Commonwealth War Grave Budapest - Remembrance Sunday

[sandbender]

The Commonwealth War Grave (Budapest) is about a sixteen kilometre walk from Budapest.

One hundred and seventy three souls are buried there, mostly airmen, from the UK, Canada, New Zealand, Australia and South Africa. Along with a number of Polish combatants, a solitary Frenchman and a single casualty from the first world war, a British sailor.

This year I didn't make the walk having run out of time to complete some other projects, what I'm posting here are photographs from my walk last year.

An early start finds me walking the mostly deserted streets of Budapest on a Sunday morning.

Quite quickly I reach the edge of the city, this is the view down to Budapest from the edge of the woods.

Woodland.

Many paths criss cross here.

Fungi

More fungi.

The sunlight caches the tree tops.

Yet more fungi.

Me.

Eventually the trail leads me out of the woods to the hill tops.

Rocky paths.

The geese have had enough.

The route towards the War Grave lies around the right hand side of the nearest hill.

Hilltop.

A view down to a nearby town.

The same view (with a small aerodrome in the foreground).

More hills.

Rosehip.

Tracks.

Someones van.

Woods.

Woods.

A ruined building.

The War Grave, people assemble for the service, the Hungarian army have provided an honour guard and bugler.

The grave of John HM Adam, he was 19 and from Pittenweem, Fife. On the night of the 23rd November 1944 he was in a Wellington bomber tasked with attacking the rail yards to the South of Szombathely (a town in the west of Hungary). The attack was a failure and several planes were lost, his was attacked by a Ju-88 night fighter, two of his comrades managed to bail out but he and two other crewmen were killed.

He had been based in Tortorella, Northern Italy, this was his ninth mission.

The service.

Afterwards.

And after all had left.

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[Clouston98]

I couldn't get out either .

I Have a huge respect for those who fought for our country, its remembering that counts.

 

[wingstoo]

I went to our City service memorial service this morning, I have changed a lot over the years of going to this service and others I have been too, nowadays I also spare a thought for the 306 men and boys who were shot at dawn "for cowardice" and their families who often had to live with the hardship and shame those executions gave, I also spare a thought for those soldiers and families of those who were drafted in to fight against us in both the "Great war" and the second world war...After all they were in a vast amount of cases no different to our own drafted soldiers.

 

[MT606]

thanks for posting the pics and write up up, the cemetary looks loverly and well kept now, how was it when the Russians were i/c ? were rememberance services allowed back then or a no no?

ttfn

m

 

[sandbender]

thanks for posting the pics and write up up, the cemetary looks loverly and well kept now, how was it when the Russians were i/c ? were rememberance services allowed back then or a no no?...

It is indeed a lovely location, there are grape vines along the low wall around the graveyard and plenty of bird life in the trees. The war grave as you see it was funded by the Commonwealth War Graves Commission but built by the Hungarian Socialist Government of the day. The Russians also have Commonwealth war graves, remembrance services then were as they are now (although with a bit more George Smiley type nod and a wink stuff going on).

Although there were 'Russian' troops in Hungary up until (and a little after) the collapse of the Soviet Union, the system in place was not as most folks would imagine, the government was Hungarian and run by Hungarians, clearly if the government had said sod this we want to be a neutral country and disbanded the army then possibly the tanks would have rolled again. As it was it was Hungarians who dismantled the border fence between themselves and Austria that provided the first real crack in the Iron Curtain.

War memorials for Austro-Hungarian soldiers from the great war stood while the Socialist system ruled, in fact they were perhaps better looked after then than they are now (zoom in on the linked picture to see the graffiti).

Ironically the Russian/Soviet Union memorials are now being removed from towns and cities across Hungary.

"...I also spare a thought for those soldiers and families of those who were drafted in to fight against us in both the "Great war" and the second world war...After all they were in a vast amount of cases no different to our own drafted soldiers..."

Yep, pretty much. My daughter and son can look at our old family photo albums and see pictures of grandparents who fought on both sides of both wars.

Their grandfathers were a farrier, a baker, a geologist and a writer.

 

[Goatboy]

Thanks Sandbender, great pictures and a thoughtful way to honour the dead. There's always something different about military graveyards. The ones at Gallipoli were so big and the ages of the dead all to similar. Part of that "lost" generation.

 

[rik_uk3]

Thank you so much for this wonderful report and the photographs plus many thanks to all involved in your country for remembering.