were being trampled over in a similar fashion? Oh, but I forgot. The British were/are racists, so it doesn’t matter in the slightest. Trample away, dear boys. Job done.
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7th – 11th NOVENBER 1920 – 11th NOVEMBER 2020;
The Centenary of the return to British soil of the body of The Unknown Warrior and Unveiling of The Cenotaph.
The Corona Virus restrictions have prevented us from commemorating this special year in our annual National Acts of Remembrance. The 10th November 2020 being especial as it marks the centenary of the home coming of the remains of an unknown British soldier recovered from an unknown battlefield. It is also the centenary of the Unveiling of The Cenotaph National Memorial in Whitehall.
At the Armistice 11th November 1918, about 800,000 British and colonial troops had died and another 200,000 were ‘missing’. Some of these were prisoners but most were dead: either they could not be identified or their bodies never found. The men and women who died abroad in the war were buried there and many had ‘no known grave’ so many families were never able to visit a grave to mourn for the loved ones they had lost.
The Unknown Warrior Concept:
In 1916, while he was on The Western Front in Northern France, the Reverend David Railton came upon a grave in someone’s back garden which had a simple marker with the words ‘An Unknown British Soldier of the Black Watch’ written on it in pencil. It gave him an idea. Perhaps one of these unknown soldiers could be brought back to Britain and represent all those who were lost. After the war, he was able to persuade the Prime Minister David Lloyd George and King George V that this should happen.
It was important that the chosen Unknown Warrior could never be identified. To do this, on November 7th 1920, in strictest secrecy four unidentified bodies were exhumed from temporary battlefield cemeteries in France and Belgium: the Somme, Ypres, the Aisne and Arras. They were laid on stretchers and covered with Union flags so no one could see anything that would give a clue about who they were.
None of the soldiers who did the digging were told why.
The bodies were taken by field ambulance to GHQ at St-Pol-Sur-ter noise and sentries were posted. Brigadier-General Louis John Wyatt and a colonel Gell selected one Union flag covered body at random.
The other three bodies were buried near the chapel.
On he 8th November 1920 a specially designed coffin made of oak from the grounds of Hampton Court, was brought to St-Pol-Sur-ter noise and the unknown soldier placed inside. A French honour guard was selected, and stood by the coffin overnight at the Citadel.
On the morning of 9th of November the coffin of the unknown soldier was carried on a six black horse drawn guncarriage of the French Artillery through guards of honour and the sound of tolling bells and bugles to the port of Boulogne.
At the quayside at Boulogne The Warrior was saluted by Marechal Foche and loaded onto the British Frigate HMS Verdun bound for Dover. The coffin stood on the deck covered in wreaths and surrounded by a guard of honour.
The Unknown Warriors coffin on the deck of HMS Verdun, now guarded by a Royal Naval honour guard for its return journey to British shores.
On arrival at Dover on 10th the coffin was greeted with a 19-gun salute, normally only reserved for Field Marshalls. Hit then traveled by special train to Victoria Station London.
The coffin stayed on the train at Victoria Station – Platform 8 overnight and on the morning of the 11th of November was taken to Westminster Abbey in great ceremony. In Whitehall, his cortege was halted for the unveiling of the Sir Edwin Lutyens designed Whitehall Memorial “The Cenotaph.”
Link to the archive film; https://youtu.be/giJlKBKzy-8
Link to the Western Front Association page; https://youtu.be/vhxrq-QcVZs
Thousands of people lined the streets on that day to see the carriage pass. Among the soldiers, sailors and airmen in the huge procession that accompanied it were 100 service personnel who had been awarded the Victoria Cross. It also included 1,000 widows who had lost not only their husbands but also all their sons in the war.
The processional route of the body of The Unknon Warrior was from Victoria Station, via Grosvenor Place, Constitution Hill, The Mall, Admiralty Arch, Trafalgar Square, Whitehall, halting at the Cenotaph Memorial for its unveiling, then continuing to Wsetminster Abbey. The Pall Bearers included Admiral Beatty, Lord French, Sir Henry Wilson and Air Marshall Sir Hugh Trenchard.
The Processional Route
On its arrival at Westminster Abbey, the coffin was placed on a bier at the West end of the nave.
On the coffin was placed a crusaders sword and a shield on which was inscribed;
‘A British Warrior
who fell in the GREAT WAR
1914-1918
for King and Country’.
There he was later interred and his tomb covered first by a temporary cover, later to be replaced by a black marble slab brought from Belgium. His grave was filled with 100 sandbags bags of earth taken from the four earlier mentioned battlefields.
It was the intention that all relatives of the combatants whose bodies had not been identified could believe that the unknown warrior could very well be their lost husband, Father, brother or son.
In the days that followed, it is estimated that 1,250,000 people visited the Tomb of the Unknown Warrior to lay wreaths and floral tributes. On 18th November, the grave was cleared of flowers and its temporary covering and sealed with a black marble slab brought over from a Belgian quarry.
The Belgian black marble slab is still in place today. Engraved and with brass infill from melted wartime ammunition, the marble is inscribed:
BENEATH THIS STONE RESTS THE BODY OF A BRITISH WARRIOR
UNKNOWN BY NAME OR RANK
BROUGHT FROM FRANCE TO LIE AMONG THE MOST ILLUSTRIOUS OF THE LAND
AND BURIED HERE ON ARMISTICE DAY 11 NOV: 1920, IN THE PRESENCE OF HIS MAJESTY KING GEORGE V
HIS MINISTERS OF STATE
THE CHIEFS OF HIS FORCES
AND A VAST CONCOURSE OF THE NATION
THUS ARE COMMEMORATED THE MANY MULTITUDES WHO DURING THE GREAT WAR OF 1914-1918 GAVE THE MOST THAT MAN CAN GIVE LIFE ITSELF
FOR GOD
FOR KING AND COUNTRY
FOR LOVED ONES HOME AND EMPIRE
FOR THE SACRED CAUSE OF JUSTICE AND THE FREEDOM OF THE WORLD
THEY BURIED HIM AMONG THE KINGS BECAUSE HE HAD DONE GOOD TOWARD GOD AND TOWARD HIS HOUSE
Additional Notes:
The Unknown Warrior serves as a reminder of the many men from the entire British Isles and Commonwealth who died to protect our freedom and were not able to be laid to rest by their families. Each year as the clock chimes for 11am on Armistice Day, we remember those we have lost to war.
The Cenotaph Memorial in Whitehall was designed by architect Sir Edwin Lutyens as was the arched Memorial at Thiepval in Northern France which like the Menin Gate in Ypres (Ieper) is Memorial to thousands who gave their lives in ultimate sacrifice and have no grave.
The unveiling of The Cenotaph by King George V, was on 11th November 1920.
It’s building in just two weeks and unveiling was timed to coincide with the return to the British Isles of the body of The Unknown Warrior. His coffin was present at the unveiling.
When the Duke of York (later King George VI) married Lady Elizabeth Bowes Lyons in the Abbey in 1923 she left her wedding bouquet on the grave as a mark of respect (she had lost a brother during the war) Since then all royal brides married in the Abbey have sent back their bouquets to be laid on the grave.
The Western Front Association;
Platform 8 Victoria Station, London; Annually at 8.32pm on 10th November, a wreath laying ceremony is conducted at this plaque situated on Platform 8 at Victoria Station, London commemorating the arrival by train in 1920, of the body of The Unknown Warrior, recovered from the battlefields.
The Western Front Association instigated and maintain this simple evocative Remembrance Service, which has over the years attracted many regular attendees.
November 2020, was to be an especial event to include the arrival of a steam train. Unfortunately, Covid-19 restrictions have rendered this impossible. A much scaled down ceremony will still be held.
Other Nations;
Many nations followed the British and French in creating tombs of their Unknown Soldiers. They typically contain the remains of a dead soldier who is unidentified (or “known but to God” as the stone is sometimes inscribed). These remains are considered impossible to identify, and so serve as a symbol for all of a country’s unknown dead wherever they fell in war being remembered. The anonymity of the entombed soldier is the key symbolism of the monument; it could be the tomb of anyone who fell in service of the nation, and therefore serves as a monument symbolizing all of the sacrifices.
The Tomb of the Unknown Warrior was created at Westminster Abbey, while in France La tombe du soldat inconnu was placed in the Arc de Triomphe. The idea of a symbolic Tomb of the Unknown Soldier then spread to other countries. In 1921, the United States unveiled its own Tomb of the Unknown Soldier at Arlington, Virginia. Portugal its Túmulo do Soldado Desconhecido, and Italy its La tomba del Milite Ignoto. Many other nations have followed the practice and created their own tombs. In Chile and Ukraine, second ‘unknown tombs’ were unveiled to commemorate The Unknown Sailor.
On the decommissioning of HMS Verdun, the ship’s bell was taken to Westminster Abbey. “The Verdun Bell” now hangs close to The Tomb.
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