Andrew Richards

The Flag (eBook, ePUB)

The Story of Revd David Railton MC and the Tomb of the Unknown Warrior

• Format: ePub

Produktbeschreibung

This "well-researched" biography "brings home something of what it was to be an army chaplain amid the battles in France and Flanders" ( Methodist Recorder). Between 1916 and 1918, chaplain David Railton supported the soldiers on the Western Front in their worst moments. He buried the fallen, comforted the wounded, wrote to the families of the missing and killed, and helped the survivors to remember and mark the loss of their comrades so that they were able to carry on. He was with his men at many battles, including High Wood, the Aisne, and Passchendaele. He received the Military Cross for rescuing an officer and two men under heavy fire on the Somme. It was Railton's idea to bring home the body of an unidentified fallen comrade from the battlefields to be buried in Westminster Abbey, and on Armistice Day 1920, he was there in the Abbey as the Unknown Warrior was laid to rest with full honors. Although suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder, he returned to work as a parish priest in Margate, where he took particular interest in supporting ex-servicemen who had returned home to the aftermath of a terrible war and crippling unemployment. This is the first book to explore David Railton's life and "the padre's flag" he used as an altar cloth and shroud throughout the war-the flag that was consecrated a year after the burial of the Unknown Warrior and hangs in Westminster Abbey to this day.

Produktdetails

• Verlag: Casemate
• Seitenzahl: 304
• Erscheinungstermin: 10. Januar 2020
• Englisch
• ISBN-13: 9781612004488
• Artikelnr.: 52863735

Autorenporträt

Andrew Richards served 22 years with the Household Cavalry. During his last years of service, he graduated from the Open University with a Bachelor of Arts degree with Honours in Humanities with History and Classical Studies. Since retiring from the Army, he has written both fiction and nonfiction titles. He lives in New York with his wife and children