In From The Cold - 28.11.07

[Terry Denham]

CWGC added the following 'new' WW2 casualty to its Debt of Honour database today – Wednesday 28th November.

Field Marshal Sir Archibald Armar MONTGOMERY-MASSINGBERD GCB GCVO KCMG

General Staff

Died 13.10.47 Age 75

Buried: Gunby (St Peter) Churchyard, Lincolnshire, UK

NOT FORGOTTEN

This is the first WW2 casualty that GWF has had accepted for commemoration.

This case was put forward by myself on 20.10.07 along with a number of other ‘high rankers’ who appeared to have slipped the net.

It is often said that the highest rankers (Field Marshal, Admiral of the Fleet and Marshal of the RAF) never retire and are therefore always ‘in-service’. With this in mind, I checked to see if there were any of this rank that died during the CWGC qualifying periods who were ‘missing’ from those commemorated by CWGC – and there were some from both world wars! Therefore, it looked like they should all qualify. CWGC agreed.

During the subsequent research, we discovered that the ‘never retiring’ regulation only came into force on 6th February 1940 and that, before that date, men of this rank always retired from service according to various other regulations. So none of my ‘missing’ men from WW1 would qualify. However, those alive from the date of the new rule stayed in service for life. Even if they had retired at that date, they were returned to the Active List. So the WW2 ‘missing’ men would qualify.

And so it remains for those alive today – on the Active List for life though the ranks are no longer conferred.

The above and three others have been accepted. The others will be posted in due course when they have completed all the formalities at CWGC.

Only WW2 additions which have been proposed by GWF will be listed on the Forum.

[Will O'Brien]

Raising a glass to the memory of Sir Archibald tonight & another to you Terry for a very smart piece of thinking there.

[Steve Bramley]

Well done Terry,

Regards,

Steve.