THE MISSING

Hokitika Guardian, 16 May 1932, Page 2

THE MISSING

LAST OF WAR MEMORIALS.

AN UNVEILING TO-DAY.

A memorial twice the size of the Alenin Gate, and bearing on its panels 20,000 more names is to bo unveiled by H.R.H. the Prince of Wales, at Thiepval, on the old Western Frant battlefields, to-day, May 16. This, and the Arras memorial to the missing, to bo dedicated on the same day, will complete the chain of monuments erected in Franco and B.lgium by the imoprial War Graves Commission, and tile names of every officer and man killed serving wit.li the British and Dominion forces in the war, and

“with no known grave,"’ will have hem recorded, (bus making complete the post-war constructional task of the

Commission

Tile Tliiepval memorial bears 73.(K1D names, and that adjoining' the Faubourg d’Ar-as British Military Cemetery at Arras, a further 36 030. The Royal Fusilier's (City of I ondon Regiment) contribut-s the huge total of 3924 to these roily of honour, exceeded onlv bv the Northumberland Fusiliers (“Fighting Fifth”) with 4309 names. Other extensive county representations are made by the Durham Light Infantry, and the (Middlesex, Gloucestershire, and Royal Warwickshire Regiments.

Sir Edwin Lutyens’ design at Tliienvul stands 150 feet flight, oil a base almost as big, upon a forty-acre site between Thiepvfll and Authuille, and oom-

’ dwarfs all ft+h'-w memorials hi the neighbourhood, These include the famous Ulster Tower on the opposite slopes, and the battle memorial of the Eighteenth Division, A platform at the top provides the visitor with a wonder.uF panorama of the Somme and A ncre battlefields.

The Choice of Site

The choice of- Thienval was dictated

bv tin* nature of the site a.nd by

historical association,” an Imoprial War Graves Commission official explained. “Of the low ranges of bills which mark the Somme 'battlefields, those which rise eastward front the lower An ere are the barest and amongst the most abrupt. Tliiepval, of all the positions attacked in the Rattle of the Somme of July 1, 1916, was perhaps tli© strongest, and certainly the most obstinately do 1 ended. It alone of the villages razed in the war was threatened

with a permanent erasure. “The land.” he added, “was generously set apart by the French Government as a site for the memorial under renewable lease free of rent.”

The missing of many famous battles are recorded on the piers, notably those of the engagements of Delville Wood, High Wood, Pozieres Ridge and Mouquet Fram, Giiillenimlt, and FlersCoureelette, where "tanks went into action for the first time. The German ■retreat to the Himlenburg (or Siegfried) Line in the Spring o'" ]917 likewise enters into the period of hostilities covered by the memorial.

Tile Arras memorial, also to the design of Sir Edwin Lutyens, is of an entirely different character. A cloister, twenty-five feet high and 380 feet long, lias been erected on Doric Columns, lacing west. The colonnade returns in the broader part of the. site to form a recessed and open court, ended by an apse, in front of which is a memorial to the Flying Services. The names of the missing are carved on stone panel fixed to the Air memorial and to the cloister walls.

South Africa, and New /Calami, in addition to Group Britain, are represented on the panels, and pilots from these Dominions, with Australia, Canada, and India as well, are commeiuorated on tho Flying Services monument.

Two major actions contributed to the Arrn.s memorial—the British offensive launched from that town in 1917, and l/iidondord ’s final attack on the grand scale on March 21 1918, almost a year later.