Soldiers rehearse in fog ahead of reburial ceremony after bodies of British First World War soldiers are discovered in France.

These eerie scenes show soldiers rehearsing in the fog for a reburial ceremony after the bodies of 20 British First World War soldiers were found. The only man of those discovered to have been identified by name is Private William McAleer, from the 7th Battalion the Royal Scottish Fusiliers. His relatives will be represented at the service tomorrow in Loos-en-Gohelle, France, by his step-great-nephew - almost 100 years after he died. The 20 bodies were found at a construction site of a new prison being built in October 2010, where the Battle of Loos took place in September 1915. Soldiers of The 2nd Battalion The Royal Regiment of Scotland are rehearsing in Loos, with 19 unidentified men set to be buried as ‘Known Unto God’. Read more HERE


WE WILL REMEMBER THEM.

World's largest surviving military gun arrives at Royal Armouries Fort Nelson

The mighty British 18-inch Railway Howitzer is the world’s largest surviving military gun and weighs about the same as 17 double-decker buses. It is so large that during its transit and delivery it had to be split into two sections, gun and carriage. After weeks of careful planning and a journey that included negotiating the M25 Dartford Crossing, the gun is now sitting on a specially-installed railway track in preparation for it being loaded into the museum’s artillery hall. Here it will take centre stage for the centenary commemorations of the First World War between 2014 and 2018. Developed during the First World War, the Howitzer was produced as part of the trend to build bigger calibre guns capable of firing heavier, more destructive shells in the battle to break the stalemate on the Western Front. Each 18-inch shell weighed about a ton. The First World War ended before any 18-inch Howitzers were ready, but five were completed soon afterwards. Some of them were used for testing purposes on artillery ranges and one had a new lease of life in the Second World War – serving on a railway line in Kent, in readiness to blast the beaches if a German invasion force landed. Luckily the Howitzer was never fired in anger as the feared invasion never occurred. The Howitzer is on loan from the Royal Artillery Historical Trust and joins “historical heavyweights” at the Royal Armouries Museum, near Fareham – home to the big guns. It has previously formed the centrepiece of an exhibition at the Het Spoorwegmuseum (Dutch Railway Museum) in Utrecht. Read more HERE

UBIQUE

First World War 'sacred soil' ceremony in London

Members of the King's Troop Royal Horse Artillery with the seventy bags of Soil on a gun carriage being carried down the Mall. Photo: Laura Lean/PA Wire


"Sacred soil" collected from the First World War battlefields of Flanders has been carried through London today to a memorial garden marking the centenary of the War.

The procession passed Tower Bridge, St Paul's Cathedral, Trafalgar Square, Whitehall, Horse Guards Parade, The Mall and Buckingham Palace.


The soil was then blessed in a ceremony at the Guards' Chapel at Wellington Barracks - near Buckingham Palace.Read more  HERE

WE WILL REMEMBER THEM

British Sodiers First World War 'postcard' revealed

A captured First World War soldier's postcard home has emerged 95 years after it was sent from a prisoner of war camp in Germany. Charles Jeffries sent the card from a camp in Limburg an der Lahn on April 30 1918 to let his family in Westcliff-on-Sea, Essex, know that he had been taken prisoner. His granddaughter Pat Nicholls, 78, of Shepreth, Cambridgeshire, had the card in a file of family memorabilia and has revealed it to local historians in her village. The card is printed in a mixture of German and English and headed: "I am a prisoner of war in Germany." It has been stamped in German and Mr Jeffries has written his personal details and home address in pencil. Read More HERE

Royal Naval Division

One cannot imagine the horrors these men went through in WW1, the biggest crime of the whole War was the amount of British soldiers shot by firing squad for `desertion`, many were just suffering from shell shock and were wandering around the battlefield in shock, if you didn't have your rifle with you , you were destined for the firing squad, a few years ago these soldiers were pardoned by the British Government, much to late.

The Battle of Bazentin Ridge

 The Battle of Bazentin Ridge







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