Veterans' emotional trip to World War One battlefields

Military veterans from the Tavistock area paid tribute to relatives who fought in the trenches on a trip to the World War One battlefields in France and Belgium ahead of the Remembrance commemorations.

Among them was former Army nurse Tracey Purnell, who paid tribute to her great uncle Ben Thomas who was killed during the Great War.

Tracey joined the military veterans hub which meets through TASS, the Tavistock Area Support Services charity, on its organised tour.

The veterans, many of whom had relatives who fought in either world war, made the trip to pay tribute to them and all those who served and look for memorials to and graves of relatives who made the ultimate sacrifice.

They toured the cemeteries, including one which has Germans and Commonwealth casualties buried side by side.

Tracey, who served with the now amalgamated Queen Alexandra’s Royal Army Nursing Corps and Royal Army Medical Corps, said: “We all found it very fulfilling to visit the battlefields. We found time to reflect quietly when going round the cemeteries and reading the tributes.

“There was also a sense of camaraderie in having a shared background of serving as military personnel. I went to pay tribute to all those who gave their lives or who were injured serving their country and in memory of my great uncle who died aged 19 on the Somme.

“Sadly, there’s no grave and his body wasn’t found. But I remember my mum talking about his loss and his medals were displayed in our house with the official ‘death plaque’ from the authorities.”

She added: “Seeing the memorials and cemeteries brings home the horrors of war. No one wants war, but it shows how young men like Ben were ready to fight for their country to ensure democracy and future peace. And that readiness and sacrifice should never be forgotten.”

Most moving, said Tracey, was joining the daily solemn ceremony in memory of the ‘missing’ (with no known Western Front grave) at the Menin Gate Memorial in leper, Belgium. This is where local buglers sound the Last Post, wreaths are laid and the exhortation and Kohima Epitaph are spoken each day, to this day.

Tracey’s husband Anthony was ‘volunteered’ to read the exhortation to 600 visitors, an ‘unexpected honour’.

Dawn Richards visited the battlefields in memory of her husband Ralph who died last year. He served in the Coldstream Guards and in Devon & Cornwall Police.

“He always planned to go,” he said. “He was a standard bearer for the police at the Plymouth Guildhall Remembrance Service and he was in the Army and my dad John Wright was in the RAF, so it was important to me and meaningful to see where so many people fought and died for us. I took my necklace gold locket made out of Ralph’s wedding ring, it was very emotional.”

Dave Mather, who served in the RAF, also visited the battlefields, as he researches his grandfather George Payne of Gunnislake’s World War One service.

“He survived being gassed but never talked about it,” he said. “The trench recreation showed what unimaginable suffering they endured. They volunteered, but had no idea what would happen. Menin Gate was very poignant and as veterans we were centre stage.”