kinnethmont
Joined: 19 Dec 2006 Posts: 1649 Location: Aberdeenshire
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Posted: Sat Sep 01, 2012 8:23 am Post subject: CWGC - Captain Fergus Bowes-Lyon, 8th Black Watch |
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The Commonwealth War Graves Commission has changed the commemoration for Captain Fergus Bowes-Lyon, an uncle of Her Majesty the Queen. Fergus died in France during the Battle of Loos in September 1915 and, until now, had been commemorated by the Commonwealth War Graves Commission on the Loos Memorial as he had no known grave.
His grandson wrote to the Commission in November 2011 after having visited Quarry Cemetery, Vermelles. He produced contemporary evidence that his grandfather had been buried in the quarry and that a grave marker with his name on it was still in place at the end of the war. The Commission's grave registration documents were found to record his burial in the cemetery in 1920, but these documents were superseded by the final grave registration forms, dating from 1925, which do not include Captain Bowes-Lyon's name.
Under these circumstances the Commission has agreed that the evidence for Captain Bowes-Lyon being buried in the cemetery is sufficient to allow the erection of a named headstone within the cemetery. The special memorial headstone to Captain Bowes-Lyon is inscribed 'Buried near this spot' as there is no certainty about the precise location of his remains within the cemetery. The majority of the headstones in Quarry Cemetery, Vermelles, are, in fact, of this type as the cemetery remained in the front line after 1915 and suffered extensive shell damage before the end of the war. This made precise grave identification extremely problematic.
The headstone was installed in the cemetery earlier this year. _________________ Jim
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.
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