The Hidden Casualties of War

 Whilst pondering on the war dead this Remembrance Day I thought of, and prayed for, the forgotten victims of the war - war widows and their families.

Take my wife's grandfather Arthur Earnest Smith. In 1914 several events occurred in his young life, he was a dairyman working on a farm. He turned 21, married Mary his sweetheart, war was declared and, along with hundreds of thousands others, he joined the army. Their first child (auntie Mary) was also born later that year. He only saw his daughter occasionally when on home leave away from the horrors of the front.

In September 1917 his second child Harry, Julia's dad, was born. Sadly Arthur Earnest was badly wounded in the June/July of that year and died in Flanders on 1/1/1918 leaving his young widow to bring up two young children.

Although this story is special to us, it was not uncommon, far from it. With over 700,000 British war dead there must have been hundred of thousands of war widows raising young children single handedly.

In some ways the WW2 was worse in that the civilian population found itself in the firing line with the advent of the Blitz and then the V-bombs. Tremendous damage to housing along with loss of life estimated to be over 43,500 people during the nine months it lasted.

In one raid at South Hallsville School in East London it is estimated that about 600 hundred people were killed by a single parachute bomb along with hundreds of injured including my mother who received, what we would call today 'life changing injuries'.

So whilst it is right and proper to remember those in the forces who gave their life, let us also remember the suffering and loss of those who remained behind.