This morning I represented the British Forces at the Church at Maisieres at Mons. This is the local church to where I live out here in Belgium and I volunteer to lay the wreaths here due to the Royal Engineers connection of the village and the church.
At the Church there is a memorial plaque that commemorates the British units that defended the section of the Nimy Canal on 23 August 1914.
56 Field Company Royal Engineers are named on the Plaque and as such I feel it is my responsibility to attend this location on behalf of SHAPE and the Corps.
Why? well 56 Field Company RE were tasked with the demolition of the 4 bridges in this area and were the first RE unit to be engaged by the Germans, they also sustained the first Royal Engineer Casualty from enemy action of the Great War – 2Lt HW Holt RE.
Holt and the other dead from the Engineers, Royal Fusiliers, Royal Irish and the Middlesex Regiment were originally buried in Maisieres before being moved to the combined British and German cemetery at St Symphorien on the eastern side of Mons.
The thing that struck me was the passion that the locals have to remember those that fought in 1914-18.
With a wreath laid at the Church memorial we all moved up to the village war memorial for a small ceremony where the names on the memorial are read out and Wreaths are laid. The move up to and back from the village war memorial had us escorted by 2 Horses and riders. From all accounts this is a local tradition and possibly dates back to just after the Great War when there was a Belgian Cavalry unit based at the Barracks that now form part of SHAPE.
So with wreaths laid it was Duty done and respects paid, it was a honour to do this morning.