Alresford Museum

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Alresford Displayed Issue No.20 - 1995

THE KILLING FIELDS

This year marks the fiftieth anniversary of the end of the second of the two greatest conflicts in the recorded history of mankind.

In common with the rest of the nation the Deanery and district of Alresford has recorded, for all time, the names of its sailors, soldiers and airmen, killed in action in the two World Wars, within and without its parish churches.

The Cost

World War I 8,634,300 (combatants) killed

World War II 55,014,000 (combatants and civilians) killed

(Source - History of the Second War Sir Basil Liddell Hart, Editor-in-Chief: Barrie Pitt, Editor)

War Memorial

FOR THE FALLEN

by Laurence Binyon

With proud thanksgiving, a mother for her children,
mourns for her dead across the sea.
Flesh of her flesh thet were, spirit of her spirit,
Fallen in the cause of the free.

Solemn the drums thrill: Death august and royal
Sings sorrow up into immortal spheres.
There is music in the midst of desolation
And glory that shines upon our tears.

They went with songs to the battle, they were young,
Straight of limb, true of eye, steady and aglow,
They were staunch to the end against odds uncounted,
They fell with their faces to the foe.

They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old;
Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn
At the going down of the sun and in the morning.
We will remember them.

They mingle not with their laughing comrades again;
They sit no more at familiar tables of home;
They have no lot in our labour of the day-time;
They sleep beyond England's foam.

But where our desires are and our hopes profound.
Felt as well-spring that is hidden from sight,
To the innermost heart of their own land they are known
As the stars are known to the Night

As the stars that shall be bright when we are dust.
Moving in marches upon the heavenly plain,
As th« stars that are starry in the time of our darkness,
To the end, to the end, they remain.