Pte George William Clarck
who went missing 16 August 1917 near Ypres

Here dead we lie, because we did not choose
To live and shame the land from which we sprung
Life to be sure, is nothing much to lose
But young men think it is, and we were young.

Lance Corporal H J Martin
Royal West Kent Regiment
born 14 October 1880
   
I was mobilised from the reserve in August 1914 and fought at St Ghislain, Mons, retreated down to the Aisne, raced towards the sea and survived Neuve Chapelle despite being almost surrounded with C Company.
I helped to take Hill 60 on 17th April 1915 fought through 2nd Ypres and was wounded at High wood on 22nd July 1916.
I spent 14 months convalescing in Blighty only to return to Passendale and be blown to pieces at Poelcapelle on 27th November 1917.
I have no known grave, only my name on this panel and a plaque dedicated to me at St George’s Memorial Church, Ypres  
I did my best.
 
Please remember me.

Keymer, 24 June 1918

My very dear friend,
You have not need, I am certain. to be assured of my deep and earnest sympathy with you. I who have passed through the same harrowing ordeal know only too well what it means to a father to be deprived thus abruptly of the son in whom his highest hopes and expectations have rested. However much we may have dreaded the coming of such a fatality to our dear Edwar, the dread has always been tempered by a soothing faith that he would be spared to us and that his good fortune would follow him throughout the whole terrible war; and now that the cruel worst has happened it is very hard indeed to realise the awful that we shall never, never see him again. But with the anguish now in our hearts there is a proud consolation in knowingthat he met his death gloriously in the hour of victory in the hour of victory in on of the greatest and most decisive battles of this great war. He would not have us grieve. Let us then be brave, as our sons were brave; let us be thankful that it has been our privilege to give our sons to our country and to the cause for which they so nobly sacrificed their precious lives It was all that we could do, you and I. We should either of us eagerly have given up his own life if by doing so his boy might live; but we could not make the choice and it only remains to us to bear our own burdens bravely and to make them lighter by the sweet and loving memory of the bright young lives that are gone.

I have heard no particulars beyond the announcement in Vera’s telegram. It was good of her to let us know so promptly. Dear Vera. Not many women have suffered more than she has suffered in this war. I grieve for her and for her mother, as I grieve for you. Believe me always

Yours most sincerely

Robert Leighton

from ‘Letters from a Lost Generation’ edited by Alan Bishop and Mark Borstridge