 | | 
05.05.2011, 08:55
|  | Forum Legend | | Join Date: Dec 2009 Location: Roundn'about Basel
Posts: 7,231
Groaned at 105 Times in 95 Posts
Thanked 9,934 Times in 4,178 Posts
| | RIP Chuckles | Quote: | |  | | | | | | | | Europe - at least - owes his generation a debt of gratitude.
For those who never came home... The Great War by Vernon Scannell (b.1922)Whenever war is spoken of I find The war that was called Great invades the mind: The grey militia marches over land A darker mood of grey Where fractured tree-trunks stand And shells, exploding, open sudden fans Of smoke and earth. Blind murders scythe The deathscape where the iron brambles writhe; The sky at night Is honoured with rosettes of fire, Flares that define the corpses on the wire As terror ticks on wrists at zero hour. These things I see, But they are only part Of what it is that slyly probes the heart: Less vivid images and words excite The sensuous memory And, even as I write, Fear and a kind of love collaborate To call each simple conscript up For quick inspection: Trenches' parapets Paunchy with sandbags; bandoliers, tin-hats. Candles in dugouts, Duckboards, mud and rats. Then, like patrols, tunes creep into the mind: A long, long trail, The Rose of No-Man's Land, Home Fire and Tipperary: And through the misty keening of a band Of Scottish pipes the proper names are heard Like fateful commentary of distant guns: Passchendaele, Bapaume, and Loos, and Mons. And now, Whenever the November sky Quivers with a bugle's hoarse, sweet cry, The reason darkens; in its evening gleam Crosses and flares, tormented wire, grey earth Splattered with crimson flowers, And I remember, Not the war I fought in But the one called Great Which ended in a sepia November Four years before my birth.
__________________
Never let right or wrong get in the way of a good opinion
| The following 10 users would like to thank Carlos R for this useful post: | | 
05.05.2011, 09:16
|  | Forum Legend | | Join Date: Jun 2009 Location: Top of a Triangle
Posts: 2,992
Groaned at 38 Times in 29 Posts
Thanked 5,673 Times in 2,039 Posts
| | Re: RIP Chuckles
Lest we forget
| This user would like to thank TidakApa for this useful post: | | 
05.05.2011, 09:45
|  | Forum Veteran | | Join Date: Dec 2009 Location: Zurich
Posts: 958
Groaned at 3 Times in 3 Posts
Thanked 1,463 Times in 514 Posts
| | Re: RIP Chuckles
Very poignant posting - thanks for drawing our attention to that.
Strangely enough, we were only talking of of visit to the Somme cemetries just over a year ago. We visited Tyne Cott (the largest allied cemetry, I believe)near the Ypres salient - it was just a numbing experience.
Finally went to see the huge Menin Gate, where after a lot of searching amongst the 50 odd thousand names inscribed on it, we found our great-uncle. Strangely, it was an extremely emotional experience.
Huge sacrifices (on all sides) that should never be forgotten.
| This user would like to thank basher for this useful post: | | 
05.05.2011, 10:29
|  | Forum Legend | | Join Date: Jun 2009 Location: Top of a Triangle
Posts: 2,992
Groaned at 38 Times in 29 Posts
Thanked 5,673 Times in 2,039 Posts
| | Re: RIP Chuckles
Hopefully this link will work: http://au.news.yahoo.com/thewest/a/-...s-dead-at-110/
I had just finished reading this when I first saw this thread.
I also had Granfathers in both WW1 and WW2, so I found this quite sad to read.
Here are some great points from the story listed above (in case the link ever fails) Claude Choules: - Born in Britain and raised in Wyre Piddle, Mr Choules joined the Royal Navy in 1915 at 14.
- At 16 joined the British Grand Fleet aboard HMS Revenge
- He settled in Fremantle after he was seconded to the Royal Australian Navy in 1926
- IS RECOGNISED AS THE ONLY LIVING VETERAN WHO SERVED IN BOTH WORLD WARS
- He was declared the last known survivor of the more than 70 million military personnel mobilised globally during The Great War
- Survived the Gallipoli landing.
- Mr Choules recorded many of the twists and turns of his long life in his autobiography "The Last of the Last".
“I have had a happy life,” he said from his home at the Gracewood Hostel in Salter point in 2009. “I don’t think there was anything in my life I would wish had not happened.”
- Claude Choules, 2009 (died 2011 aged 110yo) | The following 2 users would like to thank TidakApa for this useful post: | |
Currently Active Users Viewing This Thread: 1 (0 members and 1 guests) | | Thread Tools | | Display Modes | Linear Mode |
Posting Rules
| You may not post new threads You may not post replies You may not post attachments You may not edit your posts HTML code is Off | | | All times are GMT +2. The time now is 10:42. | |