The Power of the Epitaph: Why the Bayeux War Cemetery Continues to Inspire

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Have you ever heard someone say, “When I die, put this on my gravestone.” You probably have. Chances are you have even said that yourself a couple of times. But have you ever stopped to really consider how you will be remembered after you die?

For as long as I can remember, my father has always made it a very important part of our education to bring us to cemeteries, and the older the cemetery, the better. This has always a special part of family trips for me, even when I was very little. Some of my favorite memories of the New England coast are visiting the graves of the founding fathers and mothers of America. This is not because I have a weird fascination with death or anything else macabre and dark, but because I love learning about the men and women who shaped history. Multi-generational families can be found buried in one plot, such as the John Adams family and the Cotton Mather family. Then there is Cole’s Hill in Plymouth which holds the graves of many Pilgrims including William Bradford and William Brewster, as well as the grave of missionary Adoniram Judson, all men who left legacies that have lasted hundreds of years.

There 4,648 men buried in the Bayeux War Cemetery. The majority of them are from the United Kingdom.

Today, you can learn about anyone or anything on the internet if you just type it in. If you are more patient you can read about your subject of choice in books, letters, journals, newspaper articles, sometimes even film and documentaries. Yet I have found a very intimate way to get a personal glimpse into someone's life is to look at their gravestone. What is written on someone’s gravestone is the final statement that will be read about them for the next 200 years. The person might have been long forgotten, but their epitaph, the words on the stone marking their remains, will give testimony to their life in one way or another. 

When I am dead and in my grave, 
And all my bones are rotten. 
While reading this you'll think of me 
When I am long forgotten!

As in all writing, the spectrum between profound, morbid, mundane, humorous, and even absurd exists on gravestones. This grave from Nova Scotia takes on a bit of the tongue in cheek: 

Here lies Ezekial Aikle:
Age 102
The Good Die Young  

And not all are truthful. The Noah Webster’s 1828 Dictionary says of the word epitaph, “The epitaphs of the present day are crammed with fulsome compliments never merited. Can you look forward to the honor of a decorated coffin, a splendid funeral, a towering monument--it may be a lying epitaph.” 

Sometimes, if you pay attention, a phrase, a quote, or even as much as a sentence can give the reader an especially distinctive and even profound summary of that person's life. Were they of noble character? Or a villain? Were they loved by family? Or did they die lonely? What is written on that stone could very well be the ultimate summation of that person's life.

At the centre of this peaceful cemetery a solitary rock monument is covered in wreathes and notes from the families of the fallen.

One of the most moving aspects of our time in Normandy was visiting the Omaha Memorial and Bayeux War Cemeteries. Both were special and unique. At Omaha were rows and rows of plain white crosses, with only the name, date, state, and regiment. It was magnificent in its simplicity. But the British War Cemetery in Bayeux surprised me by its beauty. Walking into it was truly like walking into a piece of England. It had a peacefulness and tranquility about it that was enhanced by the well tended gardens surrounding each grave and going on down the uniform rows. There are 4,648 men of varying nationalities buried in this cemetery, but the majority of it is made up of the flower of England’s youth. 

There was so much to take in, but the most poignant part for me was to see the inscriptions that were written on almost all of the graves- quotes or last messages from the family of the deceased. Of the 4,116 English, Scottish, and Canadian soldiers buried there, there is not much we know, who they were, what were they like, etc. But what we do know is this, what is written on their epitaphs tells us a story that is one of the greatest and most powerful stories that has ever been told: A loving son, a brother, or husband did his duty for God and country and willingly sacrificed his life for the lives of his loved ones and future generations. 


"He asked life of thee, and thou gavest it him.Even length of days for ever and ever." Lt. Patrick Shaw, age 22, Royal Armored Corps.

“Greater love,” says the Bible, “hath no man than this: that a man lay down his life for his friends.” This was the text for many a gravestone. I wish that I could write an article on each epitaph, and the meaning and essence of what they communicate to future generations like you and me. But alas for time. Instead, I have included below some of the epitaphs that most struck me. Some are elaborate, others more plain, but they each communicate a message; of bravery and courage, of love and heartbreak, sometimes very personal. 

Signalman P.H. Ellis’s grave spoke of a loving mother: “My Only Child, he gave his all. Till We Meet Again -Mother.” Somewhere in England, the mother of P.H. Ellis lived out her life without  grandchildren to renew her youth because her son “gave his all.”

For Private S. Coles of the Royal Army Medical Corps it was a a duty well done: “He died his country to defend, A British soldier’s noble end.”  

The wife of A. Fishwick, Royal Engineer, would always remember her husband as one who:  “Gave his heart to home, His soul to God. Fought for King and country wife and baby.” 

"I've anchored my soul in the haven of rest, in Jesus I'm safe evermore." W. A. Hill, age 22, the Green Howards

Many Englishmen were still remembering the futile losses of the first World War; thought to be the “war to end all wars.” But it was not; and it is very probable that the suffering and the bloodshed was in the forefront of the minds of those who inscribed “He made his sacrifice for us. Grant it is not in Vain” on the grave of Royal Dragoon R.J. Colley after his death. 

A very beautiful one that can ring true to the heart of every Englishman was Royal Marine, J.R. Rigby’s: “There’s some corner of a foreign land that is forever England.”

As a lasting memory to Lieutenant T.W.R. Healy of the RAF, it was chosen to have this inscription written on his grave: “I have fought a good fight. I have finished my course. I have kept the faith.”  Would that all could say as his stone said, for truly he had. 

It would take a long time to properly go through and catalogue all the epitaphs which were written in that cemetery, but, certainly, one of the ones which moved me the most was the grave of Paul Abbott Baillon of the Royal Air Force who died November, 1940, age 26. His grave simply stated, “One of the few.” That one simple phrase communicated more about valour and heroism than a thousand words in the Telegraph or Wallstreet Journal could have. What do I mean by this, and what does it mean, “One of the few?”

Royal Air Force Pilot Officer Paul Abbott Baillon: "One of the few"

P.A Baillon: One of the few who had so gallantly defended England during her darkest hours when invasion seemed imminent, and the hope of a empire nearly gone. One of the few RAF pilots (544 to be exact) who gave their lives during the Battle of Britain. One of Churchill’s few. The few he spoke of when he would make the remark that would forever go down in the annals of history, “Never in the field of human conflict has so much been owed by so many to so few.” Yes. P.A. Baillon RAF, was “one of the few.”

As I write this now, in retrospect, and remember the words I read on these markers, words of the courage of youth, the heartbreak of a wife, the love of a mother for an only son, and the duty of a soldier, this verse from the poet G.K.Chesterton keeps coming into mind. “They died to save their country and they only saved the world.” How true this statement is. They died to save their England. Our boys died to save America. And instead, they saved the world. What beauty in their sacrifice. What can we do to pay them back in some small way for the sacrifice they made? There  is nothing we can do to fully repay it, but we can try by remembering these men, the veterans of WWII. 

Along the top of the Bayeux Memorial frieze is this latin inscription: "We, once conquered by William, have now set free the Conqueror’s native land". It is a fitting epitaph.

How grateful I am for this little look into their lives and character as I read these epitaphs. Stop in a cemetery and take a look. 

English Graves

Were I that wandering citizen whose city is the world,
I would not weep for all that fell before the flags were furled;
I would not let one murmur mar the trumpets volleying forth
How God grew weary of the kings, and the cold hell in the north.
But we whose hearts are homing birds have heavier thoughts of home,
Though the great eagles burn with gold on Paris or on Rome,
Who stand beside our dead and stare, like seers at an eclipse,
At the riddle of the island tale and the twilight of the ships.

For these were simple men that loved with hands and feet and eyes,
Whose souls were humbled to the hills and narrowed to the skies,
The hundred little lands within one little land that lie,
Where Severn seeks the sunset isles or Sussex scales the sky.

And what is theirs, though banners blow on Warsaw risen again,
Or ancient laughter walks in gold through the vineyards of Lorraine,
Their dead are marked on English stones, their loves on English trees,
How little is the prize they win, how mean a coin for these—
How small a shrivelled laurel-leaf lies crumpled here and curled:
They died to save their country and they only saved the world.

G. K. Chesterton

Harrison Summers: "Sergeant York of World War II"

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Harrison C. Summers, 1st Battalion, 502nd Parachute Infantry Regiment 

There are many stories recorded in the history books of daring and courageous deeds performed by the men of D-Day. Dick Winters of the 101st airborne, James Earl Rudder who led the boys of Pointe du Hoc, and the gallant Lord Lovat with his commandos, to name just a few. But one of my very favorite stories, is that of Sergeant Harrison C. Summers. 

Harrison Summers was born in the small town of Catawba, Marion Country, West Virginia, in July 12, 1918. Before the war he would work at the coal mine in the near-by town of Rivesville. On June 6th, 1944, he jumped into Normandy as part of 1st Battalion, 502nd PIR (101 Airborne). From there his story becomes so incredible that I will leave it to Stephen Ambrose to tell it in his book, D-Day: June 6, 1944: The Climactic Battle of World War II.

 Inland by about a kilometer from St-Martin-de-Varreville there was a group of buildings holding a German coastal-artillery barracks, known to the Americans from its map signification as WXYZ. Lt. Col. Patrick Cassidy, commanding the 1st Battalion of the 502nd, short of men and with a variety of missions to perform, sent Sgt. Harrison Summers of West Virginia with fifteen men to capture the barracks. That was not much of a force to rake on a full-strength German company, but it was all Cassidy could spare. 

A view of WXYZ Barracks  (photo cred: ww.cominteractif.com)

Summers set out immediately, not even taking the time to learn the names of the men he was leading, who were showing considerable reluctance to follow this unknown sergeant. Summers grabbed one man, Sgt. Leland Baker, and told him, "Go up to the top of this rise and watch in that direction and don't let anything come over that hill and get on my flank. Stay there until you're told to come back." Baker did as ordered.
    Summers then went to work, charging the first farmhouse, hoping his hodgepodge squad would follow. It did not, but he kicked in the door and sprayed the interior with his tommy gun. Four Germans fell dead, others ran out a back door to the next house. Summers, still alone, charged that house; again the Germans fled. His example inspired Pvt. William Burt to come out of the roadside ditch where the group was hiding, set up his light machine gun, and begin laying down a suppressing fire against the third barracks building. 
    Once more Summers dashed forward. The Germans were ready this time; they shot at him from loopholes but, what with Burt's machine-gun fire and Summers's zigzag running, failed to hit him. Summers kicked in the door and sprayed the interior, killing six Germans and driving the remainder out of the building. 
    Summers dropped to the ground, exhausted and in emotional shock. He rested for half an hour. His squad came up and replenished his ammunition supply. As he rose to go on, an unknown captain from the 101st, mis-dropped by miles, appeared at his side. "I'll go with you," said the captain. At that instant he was shot through the heart and Summers was again alone. He charged another building, killing six more Germans. The rest threw up their hands. Summers's squad was close behind; he turned the prisoners over to his men. 
    One of them, Pvt. John Camien from New York City, called out to Summers: "Why are you doing it?"
    "I can't tell you," Summers replied.
     "What about the others?" 
    "They don't seem to want to fight," said Summers, "and I can't make them. So I've got to finish it."
     "OK," said Camien. "I'm with you."
    Together, Summers and Camien moved from building to building, taking turns charging and giving covering fire. Burt meanwhile moved up with his machine gun. Between the three of them, they killed more Germans. 
    There were two buildings to go. Summers charged the first and kicked the door open, to see the most improbable sight. Fifteen German artillerymen were seated at mess tables eating breakfast. Summers never paused; he shot them down at the tables. 
    The last building was the largest. Beside it was a shed and a haystack. Burt used tracer bullets to set them ablaze. The shed was used by the Germans for ammunition storage; it quickly exploded, driving thirty Germans out into the open, where Summers, Camien, and Burt shot some of them down as the others fled. 
    Another member of Summers's makeshift squad came up. He had a bazooka, which he used to set the roof of the last building on fire. The Germans on the ground floor were filing a steady fusillade from loopholes in the trails, but as the flames began to build they dashed out. Many died in the open. Thirty-one others emerged with raised hands to offer their surrender. 
    Summers collapsed, exhausted by his nearly five hours of combat. He lit a cigarette. One of the men asked him, "How do you feel?" 
    "Not very good." Summers answered. "It was all kind of crazy. I'm sure I'll never do anything like that again.”
    Summers got a battlefield commission and a Distinguished Service Cross. He was put in for the Medal of Honor, but the paperwork got lost. In the late 1980s, after Summers's death from cancer, Pry. Baker and others made an effort to get the medal awarded posthumously, without success. Summers is a legend with American paratroopers nonetheless, the Sergeant York of World War II. His story has too much John Wayne/Hollywood in it to be believed, except that more than ten men saw and reported his exploits. (pp 297-99)

First Battalion, 502nd Parachute Infantry Regiment in 1944. "Somewhere in England

After D-Day, Summers went on to fight at Operation Market Garden in Holland, where he was wounded and received a purple heart. But it doesn't even end there. This hero of D-Day was sent back into action and was wounded again in Bastogne, receiving another purple heart. 

Following the end of the war, Summers returned to work in the coal mines of West Virginia and lived out his life there until he died of lung cancer in 1983. Though he was described as "a laughing boy in uniform", and a “tiger in combat," when he went home, he kept many of his experiences to himself. Despite never officially being recognized by the U.S. government for his valorous acts of courage and daring, his story is one which really ranks high in my books as one of dauntless audacity. He did not have time to be dismayed when all around failed to do their duty. Instead, taking it upon himself to complete the mission, alone, if needed, he made a name for himself that will be remembered for a long time to come. 

“My name was A15-049”

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Rose Williams, at the age of 17. This passport photograph was taken shortly after her liberation.

Today I sat in a small room with a few of my siblings and listened to the story of a woman who had lived through the horrors of the Holocaust in the Nazi concentration camps.  Rose Williams was a 12 year old Polish girl when the World War II began in 1939. After the Nazis invaded Poland, the fingers of Naziism began to close around the throats of the Jews, beginning with subtleties and moving into unimaginable cruelties. This is where Rose found herself with her brother, sister, mother, father, and grandmother. 

Every week the phrase: "The Jews are our misfortune!" would appear at the bottom of the newspapers.

One evening, a German soldier came to their home and ordered them to be out of their house within the hour. Next door was a very kind Gentile family who offered to take the three children into their home and hide them. But from the oldest down to the youngest not one would choose to be separated from their family members. “What will happen to one, will happen to all.” Thus the whole family was transported to a ghetto where they stayed for some time working for and being beaten by the hands of the Germans. 

Once, they waited anxiously for her father to return from his work. When he finally came, he was quite bloody all over his face. “What has happened to you?” they cried. He explained that he had asked a German soldier for a rag to continue his work with; the soldier, wrenching his beard from his chin, replied, “Here is the best rag!” 

Rose was walking outside one afternoon with her grandmother when they saw German soldiers separating babies from their mothers and throwing them on the sidewalk. One woman who refused to release her child was shot and the baby was hurled to the ground beside many others. Rose’s grandmother ran toward the spot were the babies lay, but Rose, grabbing her grandmother by the hand, cried, “What are you doing?” Her grandmother replied, “I am going to go save some of those babies.” A German soldier seeing the commotion ran to them, asking what was going on.  “Oh nothing, Sir, nothing,” she said, trying to pull her grandmother back. Refusing, her grandmother ran forward to help some of the little lives. As she did, she was beaten down by the soldier and shot. “It has taken me years to black out the memory of my grandmother’s dead body lying there being trampled with no one to bury her.”

Eventually, the family was able to acquire two passes to get work outside the ghetto, which, even though holding many horrors of it’s own, was a better place to work. Rose and her sister found jobs in two different factories. The factory Rose worked in, being a munitions factory, contained a great deal of alcohol. Rose along with many other workers smuggled the alcohol which was very valuable to the starving families.

Various versions of the Star of David that was required to be worn by all Jews.

Then it happened. They were all piled into a train. Two buckets were thrown in to serve as toilets for the hundreds of people packed in the car. Anyone attempting to bend down and relieve themselves would not be able to stand up again. Because of the compactness of the car, they would be crushed or suffocated by the masses. Many died even before the train reached Auschwitz, their destination. 

Upon arriving at Auschwitz, they were forced into lines where the notorious Dr. Josef Mengele, known as the “Angel of Death,” looked them over and decided whether they would go to the left or to the right, to immediate death in the gas chambers, or to temporary life in the work camps. The prisoners would be assembled and reevaluated from time to time.

An SS doctor decides who will live and who will die.

All Rose had when she had first stumbled off the train was a pair of winter boots and a couple of photographs of her family.  Even though she had so little, she had still been ordered to leave everything behind! Her warm boots were exchanged for some “dreadful” wooden hollander clogs. They froze when it was cold and got stuck when it was muddy. She decided that she could bear them no longer and threw them away. Her feet became ulcerated and unbearably painful.  All alone in a brutal concentration camp, she thought life was no longer worth living.  

Dr. Josef Mengele (middle) the "Angel of Death".

The next time Rose was in the line where life or death was being determined for so many, Dr. Mengele sent her to the right. She begged him to let her go to the death line instead. “He didn’t look at my sore legs or feet. He just looked at my face and said, ‘You are young yet,’ and pushed me to the other line.” In that unusual way, God used the famous “Angel Of Death”  to keep her life from death!

Not long after her life was spared, Rose found out that her little sister was one camp site away. She was able to find someone to switch places with, from her camp, to her sister’s. After being reunited, they both swore that they would never allow anything to separate them again.

In four years, she was kept in four different prison camps. Most of her time was spent carrying stones from one side of the camp to another, and then back for no purpose or reason except that she was ordered to by her captors. 

At last, that longed for, hoped for, awaited, day came in 1945:  “wolności,” freedom, liberty, liberation! The liberators arrived! They gave care packages and chocolate to the the starving people.  When Rose was released from the camp at 17 years of age, she weighed 87 pounds. She was sent to a hospital and had to stay there for two years until she weighed 100 pounds. To their delight, Rose and her sister found out that her brother had survived the camps, as well, and was still alive! 

In 1946, they all tried to get visas to be able to immigrate to the United States, but after finding out that her brother had tuberculosis, Customs would not allow him in. So Rose and her sister moved to what was viewed as the modern “Promised Land,” America. Her brother moved to the old Promised Land, Israel, and became a man of note there. Rose married, becoming Mrs. Rose Williams. She had children and grandchildren passing down to them an incredible legacy. Since 1945, she has traveled to Israel seven times. It’s amazing that God preserved her life through these tragic experiences! 

Mrs. Rose Sherman Williams 

I have been told many times how my grandfather, as a little boy, would look out his window and see a little blonde haired Jewish girl whose parents had been killed in one of these death camps. He wondered what her name was and what her story was. Who knows, maybe this woman, Rose Williams, whom I met today, knew the little blonde haired girl’s parents. As a little boy, my dad saw that some of our relatives had numbers tattooed on their arms. When he asked about them, he was told that they got them in the concentration camps. These stories of the Jews during the Holocaust are very personal to me because this is part of my family history. In truth, this all happened in a land not very long ago, and not very far away.

"Oh, When The 'Tanks' Come Marching In!"

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In 1917, General George S. Patton said, “I feel sure that tanks in some form will play a part in all future wars.” With that statement, the history of modern cavalry of the 20th and 21st century was ushered in. For me, tank warfare is an incredibly fascinating subject. I don’t pretend to know a single thing about their technicalities, but tank combats such as the Battle of Cambrai (1917) and Operation Goodwood (1944) do not fail to captivate me.

These monsters are so huge and so full of power that one cannot but be overwhelmed by their tremendous strength. The sheer magnitude of how the beast of the machine moves is behemoth-like. Standing next to these mighty giants, I was really able to understand the strength they wielded. You could hear them releasing noises that could be termed purring, but would be more accurately described as growling. 

The treads are enormous and would crush you if you even thought about coming near it;  and that is not even getting into their firing powers. Let me just say, standing next to a tank with its engine running, ready to move, is nothing like looking at a tank that is on display. There can be no comparison.

For almost any little boy out there, or little girl who enjoys little boy things like tanks and jeeps too, the moment a tank enters the scene, the affect is similar to that which Mr. Toad of Wind in the Willows experiences when he sees a red motor car. The eyes go round in circles, the heart starts pumping, and the phrase ‘It was big, it was red, it was be-autiful..." comes to mind. Only these tanks were far more massive and an ominous olive green.

I'm sure there were many little boys who felt the same on June 6, 1944, as tank after tank rolled into the town square following the liberation of St. Marie du Mont by the 101st Airborne that morning. After years of hard oppression under the Nazi regime, when at any moment, father, brother, mother or sister might be taken out and brutally murdered, rescue had finally come! Not just rescue, but liberation by the "angels" of the air, and the "behemoths" of the ground! 

On June 6, 2014, 70 years later to the day, the tanks came rolling in again. With the grandchildren of those who had been liberated, with the veterans who had come to liberate, and with those who had come to honor, hundreds and thousands of people stood cheering, laughing, waving, and clapping. The behemoths were back!

They kept coming and coming and coming. I lost count there were so many. They would each in turn slowly roll up, pause for a few moments, and then move ahead, making room for the next. They were massive, they were loud, and like all the others, I couldn't take my eyes off them.

It was the closest thing I think I could ever get to being there on liberation day. 

Louis Zamperini: A Life Unbroken

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Louis Silvie "Louie" Zamperini January 26, 1917 – July 2, 2014

This morning I was shocked to read of the death of Mr. Louis Zamperini. You see, in God’s amazing providential timing, I just finished reading the biography on his life Unbroken by Laura Hillenbrand last week, and not a day has gone by that I have not thought about his story. 

The story of his life is one I will never forget. After spending his mischievous childhood and youth stealing and getting chased by police, Zamperini eventually channelled his energy into running. Soon he was setting records and ended up in the 1936 Olympics in Berlin, Germany.    

Louie, fondly known by his friends and town as the "Torrance Tornado".

Then came World War II.  Zamperini served as a bombardier in the Pacific on a B-24 aircraft. After multiple noteworthy bombing raids, in 1943, he crashed in the ocean while on a rescue mission. He survived 46 days in a little raft subsisting on shockingly little to eat and drink. His only companions were the pilot and one crewman who later died, not to mention the ever present sharks that circled the raft. Finally on day 47, the last survivors of the plane crash, Russell Allen Phillips and Louis Zamperini, arrived at the Marshall Islands and were quickly captured by the Japanese. Already in very bad health after almost 7 weeks on a raft, Zamperini weighed in at a pitiful 79 pounds, less than half his original body weight. He and his pilot were taken to various prison camps where they endured experimentation and incessant beatings. One man in particular, whom the prisoners nicknamed “The Bird,” found it his mission to torment and beat the Olympic athlete constantly. The torture inflicted by this sadistic corporal shaped his life for years afterward. 

Finally in 1945, when the war ended, his trials as a prisoner of war were over. Louis Zamperini returned home and was hugged and kissed by his family for the first time in close to three years. 

Louie, reunited with his family after years of separation, is warmly embraced by his loving mother and father. 

To many his liberation from a life as a POW may seem like a happy conclusion to his story, but Zamperini still had years of darkness ahead of him. Like so many other war heroes, coming home was not as easy as it sounded. At first he seemed like his old self, but inside he was still at war. Night after night in his dreams,  “The Bird” beat him again and again. Night after night, Zamperini tried to strangle him to no avail. It seemed to him that his only escape from the man who still had grasp of him was to kill him. So it became his mission to return to Japan and finish off “The Bird.”

Louie with Billie Graham in the 50s. 

But then one day Louis Zamperini’s true liberation came. At a Billy Graham revival in Los Angeles, he remembered a promise he made on the raft years before. He had told God that if God got him out alive that he would serve Him for the rest of his life. Zamperini was physically liberated years before when the war ended, but his real freedom came when the gave his life to Jesus Christ. He went home that night, poured out his bottles of alcohol which had become his nightly companion to drown his memories, went to bed, and never dreamed of “The Bird” again.

Many years later, Louie would return to Japan and meet with the men who had tortured him during the war.

To me, that is a true success story. Freed from drunkenness, freed from his flashbacks and nightmares, freed from hatred for his enemies, Zamperini returned to Japan in the early 1950s. He went to Sugamo Prison where Japanese war criminals were held. He found his previous captors and persecutors and told them he forgave them for all they had done to him. While he never had face to face closure with “The Bird,” Zamperini was at peace. 

What I have just given you is a very, very rough sketch of the life of such an extraordinary man. I would really like to encourage all of you to read the biography on his life. It is one you cannot possibly read with out coming away impacted! I for one have been heavily reminded of the power of God’s saving grace and the freedom it brings to those who have endured some of life’s hardest trials. Mr. Zamperini could have lived out the rest of his life in misery like so many others, but because of the beautiful work of Christ in his heart, he lived out a full life of 97 years and used his story to impact the lives of countless others.