Remembrance NI
Every day is a Remembrance Day
February 15 – Roll of Honour
88 years after its original formation, 502 (Ulster) Squadron, RAF Reserve, reformed at Aldergrove in 2013. There is a Memorial in St Anne’s Cathedral, Belfast, naming those from the squadron who died in WW2. Twelve names on today’s Roll reflect the variety of service given by servicemen from NI in Gallipoli, France, Germany, Malta, and Singapore. Today is the anniversary of the surrender of Singapore to the Japanese forces. Read More
February 14 – Roll of Honour
Today’s Roll contains Remembrance NI’s first entry from the battle for Singapore in 1942. Alexander Glendinning was the son of a clergyman with links to both Saintfield and Belfast. An Old Campbellian, he served with the RAFVR and is named on the Singapore Memorial. Read More
February 13 – Roll of Honour
Chatham Naval Memorial – the Grade I listed memorial has over 18,000 names of Naval casualties from both world wars who have no known grave. Today’s Roll recalls four servicemen from NI. Two are RAF from WW2 remembered at Runnymede and Heverlee in Belgium. Read More
February 12 – Roll of Honour
Ships of the German High Seas Fleet under escort to Scapa Flow, Scotland, late 1918. Painting by Charles Edward Dixon. In WW1 a Belfast submariner taken POW in Gallipoli died near Baghdad. Jack Collier from Bangor was one of the early NI losses in the Royal Flying Corps. Two women are among the WW2 fatalities. Ethel Hunter, a Wren, was lost in a troopship sinking which Nicholas Monserrat later used in his novel “The Cruel Sea”. Read More
February 11 – Roll of Honour
Duhallow Advanced Dressing Station is believed to have been named after a southern Irish hunt. There are 1,544 Commonwealth casualties of the First World War buried or commemorated in this cemetery, 231 of the burials unidentified. Read More
February 10 – Roll of Honour
Boulogne Cemetery where the gravestones are laid flat due to the sandy soil. Men from three different battalions of the Royal Irish Rifles died this day in 1916, a chaplain from Glenavy died in 1917, and a veteran’s story tells how the FAA pilot from Fermanagh eventually trained as a doctor and served in the Veterans’ hospital in Boston USA. Read More
February 9 – Roll of Honour
Beautiful morning at The Hague Westduin Cemetery where war graves are maintained by CWGC. Those in today’s Roll rest in locations including Algeria, France, Germany, Netherlands, and Libya.
