A moment of your time.

[jhockin]

Really hoping, lately, that humankind has learned the lessons of history, so that, despite current events, we don't have another world war. I believe that the majority of people wish we would "make war no more".

[SeumasA]

Thank you for the reminder Jock. All too often, we in the states tend to forget the enormous sacrifices made in the years before we entered the war.

[BCAC]

My woman carried the RBL Flag as standard bearer for the "Re-kindling of the flame" ceremony at the tomb of the unknown soldier under the Arc de Troimphe in Paris. I was so proud of her!

[OC Richard]

Yes thanks Jock. Lest we forget!

WWI is one of those great conceptual divides between British and Americans. The USA entered the war late and sent a relatively tiny percentage of its population 'over there' and lost a relatively tiny percentage of its population in the war. We can never fully comprehend the impact the war had on the psyche of Britain, and on the Commonwealth, and on Europe.

My grandfather fought in France, and was an unusual case, because he was a peacetime Regular Army soldier, and his Machine Gun Battalion was sent over and attached to a French division before the USA began creating its Expeditionary force; when the first US units began arriving in France he had already been there a while. He was severely wounded and spent a year in a French hospital recovering before finally coming home a year after the war had ended. (Everyone presumed him dead, as one would expect.)

Sgt McKinley H Cook, Silver Star, Croix de Guerre, 2 Purple Hearts, 1st Division 1913-1919.

WWI casualties as a percent of population

France, Germany, Austro-Hungary over 4%
UK 2%
New Zealand 1.6%
Australia 1.35%
Canada 0.9%
USA 0.1%

[Piper]

My paternal Grandfather served in France, in the Artillery. He drove a mule drawn munitions wagon. I still have his helmet, bayonet and two uniform blouses, one with insignia. I remember as a small child seeing the rest of his gear, uniform, boots, puttees and some web gear in a trunk in the basement. He kept his gas mask hung on the wall in his basement workshop. Don't know why, but it used to strike fear into my heart when I went down there alone. Maybe because it looked like some kind of alien monster. The helmet and bayonet hold places of honor in my study. Unfortunately, the rest of the gear fell prey to grandchildren younger than I, when an Aunt got divorced and moved in with my grandparents.
Even with the little he told me about his experiences, I know that we cannot hope to even imagine what they went through. And, as has been noted before, our troops had a relatively short exposure to the hell when compared with the British and European troops.

[Machaggisnz]

Thanks for the thread. We stopped for a minutes silence to mark the occasion and later that night raised a dram of Old Pulteny in honour of my granddad 8/4 Lt Lachlan Bain 8th South Canterbury Mounted Rifles. He enlisted as a trooper and was commissioned late in the war after serving in Gallipoli and Palestine including Beersheba and Gaza. Like so many others he was greatly affected by his experiences and had nightmares of Hill 61 at Gallipoli till the day he died. Each Anzac Day my son proudly wears his medals. May he never know war.

Lest we forget.

[MacBean]

A special day, indeed.

My father, David Taylor of Aberdeen, Scotland, served in WW1 in Egypt and related areas with the Cameron Highlanders and the Lovat Scouts. He met T.E. Lawrence several times, and saw some combat but nothing close to the scale of the European front. He (evidently) entered as enlisted, but was quickly promoted and earned an ultimate field promotion to Major.

By common calculation of generations, I should be his grandson not his son, but I was a very late-in-life child. (Surprise, Mom!) I would love to trace his military records but am told that most of the WW1 records were destroyed during WW II.

Hi Jim. I was going to say. My grandfather was a pilot in the Great War, but your father (?)- that was a surprise to me.
As a child, we were taken to the Veteran's Hospitals to visit gas victims, and that was 40 years later.

[Pleater]

My grandmother was married with two children when her first husband was killed at the Somme. His body was never recovered.
She married again, as she thought - he was already married with two sons - a man who had been wounded at Mons, along with his brother who was in the same regiment.
She had their first child, a boy, but he and his half brother died in an outbreak of diphtheria.
Our family history was certainly shaped by the Great War.

We make most of Remembrance Sunday rather than acknowledging the start of hostilities.

Anne the Pleater :ootd:

[chemist93]

Like the rest of you, my grandfather John Galloway served in WWI. He came home in 1919. He didn't like to talk about it. My aunt had asked him once. He had PTSD, and like many of the rest drank some liquor and buried it in work.

[Dale-of-Cedars]

My grandfather survived the Great War; he was an Acting Sergeant - mentioned in dispatches- with the 24th Battalion (Victoria Rifles) CEF - 5th Infantry Brigade, 2nd Canadian Division - out of Montreal QC.
I never got to meet him before he passed, but my mother related he was attached to the division headquarters and worked on maps and aerial reconnaissance photos (one of them below) and so fought his war behind the lines with pencil, pen and ink.

Note: photo dated 16 August 1917, I'm guessing near Lens, France; according to the battalion war diaries.