Unlikely as it may seem, I am an honorary member of the Royal Marines Association dating from when I was Chaplain to the Nottingham RMA which commemorated Lance Corporal Walter Parker VC as a local war hero. Parker won his Victoria Cross during the Gallipoli campaign, on the night of 30th April 1915, when he volunteered to be a stretcher bearer with a party of men taking ammunition and supplies to an isolated trench containing about 40 soldiers, some of whom were wounded, and men had already been killed trying to reach it.
After crossing 400 yards of an open area being swept by machine-gun and rifle fire, Lance Corporal Parker found himself alone because everyone else had been killed or injured. When he arrived at the trench, he tended those needing care and also helped with the evacuation of the trench early the next morning, even though he himself was seriously wounded. The citation notes that Parker showed remarkable bravery then and during the previous three days too, when almost every wounded man had to be evacuated under fire and over open ground.
Parker won the VC but never fully recovered from his wounds and was invalided out of service in June 1916 before dying at the age of only 55. The remarkable thing about his VC is that stretcher bearers don’t bear arms and the action under fire was taken whilst being unable to defend himself. Before his Army service, Walter had worked at the local ironworks and, at 33, was considerably older than many of his comrades. He was just an ordinary chap leading a quiet life in Nottinghamshire but, called up to the trenches, found himself in an extraordinary situation where his commanding officer, adjutant, sergeant major and company commander were all injured in the same action. There was no-one else to do what needed to be done and so Walter stepped in and did what was necessary. Perhaps that’s one of the definitions of courage – realising that you are the one who needs to act and responding to that duty for the sake of others, no matter how unlikely it may seem. And perhaps that’s a duty that, for various reasons, we have shown or maybe avoided at times in our own lives.
That was the case with other ordinary people who stepped up. Amongst them was a Welsh seamstress, Mabel Davies from Newport, who had married Max Wulff, a German sailor, in 1909. They had set up home in Wales but he was interned when World War One broke out and sent back to Germany when it was over. His wife and two children joined him there and Mabel was the caretaker of the Anglican Church in Hamburg when the Second World War began. She and the church were harassed by the Gestapo but Mabel concealed British flags under the altar, hid valuable art works, put out fires when the church was bombed at various times in the frequent raids on Hamburg and also allowed people to shelter in the church, helping to save their lives. Mabel did what needed to be done, despite the personal risks involved, and later received the British Empire Medal for her courage.
Others found that quick thinking was the order of the day, like the officer commanding Royal Welch Fusiliers who had become trapped during fighting in Reusel, Holland. Rather than using English, by calling out his orders in Welsh the men were able to withdraw in small groups without discovery as none of the surrounding Germans could understand Welsh. Quick thinking saved lives where previously hundreds had died. Sadly, quick thinking could not save Private William Lewis of 1 Berwyn Square here in Llangynog. He was killed in Palestine in 1917 and is commemorated at Pennant Melangell – a poignant reminder of the cost and waste of warfare as we consider the warfare and bloodshed that still goes on, for different reasons, in the Middle East today. In the same way, how hard it must have been for the family of Edward Evans of Llangynog, who served with the Royal Welch Fusiliers. He survived the war having been badly gassed but his weakened lungs could not overcome the tuberculosis from which he died in 1920 and, because his death was war related, Edward Evans is honoured as one of the local war dead in St Melangell’s churchyard.
The consequences of war service were factors for the Welsh Guards, too, on their return from a tour of duty in Helmand Province Afghanistan in 2009. One of them said that nobody came back the same person as they went following the terrible sights, experiences and losses they’d endured. PTSD developed for some but one of the officers spoke of his great pride in what had been achieved in six months. “It was about endurance and human endeavour, everyone at every level,” he said – and aren’t there times when that is true in our lives, when, on the home front, we also have to show endurance and human endeavour or find ourselves pushed to the limits, too?
And as we commemorate D Day, Kohima, Monte Cassino and the battles 80 years ago, so we remember Able Seaman Glyn Evans of Berwyn Street Llangynog, the only name here for the Second World War, who died at the age of 20 in 1944 when HMS Mahratta was torpedoed off Norway by a U boat whilst she was on convoy escort.
Walter Parker, Mabel Wulff, the Royal Welch Fusiliers, William Lewis, Edward Evans, Glyn Evans and the Welsh Guards: all examples of courage and fortitude in times of extreme danger and trial. Many are long dead and we may think it’s all far removed from us today but is it actually? For them, the warfare is over but for us, in less extreme ways, life’s battles go on. Perhaps there are times for us when, like Walter Parker, those who might have taken control are out of action and we unexpectedly find ourselves the only one available; perhaps, like Mabel Wulff, caretaking means that we have to take evasive action for the sake of others; perhaps, like the officer commanding the Welch Fusiliers in Reusel, our quick thinking may save the day; perhaps, like William Lewis, Edward Evans and Glyn Evans, we know of lives laid down through violence, illness or painful memories for the sake of the freedom we sometimes take for granted today; or perhaps, like some those Welsh Guards, we find ourselves having to live with agonising memories and experiences that are hard to overcome. We in our generation, ordinary people living out our daily lives, are having to endure times of extraordinary change, which can be hard to accept. As we contemplate a world where still so many are killed or injured through warfare or violence, the fight for justice goes on – as does the hope that making a difference for good to establish peace will prevail as it eventually did in Northern Ireland and the Balkans in our day.
Those who died fell in the service of others and for the cause of freedom and peace – that service and cause is now ours. May the example of all those in the Navy, the Army, the RAF and the civilians who made the ultimate sacrifice inspire us to honour their memory and to build on their lives’ legacies through doing what needs to be done, as they did, and helping to create communities of hope and peace as we, with thanksgiving, honour and remember them.
With my prayers; pob bendith,
Christine, Priest Guardian.