Some letters don't soften what war was like. 2nd Lt Wilfred Stanford wrote:
“A shell came along & landed about two or three yards away. The result was the man just in front of me was heard to call out ‘Oh!’ & has never been seen or heard of since.”
This was the terrifying speed with which a human life could vanish. Artillery could obliterate bodies completely. Trenches collapsed. Battlefields were fought over & over again until nothing remained but churned earth.
For families there was no grave to visit, no place to stand, no certainty beyond a name on a casualty list. Memorials to the missing were created to answer that absence. They serve as a substitute for a grave. Names carved into stone at Thiepval, Tyne Cot, Arras & many more.
They also speak to the scale of loss. The memorials force us to reckon with how completely war can erase a person from the physical world.
For descendants today, these memorials are often the starting point of discovery. Many families begin their journey with a single name carved into stone & build backwards, service records, battalion movements, battlefield locations.
If you’re searching for someone who never came home, come with me on a bespoke battlefield tour. Let’s uncover their story and stand where they were last known to be. Contact us today.