John Condon

[Aurel Sercu]

Please do not allow the thread to descend to personal comments. It would be a pity if the moderators had to take steps to inhibit discussion.

Chris,

Your posting came right after mine. Whether it refers to it or not, i.e. whether I appeared to be descending to personal comments, I had already decided to refrain from adding other postings with regard to this matter.

I hope I can stick to this intention. I think I will succeed. Maybe even if lies were told.

Aurel Sercu

[john w.]

Mick has left the building

John

[Jonathan Saunders]

Aurel - I dont think it is you that should be embarrassed by the tone of yr posting.

[Guest Ian Bowbrick]

Will,

I have not quite got the hang of quoting past threads but am using this post to bring to you what must have been the longest and most read thread on the Forum.

Ian

[Will O'Brien]

Ian

It has just taken me 1 & half hours to read this thread. I will make no comment other than thank you for bringing it to my attention.

Will

[roughdiamond]

Having just discovered this thread and the fascinating content, could I naively ask if Aurels article on Carthy and Condon was ever published? I'm intrigued to read his evidence and conclusions.

Sam

[Aurel Sercu]

Sam,

What I had been preparing so far, 7 years ago now, has not been published (by me) and never will.

For obvious reasons.

Some gentleman (no smiley necessary) has.

Case closed as far as I am concerned.

And this "case" is a wooden chest somewhere in my loft.

With a key.

And I'm not sure I remember where I put the key. ;-)

The evidence as to the age is simple : the birth certificate.

The evidence as to his grave is simple too : it was a piece of cake (and I was perplex when I saw that no one had ever pointed that out) to see that the man whose remains had been found in the 1920s, near the front line at Railway Wood, 2 miles away from where J. C. had died (Mouse Trap Farm, 24 May 1915), had been an R.I.R. (Royal Irish Rifles) man, not an R.I. (Royal Irish Regiment). And so the remains of Patrick Fitzsimmons (+ 16 June 1915) had wrongly been buried under the headstone of J.C.

Aurel

[roughdiamond]

Aurel

Thank you for the personal reply, I only asked as there seemed to be a sudden unexplained end to the thread with no difinitive mention of whether the article went ahead. Forgive me if I've caused any offence. The best of luck in your future endevours.

Regards

Sam

[ianw]

Suffice it to say that Aurel is an absolute gentleman and this thread is testament to this fact. His research speaks for itself.

[martinclift]

I can only echo the comments made regarding Aurel.

He has helped me with my research, provided photographs and although part of my research discusses Pte. Condon, he never sought to sway my opinion, in fact he said he would rather not discuss the matter and that I should decide what I thought about the information from 'other' websites for myself! A good opportunity if he wanted to go behind others backs.

He is a trusted and, as far as I can tell an, honest gentleman and I for one feel that a great injustice has been done.

Martin

[watchdog]

I know that it's generally best to let sleeping dogs lie but my attention was drawn to this thread only after I had read the current Wikipedia entry on John Condon. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Condon_(British_Army_soldier)

 

Like all of you, I was only too aware of the general story of John Condon. But, until today, the 'controversy' over the 'mis-identification' of his grave had passed me by.

 

I don't know who put up this particular Wikipedia thread (or when) but I note that it was edited only a few weeks ago. Thankfully, it is prefaced by the general Wikipedia caveat that this entry needs additional citations for proper verification!