Roll of Honour
It is proving difficult, as expected, to identify with certainty all those listed on the Roll of Honour.
Those who were killed in action have been identified by Mike Willoughby, filling out the bare details supplied by the Commonwealth War Graves Commission. I am glad to say we have been able to find out where the men listed in the memorial service sheet as ‘Men of St Mary Bourne’ served. We have not, however, yet had similar success with all those on the school roll of honour.
We propose therefore to list below those whom we are reasonably certain we have identified. (If any reader is in a position to correct us, please do so in the comments below). If there is a reference in the ancestry tree which I maintain for the village, the name will be followed by an asterisk*.
We will concentrate our efforts on describing the effect of the war on these men and their families.
On the list of The Unknown, we will list those about whom we are uncertain. Many of these are men whom we have identified, but whom we have been unable with certainty to match with anyone in the armed services. We will resist the temptation to guess, though we may annotate various possibilities against their names. It is hoped to be able to move many of those on the second list onto the first by 2019.
The remainder will be known unto the signwriter, those who mourned them at the time, those who still mourn them but do not read this blog, and the Almighty.
