My grandfather, Harry, threw his Great War medals into the Manchester Ship Canal at the outbreak of the Second World War. An act of heartbreak, of bitter disillusionment.
His medals are now lost, so I had these replicas made. I needed somewhere to place the inheritance of sorrow, a transgenerational grief.
His service record tells you all you need to know about the futility of war and the losses endured.
Wounded twice:
—November 1916: Left thigh and leg, at the Ancre, Battle of the Somme
—September 1917: Right arm and chest, Menin Road Ridge, Passchendaele.
By the end of the Somme, the King’s Liverpool Regiment had lost 3,000 men.
At Ypres, his division lost 2,730 in five days.
These are the words of his commanding officer, during the battle of Menin Road Ridge, as the men attempted to capture Hill 37.
Special Order of the Day
With all my heart I thank you for
your courage, patience and devotion during
the past few days. It is impossible for
me to express in words all that I feel and
all that I would like to say, but you will,
I hope, understand that I consider it a great
honour to be in command of such a Battalion.
Two of our companies have gone, almost
to a man. Their orders were to hang on
and fight to the last and they did so. The
fact that they did hang on to the end saved
the remainder of the Battalion, and the remainder
of the Battalion by sticking to their posts saved
further disaster.
Let this then be your motto
during the days to come: ‘Stick it out’. No
matter how hard it may be to endure, that is the
only thing to be done. You have done heroic
things during the past few days, may you have
the strength to do as well in the hard days
that are to come
Lieut. Colonel A. Buckley DSO Commanding
To the Officers, N.C.O’s and the men of 1/5th Battalion, ‘The King’s’ in the field. Ypres
And the lesson of all this heroic sacrifice?
The cost of war is always borne by those with no say in it.
Every cratered schoolyard, every hospital turned to dust, is proof: That those who command armies have confused cruelty with strength, and firepower with wisdom.
