Suffolk war graves will not be forgotten

Winston Churchill called them the “Silent Cities” – the cemeteries where thousands of the soldiers who died in the two world wars are buried.

Their final resting places, marked by the familiar white headstones in the British and Commonwealth Cemeteries, will never be neglected.

The same care and remembrance is not given to all the other war graves that are to be found in town and village churchyards.

In Suffolk, however, there has been a determination that not one war grave will be overlooked at the 100th anniversary of the First WorldWar Armistice.

The county’s Royal British Legion has held a unique project to track down every one of the 1,332 graves in 284 cemeteries in Suffolk.

“We wish to see an act of remembrance at each one of these graves on November 8,” said the legion’s county chairman Ken Rowbottom.

“These are graves of men who were either killed in action and brought back, or who died from their wounds.”

Mr Rowbottom said that each grave told a story that could be uncovered with a little research. His own legion branch will honour George Flett, who emigrated from Mendham to Canada and joined the 2nd Canadian Mounted Rifles. His grave is in Mendham churchyard.

Mr Rowbottom said that when the Hadleigh branch chairman Mark Brennan put forward the “tremendous” idea for honouring the fallen, it was immediately taken up by the legion.

Community groups and schools were helping to ensure all the war dead will be honoured by placing a commemorative marker showing a kneeling First World War soldier in the act of laying a wreath at each grave.

Offers of help can be emailed to suffolkremembers@gmail.com.