Today is Remembrance Sunday, and the area around Westminster was very busy with people paying their respects.
The entrance to the Field of Remembrance.
The field is divided into plots, each dedicated to a different Regiment. One section is dedicated to the fallen of the US Armed Services.
The American section
A few years ago when I visited the Field of Remembrance in the middle of a weekday I came across two older English gentlemen standing in front of American section. One of them holding a wreath asked me if I were American, and I replied I was. He told me he was a young boy during the war and a number of soldiers from Arkansas were stationed near where he lived. He said that they were very good to him, generous with their time and their food. When they were shipped to Europe they took heavy casualties and he leaves a wreath in their honor every year. (For this, Bill Clinton thanked him when he was Governor of Arkansas). He said he never lays the wreath himself, but always asks an American to do it for him and there's always one there when he arrives. He asked me if I would lay the wreath, and I told him I would be honored to do so. The wreath in this photo is dedicated to the fallen soldiers of Arkansas.
The other man who was standing there was the 'owner' of the plot. Each plot is paid for (money to charity) and if you don't pay for your plot you don't get a plot. Someone else in the waiting list for plots gets it instead and it will be years if ever before you get another one. He has been paying for the US Armed Services plot for years and for around the same length of time, he has been trying to get the US Embassy to pay for the plot. But there's a problem. Under US law, there can be no war memorials to American soldiers unless it's on land owned by the US government. Of course, this monument is transitory, it's only up for about two weeks a year, and then it comes down again. If something happens to this man (whose name, I have sadly lost) that means no more plot for the fallen of America at Westminster Abbey. I'd like to see an exception to this law.
Here are the crosses I left in the American section.
One for an old war and the men who died while serving with my grandfather. And one for a current war and the fallen of the 278th.
Then I walked down to the Cenotaph - the tomb of the unknown soldier - which the center of Remembrance Sunday ceremonies.
I decided not to get back on the Tube at Westminster, but walked down Victoria Embankment by the River Thames. I'm glad I did. There's a new monument there to the Battle of Britain. "Never in human history have so many owed so much to so few" W. Churchill. It's kind of an unusual monument, full of detail, depicting civilians, air raid wardens, pilots, soldiers, munitions factory workers. It's a stark reminder of what it must have been like in London during the blitz.
An air raid warden shocked by what he sees:
Another detail: Civilians scanning the sky for terror.
Now when we look for terror we scan the faces of our fellow passengers.
Finally, here's a picture of a Women's Auxilliary veteran leaving her poppy on the Battle of Britain memorial.
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