forgotten fallen: the lost ww1 graves

2016 was the centenary of the battle of the somme. across the uk, there were many events to commemorate (but not celebrate) what can only be described as an horrific period in European history.

It was one of the bloodiest campaigns lasting 141 days from July 1st, 1916. a total of 3 million men on both sides were involved, estimates of the total number of casualties do vary, but two sources put the number of killed, wounded or missing as 1,666,289.

One of the joys of working as a photographer is the opportunity to work with professionals in other disciplines, and this project came about when I was contacted by the late Tony Simpson of honition, east Devon. Tony was a well-known and respected local historian and was researching his grandfather’s military service in ww1. He very quickly discovered in is researches that many ‘casualties’ along the western front were not the result of enemy action.

many succumbed to disease resulting from the appalling conditions. transported back to the uk, along with many wounded, a large number succumbed and died, sometimes many months later. Many died much later (even much later than the armistice). It is likely that these casualties do not appear in the statistic quoted earlier. nor are they buried in the war cemeteries so carefully maintained by the commonwealth war graves commission. returned to their families, they are buried in the local cemeteries.

and so it was that Tony discovered lost ‘war graves’ in a derelict area of the now decommissioned st Michael’s parish church in honition, and he set about researching their histories, and to commemorate their lives.

the project that arose from this was a collaboration between Tony, Margaret lewis (curator at monition museum) and myself. My role was to track down the graves which were totally submerged in undergrowth and scrub! An impossible job! By now, the commonwealth war graves commission had been made aware of the graves by Tony, and funded a team of volunteers from the local Tesco community volunteer team to clear the site.

The end product of the collaboration was an exhibition located in honition museum.

the graves are now on record with the commonwealth ware graves commission, a great achievement by the late Tony simpson.