Harry Patch’s wreath goes on display
Tuesday 28th July 2009, 10:21AM BST.
A wreath placed at the Cenotaph by former First World War soldier Harry Patch has gone on display as a tribute to his life.
Mr Patch died at the weekend, aged 111.
Visitors to the National Memorial Arboretum in Staffordshire will be able to see the wreath which he placed on the Cenotaph in Whitehall last Armistice Day.
Mr Patch, who joined the Army aged 18, fought in the Battle of Passchendale at Ypres in 1917, which resulted in the deaths of more than 70,000 British soldiers.
Mr Patch married his first wife Ada in 1919 in Hadley, and had also lived in Church Stretton and Gobowen.
The Arboretum, part of the Royal British Legion family, is home to several First World War memorials.
Visitors can explore the Gallipoli memorial, which is dedicated to the nations who took part in the 1915 campaign. It features a sculpture of dead oak trees representing the arms of injured soldiers reaching up in hope of rescue as they lie in the mud among the unburied dead.
The Battle of the Somme, possibly the most bloody in military history, with 1.5 million casualties, is remembered by the Western Front Association. It has an avenue of hornbeams propagated from the only tree in the notorious Delville Wood that survived the intense battle.
Shot at Dawn is a moving memorial featuring a central statue modelled on a 17-year old soldier who was executed at Ypres in 1915.
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