We were honoured to have the Mayor of Woking, Cllr Beryl Hunwicks attend on one of her final engagements of her mayoralty year. Cllr Hunwicks has attended three ceremonies during her mayoralty.
Our individual remembrance element centred on five men of the Pioneer Corps (later the Royal Pioneer Corps and now part of the Royal Logistics Corps) who lost their lives exactly 80 years ago during the Second World War.
Little is known of them or of the nature of their deaths, but it is thought they were killed in one of the (at least) 26 ships that were sunk by the German air force, the Luftwaffe, during the evacuation of Allied forces from mainland Greece in late April/early May of 1941. They have no known graves and are therefore commemorated on Brookwood’s Memorial to the Missing, 1939-45.
They are: on panel 20, column 3: Privates George Almond, Private Douglas Aubrey Elston and L/Cpl Frederick Good;
and on panel 21, column 1: Private Percy Smithson and Private William Mark
Our poem today was, fittingly, written by Cpl C. Fisher of the Pioneer Corps and appeared in the regimental journal, The Pioneer, in August 1943.
Our Standard Bearer was Alan Lopez and Mrs Ruth Moore sounded The Last Post.
Photo credit to Kevin Barker.
Brookwood Last Post 