OT: Harry Patch dead
 

Possibly the last surviving British soldier of WWI passes at age 111.

http://blog.taragana.com/n/harry-pat...at-111-120554/

The last RNAS / RAF guy passed a couple of weeks ago.

I walked the Somme battlefields last September, and it was pretty awesome (and I'm using that word in it's proper sense, rather than the overused Americanism). In most areas the trenches have been filled in and just show up from the air as different coloured lines on the ground but in some places they are still there.

I was particularly struck by the sheer number of cemetaries - I was aware that over 50,000 allies were killed but rather stupidly thought the bodies were concentrated in a few large cemetaries. Instead, the Somme was the first place I've ever been to where the landscape is defined by graveyards (which are all immaculate) some having a dozen or so graves and some "just" a few hundred. They sit at the side of roads, or in the middle of modern fields (with a path leading to them), surrounded by a white stone wall - and are just everywhere.

The Newfoundland Memorial Park was a fantastic example of just how a field should be preserved, and how those men should be remembered - although there are many such sites which do the job just as well (although I was disappointed that the Irish Tower had been pretty much turned into a coffee shop as far as I could see).

I'd definately recommend anyone to go and spend a couple of days there.

When my wife and I travelled on foot following the "Cathar route" from Berga (Catalunya) to Montsegur (France), one of the most shocking things we found was the ever-present monument erected in each village, not matter its size, in memory of the soldiers of the place who were killed in the Great War. The shocking thing was not the presence of the monument itself but the fact that all the names listed were from boys of the village... and believe me, they were very small, rural and mountain villages, but the list in each monument was not so short in size...Taking into account that only the names of the dead ones were listed, it's not difficult to supppose the profound impact over the everyday life of every inhabitant of the region.... Even being far away from the fronlines and not suffering the direct impact of war in their territory a good part of an entire generation of men vanished.

You are right Marc but you are forgetting about a small detail. At the time of WW1, these villages had much larger population (2 to 3 time larger, may be 4) than what they have now. Of course, the impact was very heavy but it was smaller that what you feel.

In addition, in most french villages these monuments are listing dead from WW2 as well. They are much less numerous (only 100.000) but that might modify your perception. Nevertheless, you can count that in every village, every family had lost at least one of its member. Finally, the worse is not listed on these monument: KIA and MIA numbered 1.700.000. Wounded were 3.500.000 to which you have to add 1 million mutilated. Total casualties for France alone: 6.200.000+

Still, for me, the most impressive of all these monuments was seen in Scotland. A few years ago I was visiting scotland with some friends and we stop by Eilean Donan Castle. They had a monument listing the dead from the Macrae Clan (I think). The list of names (including casualties from Australia, Canada and US) was as long as these you could find in small towns.

Mmmmm... thanks for your explanations Mo, now I have a clearer picture...

A miniatures group I used to hang out with played a fair amount of WW2 games, usually 1:285th scale. One of our guys who usually set up the games had a 15mm French soldier mini, which he put on a pedestal. This, we put in the center of most of our towns when it was a Western Front scenario.