The Importance of Remembrance

The Importance of Remembrance

DESC has established a proud and enduring tradition in Remembrance. Each year, we further enrich and enhance students’ Year 9 studies in History by visiting the World War I Battlefields in France and Belgium to pay our respects to the fallen. Our DESC community draws together an incredibly rich and diverse range of nationalities, cultures and backgrounds, all of whom will have ancestors who were in some way affected by the events of 1914-18, but also during those conflicts that have occurred around the world throughout history. This year, we have seen some enormously challenging circumstances, but our community has shown unprecedented levels of stoicism, agility and determination in genuinely difficult times, and we have therefore used this opportunity to recognise exceptional examples of resilience during hardship. This week, all students have watched the DESC Virtual Assembly: Remembrance 2020 during registration. A link to the assembly is HERE should you wish to view it. Furthermore, on Wednesday, 11^th November the College observed a two-minute silence for Remembrance Day at 11am, followed by the Last Post.

Each year, we focus on two key dates at DESC. On 30th November, we observe Commemoration Day. UAE Commemoration Day is not a celebration in the same way as National Day is, but a day to remember and honour those who have given their lives for the UAE. We also observe Remembrance Day, which is held on 11^th November. Whilst Remembrance Day was initially introduced to recognise those who had served during World War I, it has since been an opportunity to remember all of those people – military and civilian – who have been affected by conflict in some way.

Humanity has seen so many challenges, and the situation in which we find ourselves in 2020 is no different. This year at DESC we remember all of those people who have faced tremendous adversity in their lives and have shown incredible resilience, stoicism and determination to overcome hardship and misfortune. We also show gratitude to those who have risked their lives in the past year to help others; being on the ‘front line’ has certainly taken on a new meaning in 2020.

But there have always been challenges throughout history.

Imagine a baby born in 1900. The world is at peace. Standards of living are slowly improving, more people have access to clean water and sufficient food, more and more people can have a say in how things are being run in society. But things quickly change. In 1914, World War I breaks out, and by this time, you are 14. News of the war has been greeted with enthusiasm. In Britain, the national mood is upbeat. There is widespread confidence that your country and her allies will quickly win this war. Your friends and male relatives rush to the local town hall to sign up for the opportunity to leave their town or village – many for the first time - and serve their country. You falsify your documents and sign up for the war. Just think about that… boys that were the age of those in Year 9 at DESC!

In August 1914, you march off, cheering and smiling. Many people feel very patriotic. People on both sides believe they are fighting a ‘just war’. They expect to be home by Christmas. Each side is convinced that ‘We’ are right, the enemy is wrong.

The mood soon changes. By 1916, there are enormous causalities on both sides of the conflict. The sheer scale of the war is hard for us to truly comprehend in 2020. There were 65 million solders and 38 million casualties. At least ten million died. 20 million were irretrievably wounded in their minds or their bodies. The perceived adventure of war in an unknown foreign land soon turned to a nightmarish, unbearable reality.

By 1918, you are 18 years old, which is the age of a Year 13 student at DESC. You have been lucky enough to survive the war, but the lasting physical and psychological effects produce a devastating legacy for you to deal with. Things that you have witnessed will stay with you forever, and you struggle to shake off a lingering sense of loss when you think of all of those friends that lost their lives during the war. Remembrance gives us the opportunity to stop and think about the sacrifices that they made for us.

World War I is over, and life returns to normal, if only briefly. The year after, when you should be entering university or employment at the age of 19 years old, a deadly virus called the Spanish Flu breaks out, killing 50 million people and leaving so many people around the world without their loved ones.

In 1929, the Wall Street Crash happens. Overnight, your family loses all of its savings, and you become unemployed. The world seems incredibly unfair and life is hard. But you don’t give up. You brush yourself off and keep going. At age 33, the Nazis come into power in Germany. Despite all of the promises of peace after the last war, incredibly, the world descends in a second World War in 1939. By now, you have a family of your own, with sons that would soon be signing up for the war effort, only to face the horror that you faced in 1914, but this time it’s worse; technological advancements in the air, on the ground and at sea make this war even more destructive and brutal than the last.

Your daughters begin working in the factories and on the switchboards to produce munitions and supplies for the war effort and keep communications going, all while the Luftwaffe carry out nightly air raids on your city. The sacrifices that people make each day and night are transformative and life changing. Churchill tries to keep up morale by visiting sites that have been bombed and performing rousing speeches as the outcome of the war hangs in the balance.

When you reach forty-five years old, the war finally ends. Despite the allies claiming victory, no one has really ‘won’. 65 million have died.  World War II has ended with unprecedented death tolls and economic damage. Only a few houses are still standing on your street. News from Nazi Germany and the occupied territories causes you alarm and dismay when you hear the shocking and inhumane experiences faced by so many during the war.

Some people have shown not only the resilience to make it through conflicts, but also the fight and determination to help others, even much later in life. Born in 1920, Captain Sir Thomas James Moore served in Burma during World War II. During that conflict, he faced incredibly difficult circumstances. In what is now considered the ‘forgotten war’ by many, Sir Tom and his comrades in Burma faced a strong and determined Japanese force coupled with the crippling heat of the jungle.

To add insult to injury, he lost many of his comrades to malaria, the effects of poisonous snakes and then he himself contracted dengue fever, from which he nearly died. "That was an entirely different world to anything I'd ever been in before but we survived," he says.

Despite acts of heroism and bravery during the war that earned him many medals and accolades, it is his actions during the pandemic that have earned him recognition. This year, Sir Tom has raised over 32m pounds (which is 152 million AED) by walking more than one hundred laps of his garden in Bedfordshire for the National Health Service in the UK. He says that the NHS was there for him and his wife when they needed it most. When asked about what his secret is to persevering through a tough challenge, he says: "Well you start off with the first one, it's a bit hard. Then you do another one, and another and think, well I can do another one, and that's how you have to keep going”.

His life has not been straightforward. Sir Tom has certainly seen hardship. His wife, Pamela, was according to Sir Tom - ‘the love of his life’ but she suffered throughout their marriage with mental health difficulties. During one of his daily visits to see her in the nursing home, Sir Tom recalls saying, ‘Don’t worry, my dear, if you are finding it all difficult, the sun will shine, and all of the clouds will go away’. Pamela passed away from dementia in 2006, and Tom moved in with his daughter and has lived with her family ever since.

Tom spoke recently about the sense of loss that he feels when remembering his loved ones from the past and what Sir Tom and his relatives had to go through during both world wars. Regarding his parents, who died over fifty years ago, and his grandfather, whom he idolised, he said, “I miss my mother and father and grandfather, that feeling continues for all time even at 100. Most people do”. Captain Sir Tom Moore continues to campaign for those that he says are facing loneliness and apprehension as many places in Europe enter a second period of lockdown.

It would be appealing – in fact in would be preferable – for us to forget our involvement in conflicts through a sense of guilt or not wanting to remind ourselves of the horrors of war.

Throughout this week and on 30^th November 2020, the College is carefully reflecting upon what our ancestors went through, the impact of these events on the lives of so many people across the globe, and the devastating legacy of conflict.

You could argue that we could never fully repay the debt that we owe to them, but we can stop our busy lives, stand and remember, honour what they have given for us, and thank them for what they continue to do for us, every day. In the meantime, I’ll leave you with the words of Sir Laurence Binyon:

They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old: 

Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn.

At the going down of the sun and in the morning

We will remember them.

Mr J Roberts

Head of History