Combined Nations Armistice Day Service – ‘this is about bringing people together’
GUERNSEY came together with Germany in spirit at the annual Combined Nations Armistice Day Service yesterday.
While in recent years the service had seen German officers from the Allied Rapid Response Corps join in the commemoration, this year, due to Covid-19 and official commitments, they were unable to attend.
There were two ceremonies, one held in the German Cemetery where 111 lay buried, and the other at the memorial to the First World War, near its entrance.
The ceremonies included poems read by officials, and cornet player Jon Bond of the Salvation Army played the lament Ich Hatt Einen Kameraden in the cemetery and the Last Post and The Rouse by the memorial cross.
More than 50 people gathered to see wreathes laid by representatives of the parish constables, the Royal British Legion Guernsey branch, and in memory of the men who served in the Royal Guernsey Light Infantry.
Laying a wreath on behalf of the Allied Rapid Response Corps’ German officers was Honorary German Consul Chris Betley.
He said that they had done everything they could to find a way to the island and through the Covid-19 restrictions, but even if they had been successful they had now become involved in a major exercise taking place in the UK.
Bailiff Richard McMahon also laid a wreath, watched by his predecessor, Sir Richard Collas, who was in the congregation.
Taking both parts of the ceremony was the Dean, the Very Rev. Tim Barker.
‘Remembrance in Guernsey has so many layers,’ he said afterwards, referring to the services that are held at Smith Street, in the parishes and at the White Rock each year.
He said that the Fort George ceremony was ‘hugely important’ since it gave people the opportunity to gather both at the cemetery where Germans are buried who died during the Occupation, as well as at the cross erected to commemorate the First World War.
St Peter Port constables Dennis Le Moignan and Jenny Tasker were among the wreath layers, doing so at the memorial in the cemetery and the cross near its entrance.
‘This is about bringing people together,’ said Mr Le Moignan.
An informal ceremony had taken place at the cemetery for many years, and this shared one came about six years’ ago after the Guernsey Royal British Legion president Major Bob Place took on responsibility for organising it.
‘It originally came from the War Graves Commission,’ he said.
‘They wanted someone on the ground [in Guernsey]. I knew the unit well and I offered to help out.’
