Page 21 - November pages 1 to 48

100 years ago, The Unknown Warrior was
buried in Westminster Abbey as a memorial to
the dead of World War One, particularly those
who have no known grave.
Hundreds of thousands of men had been killed
during World War One, many buried where
they fell. When hostilities ended, their bodies
were exhumed and reburied in nearby
cemeteries, but many of them could never be
identified. These were the men that the
Unknown Warrior represents.
th
Just before midnight on 7 November 1920, four bodies from each of the battle areas –
the Aisne, the Somme, Arras and Ypres - were laid out in the chapel at St Pol draped in
the Union flag. They were exhumed from the unmarked graves of soldiers who died
early in the war ensuring the bodies were completely unrecognisable. After the stroke
of midnight, Brigadier General LJ Wyatt chose the warrior. The body was placed in a
coffin and taken to Boulogne, where it was transported to Dover on HMS Verdun. The
other bodies were reburied in the military cemetery at St Pol.
th
The coffin arrived in Dover on the morning of 11 November 1920. The quayside was
lined with people, straining to see the body that could be their loved one. It was taken
by train to London, before being carried on a black horse drawn carriage in procession
to the Cenotaph. The coffin passed through hushed crowds of thousands of people,
some weeping. The new war memorial on Whitehall, designed by Edwin Lutyens, was
then unveiled by George V.
At 11 o'clock there was a two-minute silence. The body was then taken to Westminster
Abbey where it was buried at the west end of the nave. In the week after the burial an
estimated 1,250,000 people visited the abbey, and the site is now one of the most
visited war graves in the world.
The idea originally came from the Rev David Railton, a chaplain in the army. In 1916 he
was standing in a small garden in northern France, having just buried a comrade. He
saw a small wooden cross marking a grave with the words, “An Unknown British
Soldier”. In a newspaper, Railton wrote: “How that grave caused me to think …What can
I do to ease the pain of father, mother, brother, sister, sweetheart, wife and friend? Out
of the mist of thought came this answer. ‘Let this body – this symbol of him – be carried
over the sea to his native land.’” Railton pursued his idea after armistice, gradually the
idea gained momentum.
The text inscribed on the tomb is taken from the bible (2 Chronicles 24:16):

They buried him among the kings, because he had done good toward God and toward
his house'.