Two soldiers linked in death by a bizarre coincidence

[Swede]

In a beautiful, wooded cemetery at the end of a suburban lane in Belgium, the body of John Parr, from Finchley, North London, rests a few paces from the body of George Edwin Ellison from Leeds.


Between their graves there lies seven yards of lawn and, chronologically and metaphorically, the bodies of all the other British soldiers – approximately 800,000 men – who died in the Great War.

Private Parr, 16, a bicycle scout, and Pte George Ellison, 40, of the Royal Irish Lancers, were, respectively, the first and the last British soldiers to die in combat in the First World War. Pte Parr was killed on 21 August, 1914, the day before the first rearguard action fought by the British Expeditionary Force near Mons on the Belgian-French border.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/two-soldiers-linked-in-death-by-a-bizarre-coincidence-1001080.html

[Kaleva]

1. Really interesting! Thanks for posting it.