by R. W. Hughes
So many young men from both sides perished in this terrible conflict, before they had the opportunity to fulfil their dreams or they had the chance to reach their potential.
REMEMBERANCE POEM
We left with cheers my mates and I from around our neighbourhood.
It would be all over for Christmas, we were led to understand.
We were all jovial, laughing and cheerful, waving to the crowd as we kept in step behind the big brass band.
But that was not to be in that ground of twisted rusting wire.
The smoke and shells and screams of broken men, lying in that knee deep mire.
Their scattered limbs and crimson blood,
Lost forever below that thick brown mud.
The rain the rats the sodden clothes, the forlorn look, the grey ashen face,
In their short young lives what had they ever done so wrong, to deserve this god forsaken place?
There was a crash, a blinding flash, my end was swift. And as I began to rise.
I left below me those shattered men and all their hopeless cries. Gas-ss! Gas-ss! Gas-ss!
A telegram was duly sent, which my parents they did receive, the message was quite brief, it simply read,
We are sorry to inform you but we believe your three sons are missing, believed dead.
Those few lines brought a mother so much pain and filled her eyes with tears.
The passing of time did not heal those scars; it was still the same after many, many, years.
I meet many souls from many lands as I pass above these now green fields that once were so barren and so bare.
Below I see a multitude of poppies, one for every soul that left his broken body there.
They too are looking for their friends, there’s Pierre and Fritz, Chuck and Guy.
They to ask the same as I. Why! Oh Why! Oh Why!
And on that hell on earth the place they called the Somme.
I am still searching for my uncle Stan, my cousin Jack, and my two brothers Bob and Tom.
R.W.Hughes.
2nd World War mechanised assault cannon Mk 111 Piazza Garibaldi, Castiglion Fiorento, Tuscany, Italy.
