War graves at the Tyne Cot Cemetery, Ypre

The British Thiepval War Memorial at 
The Somme

FLEET MEMORIAL

1914 - 1918 WAR

G.F. Ackers

Will you buy a poppy sir?
Will you wear it well?
For you will hear a band sir,
Not a screaming shell.
It's good to hear you're well sir,
And feeling in the pink,
Two minutes isn't very long
to close your eyes and think.
When I was small, I'd say:"Oh my,
I think that man is going to cry."

Will you buy a poppy sir?
Will you wear it proud?
For you will hear the children sing,
Not orders barked out loud.
"Fix those baynets, off you go,
And if you don't come back
There's plenty more to follow you,
Bob and Bill and Jack."
Full-grown men begin to cry?
I often used to wonder why.

Will you buy a poppy sir?
Tonight there'll be a dance.
By kind permission of the men
Who fought and died, in France.
"Keep on going, though its been
A fortnight since you slept,
Forget the loved ones left behind,
Forget your mother wept."
Forget? We shan't. Now I know why
It's natural to start to cry.

Will you buy a poppy sir?
Will you give 20pence?
Wars are gory scenes of hell,
It makes such little sense
To hear of lads of tender years
Lying stiff and cold,
What comfort can it give to say
"That shall not grow old."
For them we grieve, and mourn, and cry 
As on deaths lonely field they lie.

Will you buy a poppy sir?
The band made such a row
But, now they're going home,sir
Things are quiet now.
The politicians, they knew best,
And they had their way.
Please, sir buy this poppy sir,
Just one left on my tray.
Then I'll go home too, by and by,
Perhaps to think - perhaps to cry.

Glyndwr Evans
Printed in the Daily Mail on 
Thursday 11 Nov 2004

The flowers left thick at nightfall in the wood
This Eastertide call into mind the men,
Now far from home, who, with their sweethearts should
Have gathered them and will do never again.

Edward Thomas 

And When They Ask Us

And when they ask us, how dangerous it was,
Oh, we'll never tell them, no, we'll never tell them:
We spent our pay in some cafe,
And fought wild women night and day,
'Twas the cushiest job we ever had.

And when they ask us, and they're certainly going to ask us,
The reason why we didn't win the Croix de Guerre,
Oh, we'll never tell them, oh, we'll never tell them
There was a front, but damned if we knew where.

Song with music by Jerome Kern and lyrics 
by Herbert Reynolds

Before Action

By all the glories of the day
And the cool evening's benison
By that last sunset touch that lay
Upon the hills when day was done,
By beauty lavishly outpoured
And blessings carelessly received,
By all the days that I have lived
Make me a soldier, Lord.

By all of all man's hopes and fears
And all the wonders poets sing,
The laughter of unclouded years,
And every sad and lovely thing;
By the romantic ages stored
With high endeavour that was his,
By all his mad catastrophes
Make me a man, O Lord.

I, that on my familiar hill
Saw with uncomprehending eyes
A hundred of thy sunsets spill
Their fresh and sanguine sacrifice,
Ere the sun swings his noonday sword
Must say good-bye to all of this; -
By all delights that I shall miss,
Help me to die, O Lord.

Lt William Hodgson

G.A. Anstey

Down the close darkening lanes they sang their way
To the siding-shed,
And lined the train with faces grimly gay.

Their breasts were stuck all white with wreath and spray
As men’s are, dead.

Dull porters watched them, and a casual tramp
Stood staring hard,
Sorry to miss them from the upland camp.

Then, unmoved, signals nodded, and a lamp
Winked to the guard.

So secretly, like wrongs hushed-up, they went.
They were not ours:
We never heard to which front these were sent;

Nor there if they yet mock what women meant
Who gave them flowers.

Shall they return to beating of great bells
In wild train-loads?
A few, a few, too few for drums and yells,

May creep back, silent, to village wells,
Up half-known roads.

Wilfred Owen

C.W. Anstey

W.H. Allen

W.H.P. Bartlett

W.H. Batchelor

C. Baverstock

W. Baverstock

B. Bellinger

W. Benham

W.P. Bennett

E. Berry

F. Berry

A.V. Bridge

D.A. Cameron MC

A. Classe

E. Clarje

The Cherry Trees

The cherry trees bend over and are shedding,
On the old road where all that passed are dead,
Their petals, strewing the grass as for a wedding
This early May morn when there is none to wed.

Edward Thomas

H.G. Clinker

M.H. Cobbe

E.J. Cranford

F.W.C. Creeper

J. Crumplin

D. Deane

A.L. Denton

H. Dimes

G.C. Dimes

E.C. Dixon

The Somme

H. Eggleton

J.A.C. Forbes

H. Goldring

O.G. Gunning GMA  DSO

F. Ham

F.R. Ham

F.G. Hankin

C. Heather

E.G. Hewett

C.H. Holt

W. Howard

No Mother or Father saw him die,
No Sister or Brother to say goodbye,
No friends or relations to grasp his hand,
But they hope to meet in the better land.

Written byLieut. Maclean Proctor-Dilworths servant Private Kennedy. 
Sherwood Foresters. 
In memory of a much loved officer

C.H. Hughes

F.M. Harvey-Jones MC

W.C. Jones

J.H. Kerrich

R. Labrun

E.D. Lawes

J.W. Loveday

W.R. Lovelock

J.E.Marjoram MM

R.J. McCleverty

In winter trenches, cowed and glum,
With crumps and lice and lack of rum,
He put a bullet through his brain.
No one spoke of him again.

You smug-faced crowds with kindling eye
Who cheer when soldier lads march by,
Sneak home and pray you'll never know
The hell where youth and laughter go.

Siegfried Sassoon

F.M. Mearing

A.J. Methven

W.J. Methven

A. Moore

W.G. Moore

W. Mower

T.W. Murrell

R.F. Newton

S.S. Norman

C.N. North

A.E. Patey

C.B. Partridge

And think, this heart, all evil shed away,
A pulse in the eternal mind, no less
Gives somewhere back the thoughts by England given;
Her sights and sounds; dreams happy as her day;
And laughter, learnt of friends; and gentleness,
In hearts at peace, under an English heaven.

Rupert Brooke

In Flanders Fields

In Flanders field the poppies grow
Between the crosses row on row
That mark our place; and in the 
sky
The larks still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below

We are the dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow.
Loved and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders fields.

Reach hand to touch rough coated arm,
Let non dismiss with pity, grief
This company of ghosts about my heart,
They were my youth, the sorrow mine,
I bought this peace, but paid no price
So great as theirs.

John McCrae

                     
“The short but terrible rush through the fierce curtain fire with men falling on all sides, I shall never forget. High explosive shells fell all around us. The sights I saw are too terrible to write about and men almost blown to pieces … … I saw dead and wounded lying side by side. Some were moaning and others had so far lost their reason that they were laughing and singing.”

From the diary of Private William Roberts describing the first day of the Battle of the Somme

C.D. Partridge

A. Parsons

J. Peake-Knight DSO

L. Ranger

A.E. Sayers

T.J. Shilling

C. Silver

God knows - my dear -
I did not want to rise and leave you so,
But the dead men’s hands were beckoning
And I knew that I must go.

The dead men’s eyes were watching, lass,
Their lips were asking too;
We faced it out and paid the price -Are we betrayed by you?

Ewart Alan Mackintosh.
Seaforth Highlanders.

Killed in action November 21st 1917.

Anthem of Doomed Youth

What passing-bells for those who die as cattle?
Only the monstrous anger of the guns.
Only the stuttering rifles' rapid rattle
Can patter out their hasty orisons.
No mockeries now for them; no prayers nor bells;
Nor any voice of morning save the choirs.-
The shrill demented choirs of wailing shells;
And bugles calling for them from sad shires.
What candles may be held to speed them all?
Not in the hands of boys but in their eyes
Shall shine the holy glimmers of goodbyes.
The pallor of girl' brows shall be their pall;
Their flowers the tenderness of patient minds,
And each slow dusk a drawing-down of blinds.

Wilfred Owen

G. Silvester

C.Simms MM

W.G. Simms

A.J. Smith

R. Smith

W.C. Smith

A. Splatt

S.G. Taylor

F. Thackeray

F.R. Thackeray MC

H.S. Tocock

C. Trig

A.S. Vass

J. Vass DCM

S.J. Wackett

G. Wallace

W. Williams

D.E. Wilson

A.L. Wrenford

1939 - 1945 WAR

G.H. Baigent

J.A. Beale

There were so many things I’d meant to try,
So many contests I had hoped to win;
And lo, the end approaches just as I
Was preparing to begin.

Written by a young English soldier when dying 
from malnutrition and disease, as a prisoner 
of war in Malaya,under the Japanese, during 
the second world war

C.B. Berry

C.B.L. Bodger

D.J. Bone

R.A.J. Bradford

W.E.J. Brown DCM MM

J.A.C. Carbbonel

G.A.R. Chalmers

C. Clark

C.H. Cobbe

N.M. Collins

J.B. Colthurst

A.R. Colthurst DSO

D.C. Croslegh

I.J. Davies

A.B. Dawes

P. Dawson

J.C. Drew

A.C. Elger

E.G. Elmes

T.H. Ely

D.B.D. Field

G.G.P. Fielding

When you go home
Tell them of us and say
For your tomorrow we gave our today.

From the book "The Little Men" (Relating to the Burma campaign in the second world war.)

I.P. Garrow DSO

P.G. Geary

P. Goodenough

W.H.E.Gott CB CBE DSO MC

E.G. Grinham

A.S. Hay

J.P.M. Hewlett

P.V. Jenkins

P.M. Kerr

D.G. Kingsford MC

D.M. Lawder

S.W. Lindsay

D. McDonald

C.E. Macey

G.D. MacMahon

E.G. Manning

J. Merris OBE

L.P. Moore

S.M.C. Moorhouse

Diana Isabel Nash

D.P. Newbury MC

T.G. Newbury MC

G.R.H. Newton

G. Plummer

M.S. Proudlock

S.S. Pyke

Jean Ferelith Ramsay

D.G. Reed

J.A.C. Richardson DSO

A,G. Sandeman

H.R. Sayers

D.M. Stephens

P.H.G. Stillman

G.B. Sugden CBE

A.D. Symes

W.J. Tilley

J.L. Wake

J.L. Watson

N.C. Weston

F.G. Whitmarsh

D.C. Withers

Roll of Honour - Christ Church Crookham

1914 -1918 WAR   

William Anderton

Little did I dream, England, that you bore me
Under the Cotswold Hills beside the water meadows,
To do your dreadful service, here, beyond your borders
And your unfolding seas.

I was a dreamer ever, and bound to your dear service.
Meditating deep, I thought on your secret beauty
As through a child's face one may see the clear spirit
Miraculously shining.

Your hills not only hills, but friends of mine and kindly,
Your tiny knolls and orchards hidden beside the river
Muddy and strong-flowing, with shy and tiny streamlets
Safe in its bosom.

Now these are memories only, and your skies and rushy sky-pools
Fragile mirrors easily broken by moving airs...
I my deep heart for ever goes on your daily being,
And uses consecrate.

Think on me too, O Mother, who wrest my soul to serve you.
In strange and fearful ways beyond your encircling waters;
None but you can know my heart, its tears and sacrifice;
None but you, repay.

Ivory Gurney

And have we done with War at last?
Well, we’ve been lucky devil’s both,
And there’s no need of pledge or oath
To bind our lovely friendship fast,
By firmer stuff
Close bound enough.

By wire and wood and stake we’re bound,
By Fricourt and by Festubert,
By whipping rain, by the sun’s glare,
By all the misery and loud sound,
By a Spring day,
By Picard clay.

Show me the two so closely bound
As we, by the wet bond of blood,
By friendship blossoming from mud,
By Death: we faced him, and we found
Beauty in Death,
In dead men, breath.

Edward Alan Mackintosh

They ask me where I've been,
And what I've done and seen.
But what can I reply
Who know it wasn't I,
But someone just like me,
Who went across the sea
And with my head and hands
Killed men in foreign lands...
Though I must bear the blame,
Because he bore my name.

The Secret

When there ain't no gal to kiss you,
And the postman seems to miss you,
And the fags have skipped an issue,
Carry on.

When ye've got an empty belly,
And the bulley's rotten smelly,
And you're shivering like a jelly,
Carry on.

When the Boche has done your chum in,
And the sergeant's done the rum in,
And there ain't no rations comin',
Carry on.

When the world is red and reeking,
And the shrapnel shells are shrieking,
And your blood is slowly leaking,
Carry on.

When the broken battered trenches,
Are like the bloody butchers' benches,
And the air is thick with stenches,
Carry on.

Carry on,
Though your pals are pale and wan,
And the hope of life is gone,
Carry on.
For to do more than you can,
Is to be a British man,
Not a rotten 'also ran,'
Carry on..

Woodbine Willy

Oh, the letters he wrote you,
And I can see them still,
Not a word of the fighting,
But just the sheep on the hill
And how you should get the crops in
Ere the year get stormier,
And the Bosches have got his body,
And I was his officer.

You were only David’s father,
But I had fifty sons
When we went up in the evening
Under the arch of the guns,
And we came back at twilight - 
O God! I heard them call
To me for help and pity
That could not help at all.

Oh, never will I forget you,
My men that trusted me,
More my sons than your fathers’,
For they could only see
The little helpless babies
And the young men in their pride.
They could not see you dying,
And hold you while you died.

Happy and young and gallant,
They saw their first-born go,
But not the strong limbs broken
And the beautiful men brought low,
The piteous writhing bodies,
They screamed “Don’t leave me, sir”,
For they were only your fathers
But I was your officer.

Ewart Alan Mackintosh

William Allen

Chester Brandon

James Bracknell

Edward Breay

Arthur Bridge

L Sacheverell Coke

Albert Coles

Charles Coles

Samuel Coles

William Conway

Hugh Cooke     (PP)

Charles Craddock

John Edgell

William Fearnley

Edward Fenwick

Alfred Field     (WG)

Albert Fulbrook

Charles Godfrey

Edward Harvie

G Fredrick Hankins

William Harper

DOES it matter?—losing your legs?... 
For people will always be kind, 
And you need not show that you mind 
When the others come in after hunting 
To gobble their muffins and eggs. 5

Does it matter?—losing your sight?... 
There’s such splendid work for the blind; 
And people will always be kind, 
As you sit on the terrace remembering 
And turning your face to the light. 10

Do they matter?—those dreams from the pit?... 
You can drink and forget and be glad, 
And people won’t say that you’re mad; 
For they’ll know you’ve fought for your country 
And no one will worry a bit.

Siegfried Sassoon

Thomas Hill    (PP & CP)

Charles Hill 

William Holliday  (CP)

Fredrick Javes

George Johns

George Lampard   (WG)

Herbert Macdonnell  (PP)

Henry May

Henry Mellish

George Newton

Oliver Neville

Reginald Pepys

James Randall

Arthur Romilly   (PP)

Harry Romilly

Henry Rundle

War

There's a soul in the Eternal,
Standing stiff before the King.
There's a little English maiden
Sorrowing.
There's a proud and tearless woman,
Seeing pictures in the fire.
There's a broken battered body
On the wire.

Woodbine Willy

Christopher Russell  (PP)

Leslie Sayers  (PP)

Frank Silvester

George Silvester

Albert Simpson   (WG)

Ernle Taylor

George Ware

Reginald White   (CP)

George Wilkie  

William Willis

    1939 - 1945 WAR

William Fredrick Brown

John Chillery   (FP)

Gerald Cooke

Andrew Walter Cox

James Alexander Davies  (CP)

Basil Cranmer Dening

"And we that are left grow old with the years 
Remembering the heartache, the pain and the tears 
Hoping and praying that never again 
Man will sink to such sorrow and shame 
The price that was paid we will always remember 
Every day - every month - not just in November"

Arthur Ogden, who was a young British prisoner of war in the Second World War

Sidney Durn

Albert Edgell   (WG)

Maxwell Elrington

FCT Ewald

Raymond Garratt

George Henry Greenway

Alan Norman Hodgkinson

Michael Hogg

Edward Humphries

William Jarvis

D Knight

John Walker McKrell

John William Moore

Edwin Race   (WG)

Cecil Fredrick Rivers  (WG)

Albert Robinson

Tom Routh   (WG)

Hugh Sealy  (PP)

Graham Simpkin

Lydia Amy Slingo   (WG)

Thomas Nelson Smith

Charles Richard Tucker

John Wafford

Charles Whitcher

Roderick Alan Young

Civilians

May Ashley

Florence Chapman

Joyce Chapman (CP)

Peter Chapman  

William John Chapman

William Frank Chapman

Constance Polley

"and all others who have given their lives in the service of their country"

More than 9 million combatants were killed in the first world war - 27 million were wounded

There were over 5,965 miles of trenches stretching between the North Sea and the Swiss border with France

On 1 July 1916 19,240 died on the first day of the Battle of the Somme - there were 57,470 casualties - this was the bloodiest day in the history of the British Army

"Over 55 million people lost their lives in the 2nd world war"

    WG = War Graves Commission

PP  =  Private Plaque in Church

FP = Plaque on Family Grave

CP = Church Yard Burial Plot

You can trace your 1914 - 1918 relatives on www.1837online.com   and/or    /www.everymanremembered.org/search/ 

   World War One Photos in Street View        Great War Journeys            World War One Stories

2009 Rememberence Sunday Parade

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If any of the above information is found to be incorrect please contact fleethants.com