Christian burials

[fpawsey]

Would there always have been a priest at the burial of each British soldier? We have a number of relatives buried in military cemeteries on the Somme area of France and wonder if they would have had a Christian burial.

[squirrel]

Unlikely I would think depending on how many were buried at one time and if they were buried in numbers in pits or individual graves.

[John_Hartley]

Single, or small numbers, of deaths are likely to have been buried by the battalion padre. Similarly, deaths are hospitals or clearing stations would be buried by the padre based there.

 

I suspect things may well have been more fluid, as squirrel suggests, when there were mass casualties after, say an attack. But, even here, I suspect that a mass burial would still generally be overseen by the padre.

 

FWIW, I recall reading an account of a man who took part in the battlefield clearances after the Armistice. He notes that, after the days burials, the senior rank (usually a sergeant, if memory serves) would say something over the graves.

[fpawsey]

Thank you for your replies. I, too, thought that a padre would have overseen as many burials as possible, but due to sheer numbers it might not have always been possible.

[johnboy]

men killed in action were often buried near where they fell by comrades

[keithfazzani]

There are certainly accounts of padres officiating at large burials and in one-off burials near the front line. The following excerpt from Rev Studdert Kennedy's (Woodbine Willie) poem "His Mate" illustrates this :

 

I remembered how I reached them

Dripping wet and all forlorn

In the dim and dreary twilight

Of a weeping summer morn.

All that week I had buried brothers,

In one bitter battle slain,

In one grave I laid two hundred.

God! What sorrow and what rain!

And that night I had been in trenches,

Seeking out the sodden dead,

And just dropping them in shell holes,

With a service swiftly said.

For the bullets rattled round me,

But I couldn't leave them there,

Water-soaked in flooded shell holes,

Reft of common Christian prayer.

 

Other chaplain's accounts tell a similar story.

 

[mva]

2 hours ago, johnboy said:

men killed in action were often buried near where they fell by comrades

and often days later, if the dead were in a dangerous zone !

It is possible (I've read it somewhere, but don't find where) that in quieter times it was a French curé who was at the burial.

[keithfazzani]

There is a lot of information sorry cant get file to load.

Edited 2 November , 2017 by keithfazzani
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