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CFIVA News
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SOMME PILGRIMAGE Monday, July 3, 2006 CFIVA Secretary Daniel Kington travelled to France to attend the ninetieth anniversary commemorations of the Battle of the Somme, an event televised across the world. On 1st July 1916, some 54,000 British soldiers became casualties in the first day of a campaign that would come to epitomise the pointless waste of the Great War. After the very moving ceremony at which HRH Prince Charles and the battle's last survivor Henry Allingham were present, Kington laid a poppy wreath beneath the giant Thiepval Memorial on behalf of the fallen of all nations in that dreadful battle that saw more than a million casualties before it ground to a halt in November 1916 with neither side victorious. There was some disappointment in that a separate, smaller wreath CFIVA had paid for was not delivered. We have since received an apology from the suppliers and will use the wreath this coming November in London. Over the weekend Kington toured many of the scenes of the battle and many large military cemeteries and memorials, including the German cemetery at Fricourt containing 11,970 bodies. A visit to the Somme is highly recommended to any war veteran or person interested in what took place there ninety years ago.
CFIVA |
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