War Memorial outside St Andrew's Church, North Weald |
Andrew Smith, blogger for the Essex Society for Archaeology and History writes:
As local historians we cannot let this day pass without a time of reflection and remembrance.
William
John Dawes, Lance Corporal, 1st Essex Regiment was my
great-uncle. He served in the ‘failed’
eight month campaign in Gallipoli which was fought by Commonwealth and French forces
in an attempt to force Turkey out of the war.
Twelve Tree
Copse Cemetery was created after the Armistice when graves were brought in from isolated sites
and small burial grounds on the battlefields of April - August and December
1915. There are now 3,360 First World
War servicemen buried or commemorated in the cemetery. 2,226 of the burials are
unidentified but special memorials commemorate many casualties known or
believed to be buried among them, including 142 officers and men of the 1st Essex who died on 6th August 1915 . My great-uncle was one of those who fell on
that day.
North Weald names remembered on War Memorial |
He
is commemorated on the War Memorial at North Weald and is also remembered by
his family on the grave of his brother, Henry, who died in 1929 and was buried
in the village churchyard.
The ‘Commonwealth War Graves Commission’, who
records his name as J. W. Dawes, includes the following citation:
We will remember them.
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