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TRH to honour First World War soldiers in Fromelles
15th July 2010
The Prince of Wales and The Duchess of Cornwall will pay tribute to the last of the 250 First World War soldiers recovered from communal graves in France.
Their Royal Highnesses are to attend an event to commemorate the re-internment of the soldiers on Monday 19th July, which will also mark the 94th anniversary of the battle of Fromelles, before attending a Service of Dedication of the new Fromelles (Pheasant Wood) Military Cemetery.
The Prince and The Duchess will also attend a reception for the relatives of the soldiers and those involved in the project at L’Ecole des Cobbers School in Fromelles.
The event marks the end of a two year project by the UK and Australian governments, set up in collaboration with the Commonwealth War Graves Commission, to give the soldiers the dignity of individual burials, the same honour and rights they would have received if they had been found during the post-war battlefield searches.
Among the dignitaries attending the event will be The Duke of Kent, President of the Commonwealth War Graves Commission, Lord Astor, Under Secretary of State and Lords Spokesman on Defence, Chief of the General Staff General Sir David Richards, as well as the Australian and British families of First World War soldiers laid to rest in the new cemetery.
During the ceremony, which will see the coffin of the final soldier carried from Pheasant Wood, the site of the original communal graves, through the village of Fromelles to the new cemetery, the story of the Battle of Fromelles and the discovery and reburial of the soldiers will be told, before The Prince dedicates the cemetery.
Later on Their Royal Highnesses will visit the Neuve-Chapelle Indian Memorial, a First World War memorial, which commemorates around 4,742 Indian soldiers with no known grave. The location, in the county of Pas de Calais, was chosen because of the participation by Indian troops at the Battle of Neuve-Chapelle.
Designed by Sir Herbert Baker, with sculpture by Charles Wheeler, the memorial has a stone of Remembrance inscribed with the words: “Their name liveth for evermore”.