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August 1914 saw the outbreak of the First World War. It was the Great War - the war to end all wars and it would be over by Christmas. At its finish, in November 1918, the losses to the Allied Powers in War Dead amounted to some 5,200,000. Britain herself lost just short of 1,000,000 in the conflict. By 1919, Britain was only too painfully aware of the supreme effort and loss it had endured during the previous 4 years. As a nation, it vowed and promised never to forget those who had given their lives to secure peace. To that end, the local populace of virtually every hamlet, village, town and city throughout the land ensured their heroes would be honoured and remembered by the erection of a suitable war memorial to them. The villages, towns and hamlets of Lincolnshire were no exception and, as we know, many such memorials were erected to the memory of its fallen. Some 30 years later, those same promises and vows were repeated, as the Nation’s Memorials saw the addition of many further names - names of those who gave their lives in the Second World War. Today, it is hard to remember those you never knew. All that is left is a list of names inscribed on memorial tablets, whom we respect by the laying of wreaths each year on Armistice Sunday. Just recently we saw the 80th anniversary of the ending of that “war to end all wars”. It is my wish to see that the memories of those men who fell in the 1914-18 war fade not into oblivion. Time passes and, sadly, memories fail. It has, through this website of remembrance, been my aim to bring the men, named on these Memorials local to me, back to life - to try to see who they really were - both for myself and, more importantly, for the younger generation and people of Lincolnshire. In that way, all will see the carnage and waste of war for what it is - hopefully, they will never be forgotten. Welcome, therefore, to this website. In what ever form I hope you enjoy its content. |
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