How villages are remembering their men who served at Passchendaele

SIR – A poignant incident is to be marked this Saturday afternoon which brings together in a strange and sad way a story of Passchendaele, three sons from one family, a village in Picardy and another in Oxfordshire.

In 1917, Lieutenant Wilfred James Dashwood of the 1st Battalion of the Grenadier Guards was standing amid the rubble of the abandoned French village of Manancourt. It had been gradually destroyed during the long battle of the Somme. Sticking up from a heap of brick and stone, the young officer saw what appeared to be a man.

Clambering up the pile, he found it to be a beautifully carved figure of the crucified Christ, miraculously whole and unharmed, but minus his cross.

Marvelling that the finely carved statue had survived months of bombardment, he decided to rescue it.

He found sanctuary for it in Wootton parish church, as a memorial of his elder brother, Ernest, a Wootton farmer who had died two years earlier on the Somme. Dashwood had to return to the front before the ceremony of dedication of the figure. He died of wounds received on the first day of the Battle of Passchendaele.

His parents, Sir George and Lady Mary Dashwood, had five sons in the Great War. Only two came home alive.

On Saturday, the centenary of the installation of the figure of Christ at Wootton, a party from the restored village of Etricourt-manancourt is coming for a ceremony of rededication and for the first time to see the statue – the “last evacuee” from their village.

A hundred years ago the rector of Wootton blessed the figure, now supported on a cross of English oak. Just three weeks later, his own son, aged 19, was killed at Passchendaele. Nicholas P Tomlinson

Churchwarden, St Mary the Virgin Wootton, Oxfordshire

SIR – My great uncle Brunel Cohen, of the King’s Liverpool Regiment, lost both his legs on July 31 1917, within minutes of the start of the Battle of Passchendaele. He survived to become MP for Liverpool Fairfield. His aim was to represent disabled servicemen. A founder of the British Legion, he died in 1965, aged 79. Happily, his son John, a young officer with the Royal Marines on D-day, is still with us. David Jacobs

Newport, Isle of Wight

SIR – Wendy Crozet (Letters, August 1) wrote about Passchendaele survivors. I have been researching WH Hewitt VC, who fought in the battle of the Menin Road. The village of Copdock is to receive a birthplace centenary stone for him.

I found that eight other men were awarded the VC that day, September 20 1917. All but one survived to their 60s and 70s – Hewitt to the age of 82.

But Lieutenant Fred Birks, serving with the Australian forces though born in Buckley, Flintshire, was killed the next day when he went out to rescue men buried by a shell blast.

All these men will be remembered in their birthplaces next month. Jennifer Jones

Copdock, Suffolk