Sunday, November 10, 2013

Remembrance Day 2013



Remembrance Day in Beirut
On 9 November 2013, Remembrance Day was commemorated at the Anglo-American Cemetery.

Members of the committee participated in the worship service, lead by our Rev. Nabil Shehadi, at the British Beirut War Cemetery. At this service, poems were read by ambassadors and dignitaries, honoring those who served in the Armed Forces, followed by the laying of a wreath. In the audience were veterans of war currently living in Lebanon, their families and other honored guests. The event was reported in the Daily Star and NOWLebanon.

 One of the poems that was read was “The Last to Leave” by Leon Gellert

The guns were silent, and the silent hills
had bowed their grasses to a gentle breeze
I gazed upon the vales and on the rills,
And whispered, "What of these?” and "What of these?”
These long forgotten dead with sunken graves,
Some crossless, with unwritten memories
Their only mourners are the moaning waves,
Their only minstrels are the singing trees
And thus I mused and sorrowed wistfully

I watched the place where they had scaled the height,
The height whereon they bled so bitterly
Throughout each day and through each blistered night
I sat there long, and listened - all things listened too
I heard the epics of a thousand trees,
A thousand waves I heard; and then I knew
The waves were very old, the trees were wise:
The dead would be remembered evermore-
The valiant dead that gazed upon the skies,
And slept in great battalions by the shore.


AACC members at Beirut War Graves Cemetery
AACC members at the Anglo-American Cemetery


Wreath of Poppies at Urquhart-Pullen grave












Additional photographs of the main event can be found on the UK embassy's facebook page.


Following the main service, a small memorial was held at the Anglo-American Cemetery. A wreath of poppies, donated by the UK Embassy, was laid upon the grave of Geoffery Urquhart-Pullen, the single Commonwealth Grave at the Anglo-American Cemetery. Urqhurt-Pullen was an RAF flight navigator who was killed during the 1956 Suez Crisis.








Flowers were laid at the graves of those who served in the British Armed Forces. These include: 
 

            IX H 2     Burges Watson, Harold      (1893-1950)     Retired RAF Officer
            IV B 4     Joly, John Leonard             (1924-2011)     Retired Royal Navy Fleet Air Arm
            X D 3      Knight, John                      (1893- 1958)    Former soldier 
            V A 10    MacKenzie, James W. F.   (1893-1948)     Palestine Police Officer
            X F 2       Owen, John Rodney          (1936-1959)     Third Officer of Merchant Marines
            VI K 4     Roberts, Frank W. C.        (1882-1944)      Agricultural expert with Spears Mission 


Flowers were also laid at the Charnel House, under the names of those who served including:

Slab 4    Dale, Lieutenant John B                (d. 1848)
Slab 4    Fursman, Private J                        (d. 1841)
Slab 4    Gunn, Private D                            (d. 1841)
Slab 5    Hoskin, Private John                     (d. 1841)
Slab 9    Penny, Lieutenant E B                   (d. 1840)


 Respects were also paid to MP Bassel Fleihan, who is buried in the AAC.














Christine B. Lindner
10 November 2013


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Remembrance Day 2013 by Christine B. Lindner is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.