Tell them of us: A CWGF member’s photographic journey

Commonwealth War Graves Foundation Member Shaun Parkes guides us through an emotional journey visiting war graves across Europe.

A photographic war graves journey across Europe

Introducing Shaun

Image: One half of Reichswald Forest War Cemetery at dusk

Following on from my inaugural ‘Member’s Corner’ article in the Winter 2024 edition of the CWGF Chronicle, I was invited to submit an article for the website on what remembrance and commemoration mean to me, and my ‘journey’ in chronicling those feelings and opinions. 

I come from a military family, including a Royal Marines bootmaker in the 19th century, soldiers prior to and during both World Wars, and members of the Royal Air Force. 

My maternal grandfather was regular RAF before WW2 and served in the UK as an engine fitter on Hurricanes with 111 Squadron at RAF Northolt during the Battle of Britain, and latterly in the Far East.

My grandfather never spoke about his war service. He never wore his medals. He was a very private man, and remembrance to him was certainly a matter of private reflection. 

My father was a regular RAF Policeman from 1955 to 1977. It was at RAF Swanton Morley that my parents first met. 

Having been brought up on RAF stations all my life, it was perhaps inevitable that I would become a member of the local Air Training Corps Squadron at age 13. As we were living on RAF Uxbridge at the time, I enrolled with 1083 (Uxbridge) Squadron ATC. 

It was through the ATC that I got involved in the Remembrance Sunday parades, collecting for the RBL Poppy Appeal, and for the RAFA Wings Appeal. 

I came into contact with WW2 Veterans. My first CO had a row of WW2 campaign medals, and through them, I learned snippets about WW2. 

I eventually became an instructor in the ATC, retiring as a Squadron Leader after 34 years of service, and after many more Remembrance Parades, Poppy and Wings Appeals.

I became more interested in military history generally, and the stories of ordinary men making extraordinary acts of courage and self-sacrifice humbled me. I started to become more interested in the idea of the ‘story behind the headstones’, the history of individuals, perhaps ordinary and unremarkable in ‘civvy street’, who achieved incredible feats of arms in combat. 

Certain campaigns or battles interested me greatly: the Battle of Britain; the Dambusters Raid 1943; Arnhem, Operation Market Garden1944; the Battle of Walcheren; Operation Infatuate 1944.

War graves through a lens

Image: Grave of Pilot Officer John Gillespie Magee Junior, Scopwick Church Burial Ground

I’ve always been interested in photography. I bought my first camera aged about 19. 

I became a father at age 29, and ‘real life’ took up more and more time until I effectively stopped most of my photography.  Fast forward to my 50s, and once again I had more time on my hands. 

I bought a digital SLR and sought to relearn photography using the new technology. I undertook and passed two online diplomas, at intermediate and advanced levels, but wanted to go a stage further. 

I enrolled on a part-time, 2 -year Master of Arts (MA) Course with Falmouth University. We had to complete various modules, culminating in a ‘Final Major Project’ (FMP). Hence my project on remembrance and commemoration of our War Dead was born.

My intent was and is to foster an interest in the individual stories behind the uniform graves, and the line from the Kohima prayer seemed particularly appropriate; “tell them of us”, and so the project got its title.

I began to research the formation and history of the Imperial War Graves Commission, now the Commonwealth War Graves Commission. I visited local cemeteries with CWGC plots and graves, the first ‘deliberate’ visit being to the Scopwick Church burial ground which contains the grave of Pilot Officer John Gillespie Magee Jr., famous for the poem ‘High Flight’.

A revelation in Scopwick

Image: German graves at Scopwick Church Burial Ground

Scopwick is a few miles away from where I live near RAF Cranwell. I was writing an article on John Magee for the Royal Photographic Society’s Archaeology and Heritage Group, and a photograph of his grave was required so I drove there. 

I did not expect the number of Commonwealth graves either: 36 Royal Canadian Air Force (RCAF), 1 Royal Australian Air Force, and 1 Royal New Zealand Air Force. I was also astonished to find the graves of Germans, 4 airmen and 1 soldier, there too. 

After some research and some reflection, the reasons for these facts became clear. 

The closest RAF base to Scopwick was RAF Digby, which had satellite airfields including RAF Wellingore, from where P/O Magee took off on the day he was killed. 

For most of the early part of the war, Digby was home to RCAF squadrons, involved in the Air Defence of Great Britain. Scopwick was the local cemetery for RAF Digby, so their casualties were buried there.

The German airmen’s graves are those of the crew of a Dornier 217 that carried out a solo intruder bombing raid on Lincoln, killing several civilians and a soldier. The Luftwaffe craft was chased and shot down by a Mosquito night fighter near Boothby Graffoe. 

The four-man crew were all killed, and they were buried at Scopwick. The fifth grave is that of a German soldier who was a Prisoner of War, and who died in 1946. 

No wasted miles

I visited several cemeteries around the country. One of the aspects of my FMP was ‘sustainability’, with a mantra of ‘no wasted miles/engine emissions’. 

Every cemetery I visited was on a journey that had at least two objectives; the cemeteries were never the sole reason for the journey.  

For example, I arranged to meet a photographer friend and colleague Dr. Heather Laurence near Durham on the way back from visiting the Military Tattoo at Edinburgh. 

On Heather’s doorstep is Waterhouses Cemetery at Esh Winning, which contains six graves administered by the CWGC, one of which is that of Private Ralph Reather of the Middlesex Regiment. 

Private Reather suffered a gunshot wound to the spine in France and was paralysed, he was invalided back to the UK, given a medical pension and discharged; he died from his wounds in January 1920. 

Image: Grave of Private Ralph Reather, died 1920 of wounds received in action. Waterhouses Cemetery, Esh Winning, Durham

The philosophy of sustainability was employed to the greatest effect last October. 

Our niece, working in her company’s Danish office, had invited family to Copenhagen to celebrate her birthday. 

My wife Jo and I love travelling so Jo immediately accepted, suggesting to me that it was an opportunity for a road trip during which there would be numerous opportunities to visit cemeteries along the way. 

I needed no further encouragement, and we set to on planning the trip. We worked out the optimum road route, then I used the CWGC web site to see which cemeteries were close to the route. 

Image: Graves of some of the 11 crew of Liberator KH410 of 206 Sqn RAF, Aarestrup Kirkegard, Denmark

On the outward journey we visited three cemeteries in Denmark, including Aarestrup Kirkegard, which contains the graves of 11 airmen from a B-24 Liberator KH410 of 206 Sqn RAF Coastal Command.

KH410 was commanded by a Royal Dutch Navy instructor pilot, Lieutenant Commander Nicodeme Guilonard, and crashed on an anti-submarine patrol in April 1945. Further research revealed that Lt Cdr. Guilonard’s niece was a Dutch Resistance heroine, honoured after the war. 

Into Germany

After Copenhagen we drove down to the Reichswald Forest War Cemetery, where my cousin and various Dambusters crews are amongst the 7,671 casualties buried and commemorated there. 

My intention was to arrive in the evening and pre-position to visit the cemetery in the morning. However, having waited many years to visit my cousin’s grave, I couldn’t wait until the morning and we visited the cemetery at dusk, finally seeing my cousin’s grave for the first time. 

Grave of Flying Officer John Edward Northend RAF, Reichswald Forest War Cemetery, Kleve, Germany

Other graves at Reichswald include soldiers killed during the advance through the Reichswald Forest itself, and Airborne soldiers of the 6th Airborne Division killed during the operations to cross the Rhine.

Private James Stokes VC

Image: Grave of Private James Stokes VC, Reichswald Forest War Cemetery, Kleve, Germany

One such soldier was Private James Stokes VC, latterly of the 2nd Battalion, The King’s Shropshire Light Infantry. 

Private Stokes’s platoon came under heavy enemy fire, but Private Stokes made numerous solo attacks on his own initiative, clearing several positions and being wounded, and capturing 12 enemy prisoners single-handedly.  

He refused medical aid and continued the advance with his platoon until once again they came under heavy effective enemy fire. 

Time and again Private Stokes, without orders to do so, assaulted the enemy positions on his own, suffering further wounds.

During his last solo attack, Stokes fell down close to the enemy position and was last seen waving his platoon on and shouting goodbye as they caught up with him.

He did not survive and was later found to have been wounded eight times. He was posthumously awarded the Victoria Cross.

His bravery and self-sacrifice was nothing short of astonishing.

War Graves of the Netherlands

After the Reichswald we visited Nijmegen Jonkerbos War Cemetery, and then Arnhem Oosterbeek, where several names were known to me from my studies of Operation Market Garden.

Image: Arnhem Oosterbeek Cemetery, 2 weeks after the 80th anniversary commemorations of Operation Market Garden

From Arnhem we moved on to the British cemetery at Bergen-Op-Zoom which holds the British graves from Operation Infatuate, the assault to capture the strategic island of Walcheren which dominated the shipping routes into the vital port of Antwerp, urgently needed to allow the flow of supplies to the allied armies. 

The operation involved the British 52nd (Lowland) Division and the 4th Special Service (Commando) Brigade making assault landings from the sea, and the 2nd Canadian Infantry Division crossing the Walcheren Causeway.

The (British) Bergen-Op-Zoom War Cemetery contains over 1300 casualties, including Captain Peter Hillyard Haydon DSO RM, aged 21. 

Captain Peter Hillyard Haydon DSO RM

Image: Grave of Captain Peter Hillyard Haydon DSO RM, of No 41 Royal Marines Commando

Captain Haydon was commissioned in the Royal Marines aged 19. 

Within 6 months, already promoted to Lieutenant, he distinguished himself in battle and was recommended for a Military Cross after holding a vital road during the Salerno operation, despite being wounded and refusing medical aid. 

After the battle, further evidence was made available to Captain Haydon’s chain of command, and the recommendation was upgraded to a Victoria Cross; however, the General Officer Commanding made an immediate award of the DSO instead.

Despite his young age, this gallant officer had gained a reputation for courage and coolness under fire, and for being devoted to the welfare of his men.

He was killed on Walcheren as a Troop Commander in No 41 Royal Marines Commando, aged only 21. Again, I found the accounts of his bravery and leadership inspirational and humbling.

Our travels continued through Belgium and France, covering 19 locations in all. Sadly, atrocious rain on the last two days rendered any photography impossible, and so several of the sites in Normandy that I had planned to include in my project are yet to be photographed. 

A spiritual adventure

Image: Inscription at the entrance to the Runnymede Memorial

My physical journey around the UK and Europe had an associated spiritual journey, at times quite an emotional one too, especially seeing my cousin’s grave for the first time. 

Seeing the cemetery details on the CWGC website is one thing, with ‘big numbers’ on long casualty lists. 

But when you are standing in cemeteries like the Reichswald, or Tyne Cot; or visiting memorials like the Menin Gate or the Air Forces Memorial at Runnymede, and you see the fields of thousands of headstones and the walls inscribed with thousands of names of missing servicemen and women, you cannot help but feel humbled by and incredibly grateful for the scale of sacrifice and bravery represented there.  

And so I shall continue the project, and to keep remembrance and commemoration in the public eye; I shall continue to “tell them of us”.

About the author

Shaun Parkes is 62 and retired on medical grounds. He is married with an adult daughter and five grandchildren; he is a keen military historian and a photographer, with a passion for researching his family history, and who also enjoys reading, single malt Scotches, and Irish whiskies. 

He spent 34 years as an Instructor in the Air Training Corps (RAF Air Cadets) where he was a senior instructor on a Small Arms Training Team, and a member of the ATC National First Aid Training Team and Panel. Unusual fact: he was a qualified US Marine Corps Pistol Marksman. 

Website: https://www.tellthemofus.uk