Remembrance Day

[John Mayhugh]

Earlier today, James Boon tweeted a photo from a memorial at his club, Notts, that's dedicated to members that were killed in WWI.  I have seen a number of these in the UK, and each of these small remembrances bring me closer to grasping some of the sacrifices made during The Great War.  

On this Remembrance Sunday, here are a few of these memorials.  Anyone have some others?

Notts





Royal North Devon (Westward Ho!)



Formby



Royal Porthcawl



Royal West Norfolk (Brancaster), my favorite.



And, of course, every town has one of these.  I always stop, look, think and thank.

[Mark Bourgeois]

The Turnberry memorial is the one that catches me.

Here's Hong Kong GC:

[Adam Lawrence]

Not a golf connection, but if you travel much in rural France, the war memorials are really sobering. You'll be in this tiny village, and the cenotaph will have dozens and dozens of names on it.

[Mark Chaplin]

Unfortunately I'm away so cannot post a picture of the war memorial at Royal Cinque Ports. We lost around 20 members in WW1, nearly all were officers and around 6 members of staff.

The club captain in 1964 was Augustus Charles Newman who won the Victoria Cross in the raid at St Nazaire in WW2. The raid known as "The greatest raid ever" saw 5 VCs awarded and HMS Campletown rammed into the lock gates before blowing up on a delayed charge. Newman commanded the Commando landing party. I was chatting with a colleague from 30 years ago recently and it turned out his father also survived the raid.

[Jason Hines]

John,

Thanks for writing up this thread, it was one of the more truly meaningful posts in a long time.  The forgotten political turmoil, horror and sacrifice from that generation has yet to be matched.

Here in Kansas City, we have our National World War I museum which goes to great lengths to represent the aspects I mentioned above.  It has also inspired me to do some research into my great grandfather, that I remember fondly as a young man and who served in the 88th US Infantry Division in France.   I have attached a photo of his great, great grandsons as they stand over the poppy field before you enter the museum.

Sorry for the off topic photo addition, but well done.

[John Kavanaugh]

When did it become Remembrance Day in place of Veterans Day?  I would prefer to honor the living young men who will soon die today, tomorrow and the next.  Tis a sad world where we live as it will be and always has been. 

[Bob Jenkins]

John,

North of the border we do refer to November 11 as Remembrance Day, as Americans refer to it as Veteran's Day (although I admit to getting confused with MemorialVeterans Day in late May).

In light of two of our military being killed in the last few weeks within our borders up north, this Remembrance Day will be more difficult than most considering one of them was standing in ceremonial gear at the tomb of the unknown soldier in the heart of Ottawa.
 
November 11 is significant all over western world and reminds us of the sacrifices our predecessors have made for us.

Bob J

[John Kavanaugh]

Bob,

Exactly, it is those young men like yours who live innocent lives that at once protect us and then die for us who should be celebrated. Many who have died are in in heaven while those who live are in hell. Find a brother and love him before he is gone as he looks after you as you sleep in peace.

[John Kavanaugh]

A perfect example is our good friend Ben Sims. 364 days of the year he may be a douche but tomorrow he is our Bag Daddy. Safe travels, may God be with you.

[Bill_McBride]

When did it become Remembrance Day in place of Veterans Day?  I would prefer to honor the living young men who will soon die today, tomorrow and the next.  Tis a sad world where we live as it will be and always has been. 

You are forgetting that for most of the 20th Century November 11th was Armistice Day to honor the end of the wholesale slaughter that was the Great War, the "war to end all wars."

Here in the American South, every small town has a memorial to its Confederate dead.   Reminds me of the Pete Seeger song, "When will they ever learn, when will they ever learn?"   Now we are engaged in wars that are apparently endless.....

Thanks to all our veterans wherever they served. 

[Ben Sims]

A perfect example is our good friend Ben Sims. 364 days of the year he may be a douche but tomorrow he is our Bag Daddy. Safe travels, may God be with you.

Fourteen years in and I still get a bit uncomfortable with the gratitude. But I and many others do appreciate it. To be sure though, tomorrow isn't about blind adulation. It's remembering that existential threats--at one time or another--required men and women to sign a blank check to their nation that was payable up to and including their life.  Thanks for the kind words.

[Paul Gray]

John,

It's called Remembrance Day in Britain.

To all those that gave, thank you.

[John Mayhugh]

When did it become Remembrance Day in place of Veterans Day?  I would prefer to honor the living young men who will soon die today, tomorrow and the next.  Tis a sad world where we live as it will be and always has been. 

My post about Remembrance Day was based on the British holiday as it discussed memorials at British golf clubs. 

Veterans Day is a US holiday, and it's unchanged, I think.  In the US we have Memorial Day in May, but people often seem to treat that as a day to recognize veterans in general, which wasn't the purpose.  My understanding is:

Last Monday in May - Memorial Day in US.  Established to remember those who died in military service.
November 11 - Veterans Day in US.  Called Armistice Day until the 1950s.  Established to recognize all veterans of military service.
November 11 - Remembrance Day in the UK and many (if not all) Commonwealth nations.  Established to remember those who died in military service.



Jason,
Thanks for the post.  I want to visit that museum some day.

[Paul Gray]

For what it's worth, Armistice Day was once more commonly used as a term in Britain but the two names seem to have merged somewhat since the day has moved on from honouring the dead from WW1 to a more general acknowledgement of all servicemen and women that didn't make it home. 

[Ian Andrew]

From Geoff Cornish about Stanley and his associates serving in the World Wars:

Stan was very much any army man “he didn't have to go but he went so the next generation didn't have to go.”
In 1915 went over, left Guelph University to join Canadian forces.

He served with the artillery as a spotter.

Robbie Robinson, Howard Watson and I all served in WWII. Robbie was in the air force and Howard helped create caves at Gibralter

I was did not to ask where Geoff where he served, but I do know he shipped out of Halifax.


We go to the local Remembrance Day service each year, I've never seen a bigger turn out in all the years.

[James Boon]

John,

Thanks for starting the thread after my tweet and thanks also for your photos. I will make an effort from now on to look out for the memorials at clubs I visit.

For me it was always Remembrance Sunday (usually with a church parade by the local scouts and cadets as well as the ceremony at the Cenotaph in London) followed by Armistice Day on the 11th Nov when many businesses and shops mark a minutes silence at 11am. Recently it seems that 11th November has become Remembrance Day, but as long as people are remembering then thats fine with me.

John K

In the UK the build up to 11 November is marked by the selling of poppies with the donation going to the Royal British Legion in memory of the fallen and to the future of the living...
http://www.britishlegion.org.uk/get-involved/poppy-appeal

James

[Bill_McBride]

I heard a good story on NPR today about how the poppy came to symbolize Remembrance Day.  When Spring arrives the red poppy is first to appear in freshly turned earth.  In spring 1919 the new cemeteries in France were all bright red with wild poppies.  Made me shiver when I heard that.

[Lynn_Shackelford]

Great stuff John.  I didn't realize that so many clubs had these plaques.  Like others said, this is something to look for in future visits.

[Jason Hines]

I heard a good story on NPR today about how the poppy came to symbolize Remembrance Day.  When Spring arrives the red poppy is first to appear in freshly turned earth.  In spring 1919 the new cemeteries in France were all bright red with wild poppies.  Made me shiver when I heard that.

Thanks Bill, I should have elaborated on the significance of the poppy fields.  My great grandfather played golf in little Pierce, Nebraska until he was 87 years old and his last round was in 1978.  His WWI Infantry helmet and his niblick are two of my most prized possessions that my sons will inherit them after I am gone.

[Bill_McBride]

I heard a good story on NPR today about how the poppy came to symbolize Remembrance Day.  When Spring arrives the red poppy is first to appear in freshly turned earth.  In spring 1919 the new cemeteries in France were all bright red with wild poppies.  Made me shiver when I heard that.

Thanks Bill, I should have elaborated on the significance of the poppy fields.  My great grandfather played golf in little Pierce, Nebraska until he was 87 years old and his last round was in 1978.  His WWI Infantry helmet and his niblick are two of my most prized possessions that my sons will inherit them after I am gone.

Thank you Jason, good memories. 

[Doug Wright]

Another great GCA thread. Happy Veteran's Day to those who served, including my Uncle Dick (lost at sea in WWII) and my dad. and happy Remembrance Day too.

"He is the three anonymous heroes in The Tomb Of The Unknowns, whose presence at the Arlington National Cemetery must forever preserve the memory of all the anonymous heroes whose valor dies unrecognized with them on the battlefield or in the ocean's sunless deep."

[RJ_Daley]

In my lifetime it has been interesting to see the various manifestations of how the two National Holidays of Memorial Day and Veterans day have changed context and how local folks observed them.  

As a child, I still remember Armistice Day with the parade around the Wisconsin State Capitol square.  It seemed all of us post WWII kids knew early on the general meaning of the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month.  As grade school kids we all learned about the poppy fields and first to show their flowers on the graves in the next spring.  But, what I found confusing was that the Poppies were sold by veterans for contribution to Veteran charities on both Memorial Day and Armistice Day.   It seems to me that when Veteran's Day was the official renaming of the 11th of Nov., people still referred to it as Armistice Day quite commonly until into the 60s.  

Where I grew up in Madison, WI., Memorial Day always had the context of memory of the soldiers killed in action of all wars.  We had a confederate cemetery in Madison, from prisoners held at Camp Randall.  They even had a ceremony honoring them as part of the overall observations in Memorial to the fallen.  Yet, when I married into a rural Manitowoc County dairy farmer family, I was surprised to find that all the folks of my parents in-laws age did not refer to Memorial Day as such, and only in part included their memorial observations to fallen soldiers of all wars.  They called it "Decoration Day" and it was a day to go to the cemetery to pay respect and place flowers on all your dead relatives graves.  That sort of did not set well with me having grown up with the strictly fallen soldier context.   It has not been until the last 20 years or so that the fallen soldiers context has become the dominant and primary focus of the day in those rural parts, except for folks in their 80s-90s.

I may be mistaken, but I think Nakoma CC in Madison has a hall of photos of fallen members or their sons KIA in WWII and maybe Korea.   I saw such somewhere it seems like it might have been Nakoma.

[Dan Kelly]

I heard a good story on NPR today about how the poppy came to symbolize Remembrance Day.  When Spring arrives the red poppy is first to appear in freshly turned earth.  In spring 1919 the new cemeteries in France were all bright red with wild poppies.  Made me shiver when I heard that.

In Flanders fields the poppies blow
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.

Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.

From WIKIPEDIA:

"In Flanders Fields" is a war poem in the form of a rondeau, written during the First World War by Canadian physician Lieutenant Colonel John McCrae. He was inspired to write it on May 3, 1915, after presiding over the funeral of friend and fellow soldier Alexis Helmer, who died in the Second Battle of Ypres. According to legend, fellow soldiers retrieved the poem after McCrae, initially dissatisfied with his work, discarded it. "In Flanders Fields" was first published on December 8 of that year in the London-based magazine Punch.

It is one of the most popular and most quoted poems from the war. As a result of its immediate popularity, parts of the poem were used in propaganda efforts and appeals to recruit soldiers and raise money selling war bonds. Its references to the red poppies that grew over the graves of fallen soldiers resulted in the remembrance poppy becoming one of the world's most recognized memorial symbols for soldiers who have died in conflict.[citation needed] The poem and poppy are prominent Remembrance Day symbols throughout the Commonwealth of Nations, particularly in Canada, where "In Flanders Fields" is one of the nation's best-known literary works. The poem also has wide exposure in the United States, where it is associated with Veterans Day.

-------------- In gratitude and remembrance from one who never served to all of those who do and did. Dan

[Rich Goodale]

As one who served, when very few did, I find remembrance day (at least as it is observed here in the UK) to be very much over the top.

The "great" war was a complete disaster, and should be remembered as such rather than as some sort of national accompliishment.  Those who died, died in vain.

Then we had the next "world" war, which was even more stupid and avoidable than the first one, and which killed even more people than the "great" war.

Then we had pesky little "conlficts" such as Malaysia, Korea, Vietnam, Greneda, Iraq I, Afghanistan, Iraq II, Arab Spring, etc. and more people are killing and being killed, mostly on the civilian side.

Not to mention the genocidal acts in Cambodia, Bosnia, Rwanda/Burundi, etc. etc. etc.

And then there is ISIL and Boka Haram and similar individual complete nutters who will behead or stone to death innocent people who don't believe what these nutters believe.

Thank god (if he exists and is listening) for golf.........

[Bill_McBride]

As one who served, when very few did, I find remembrance day (at least as it is observed here in the UK) to be very much over the top.

The "great" war was a complete disaster, and should be remembered as such rather than as some sort of national accompliishment.  Those who died, died in vain.

Then we had the next "world" war, which was even more stupid and avoidable than the first one, and which killed even more people than the "great" war.

Then we had pesky little "conlficts" such as Malaysia, Korea, Vietnam, Greneda, Iraq I, Afghanistan, Iraq II, Arab Spring, etc. and more people are killing and being killed, mostly on the civilian side.

Not to mention the genocidal acts in Cambodia, Bosnia, Rwanda/Burundi, etc. etc. etc.

And then there is ISIL and Boka Haram and similar individual complete nutters who will behead or stone to death innocent people who don't believe what these nutters believe.

Thank god (if he exists and is listening) for golf.........

If WWII had been truly "avoidable" we'd all be speaking German and/or Japanese.