WILLIAM GETS TEARY AT MEMORIAL
PRINCE William has admitted to choking back tears as he paid tribute to the thousands killed at Passchendaele on the 100th anniversary of the famous World War I battle.
The British royal told of his emotional reaction to hearing Last Post at Menin Gate, Ypres, Belgium, with the families of soldiers killed in the bloodbath.
He was so moved that he recounted Sunday’s service when he met interns who have been showing relatives around cemeteries in Ypres. “It was phenomenal – a proper teary moment for me,” he said. “At the end it was so amazing. It was very, very moving.”
On Sunday night, Prince William gave a speech before he and his wife Catherine, the Duchess of Cambridge, heard Last Post and watched as thousands of poppies cascaded from the ceiling of the gate.
Before going to the main ceremony at Tyne Cot on Sunday, he stopped in at another cemetery, Bedford House, to see the graves of five Irish Guardsman killed 100 years ago to the day.
Prince Charles joined them and joked that he needed his gumboots after going into a still flooded World War I bunker in the town of Zonnebeke, near Ypres.
Accompanied by King Philippe and Queen Mathilde of Belgium, he went about 9m below ground where the air is still fetid and the wooden floorboards are still running with water.