He is not missing; he is here

In last week’s Gunsmoke File, I told of the time I was cycling in Belgium, quite possibly the most boring country on the planet for such an activity. Geometrically flat, damp and insufferably dull I found myself almost delirious with delight when I saw a barn or a road sign and had an object on which to focus while I crawled past. And crawl I did due to the ferocious headwind which was doing it’s best to push me back the way I’d come.

It didn’t help that I was still feeling the effects of some exceptionally strong beer the previous night so by the time I finally reached the outskirts of Ypres, my goal for the evening, I was grubby, ill-tempered and very, very tired. A solitary meal in an overpriced restaurant a few miles back hadn’t done much to lift my spirits and I was just looking forward to a lie down.

Until I entered the town proper by riding through an imposing archway known as the Menin Gate. We studied the First World War in school and I was already familiar with many of the names on my map. Ypres, Mons and Passchendaele had all been sites of bloody battles and the dull, flat fields which had bored me interminably as I rode through, had seen some of the worst carnage in human history only a few decades earlier.

North-western Europe is peppered with cemeteries holding the graves of the war dead. Geometric lines of brilliant white gravestones set on neatly trimmed lawns, they are somber, moving places and it’s hard to leave without being touched by the sacrifice made by those young men. Throughout Belgium, Holland and France local families take responsibility for ensuring that "their" soldier’s grave will be kept clean, tidy and manicured. They have done so for decades and will continue to do so as long as the graves are there.

Yet it’s a tragic fact that many of the fallen, particularly from the first war, have no graves. Many thousands of bodies were never recovered and the official war records list those soldiers simply as "Missing, believed killed." When peace finally came and all hope for their return was gone, the families of the lost men found their grief especially poignant. These relatives and friends had no grave to visit, nowhere to pay their last respects, nowhere to find closure.

So, it was decided that in Ypres, near where so many were known to have died, a memorial would be erected in honor of those whose bodies were never recovered. Originally there was talk of the British Government purchasing the land around the area and turning the entire town into a memorial to the Allied fallen. This was deemed impractical however. While years of war had reduced Ypres to little more than rubble, many Belgians still considered it home and they were anxious to return. Instead a memorial comprising of a mausoleum within a magnificent classical archway was built at the entrance to the town, over the river Menin.

Inside and out, huge panels contain the engraved names of the men of the Commonwealth forces who died in the Ypres Salient area but have no known graves. There are almost 55,000 of them and yet, immense though the Menin Gate is; this still didn’t come close to recording the names of all the missing soldiers. The Menin Gate contains only the names of those who died in the area between the outbreak of the war in 1914 and August 1917. Those who died between then and the end of the war, a little over a year later, are listed at another memorial, located in Tyne Cot Cemetery, on the slopes just below Passchendaele. 35,000 more.

And remember, these are just those whose bodies were never recovered.

At 8pm prompt, every single night of the year, the traffic through the gate is brought to a halt. Police guard the entrance and stand at salute while buglers from the local fire department play "The Last Post". This happens regardless of the weather and visitors from all over the world gather alongside the residents of the town to honor the young and brave who came to die in the defense of their town.

The service has taken place almost continuously since 1927. During the Second World War, when Ypres was occupied, the ceremony was banned. Yet the townspeople kept the bugles safe, and when the Germans finally left Ypres in 1945, the plaintive notes of the Last Post rang out under the Menin Gate that same night.

Evening was falling by the time I arrived in town and I knew I wouldn’t have time to find a hotel, wash, change and return in time. So instead, I sat by the side of the road and looked back the way I’d come. Across that vast expanse of flat nothing and tried to imagine the horrors that had taken place in those fields.

At a few minutes before 8, I smartened myself up as much as possible, and then stood at attention with the others while the haunting tune rang out into damp, cool night. Beside me stood an elderly white-haired gentleman, frail and stooped but at attention nonetheless. This was in 1988, exactly 70 years since the war’s end. Was he old enough, I wondered. Old enough to have been there? I glanced over to appraise the lines on his face, but when I saw the tears streaming down his cheeks, I looked away, embarrassed. Yes, he’d been there.

In somber mood, I wheeled my bike away and went in search of a bed. In the days that followed, I clocked up many more hours in the saddle, crossing into France before turning north and heading up the coast to catch the ferry home. The scenery changed as the miles rolled by, with the flat brown fields giving way to rolling hills and flower strewn meadows. The headwind didn’t let up though, fighting me with every turn of the crank no matter in which direction I was riding. Each night I flopped into bed, stiff, sore, thoroughly exhausted, and glad that another day was over.

Yet of course, I knew that my aches were nothing. Nothing compared to the misery suffered by those young men who never left. All 90,000 of them.

"...and now it can be said of each one in whose honour we are assembled here today:

He is not missing; he is here!"

Words from the inscription carved on the Menin Gate, Ypres, Belgium.