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You're Top Poster: #1 | Foresters' Western Front Memorial
Of the many hundreds of battlefield memorials, none are for the Woofers. Their sacrifice should never be forgotten Quote:
DERBYSHIRE-born Private John Joseph Allen thought his war was over when he was captured on the Western Front.
Pte 202673 Allen, 2nd Battalion Sherwood Foresters, had survived more than two years in the trenches of Flanders when, in March 1918, he was rounded up by a German raiding party.
An uncertain future in a prisoner-of-war camp held its own fears but at least the 19-year-old was out of the firing line.
But the Germans had other ideas. They forced their captives to labour for the Fatherland – often in places of great danger.
On June 29, 1918, Pte Allen, from Matlock Bath, was part of a POW working party at Hazebrouck, a small French town that had been the scene of fierce fighting throughout the war.
Whether he was killed by shell or bullet, no-one knows – but Pte Allen was never seen again.
He has no known grave for family to visit, only his name among 35,000 others on the Tyne Cot Memorial, near Ypres, in Belgium.
He was one of 11,300 Sherwood Foresters, recruited mainly in Nottinghamshire and Derbyshire, who were killed on the Western Front in the First World War.
Yet to this day, there is no regimental battlefield memorial honouring the fallen Foresters anywhere in France or Belgium.
Ninety years on, a group of enthusiasts is aiming to put that right by providing a memorial to the Foresters at Tyne Cot.
They have to raise £14,000 to pay for an engraved stone, ship it to Belgium and get it unveiled with due ceremony, hopefully by a nationally-known figure.
They have pencilled in the late summer or early autumn of 2009 for the event.
To achieve that, the Sherwood Foresters Western Front Memorial Committee is asking every parish, town, district, borough, county and city council in Derbyshire and Nottinghamshire to chip in.
"We would like the parish and town councils to give £30; district and boroughs to contribute £200; and from the city and county authorities, the sum of £500 each.
"If they all agree, and with the help of the 2nd Battalion Mercian Regiment (Worcesters and Foresters), we can complete the project," said committee member Cliff Housley, who served with the Foresters in the 1950s and was the regimental archivist until retirement,
The committee has also asked Nottingham Forest and Derby County to make a donation in memory of footballers who fought in the war, like Lieutenant Colonel Bernard Vann, a centre forward with Derby who was killed four days after winning the Victoria Cross.
In its written appeal, committee chairman and serving officer Major John Cotterill told councillors: "Of the many hundreds of Great War memorials to be found in France and Belgium, not one is currently to be found to the memory of the Sherwood Foresters.
"The country is about to mark the 90th year since the ending of hostilities. Surely it is time that a memorial stone be placed on the battlefield to mark the sacrifice made by so many of our local men."
The idea for the project came in 2007 when the Queen unveiled a memorial hewn from Portland Stone outside the new Tyne Cot visitor centre, dedicated to the King's Own Yorkshire Light Infantry and funded by Leeds City Council.
"That was the inspiration," said current Foresters archivist Eddie Edwards, who spent 27 years with the regiment before retiring as a sergeant major in 1990.
"I have been all over the battlefields and while there are memorials to the 46th Division – of which the Foresters were a part – I have never found one for the regiment."
The Foresters are hoping to erect a similar tablet to the Yorkshire memorial alongside the path that links the vast Tyne Cot Cemetery with the visitor centre, which was opened by the Queen in 2007.
However, the Foresters tablet would be made from Derbyshire stone – local stone for a local regiment," explained Major Cotterill.
Members of the public can contribute to the appeal fund by forwarding a cheque, made payable to RHQ Mercian, with a covering letter/slip stating "For Western Front Memorial" to the Western Front Memorial Committee, Foresters House, Chetwynd Barracks, Chilwell NG9 5HA.
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05-09-2008, 07:17 PM
Notts and Derby Regiments 
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