Making the traditional Christmas pudding on a Royal Navy ship, December 1942.

Richard Maddox

THE COMMANDER of a destroyer depot ship in the Home Fleet at Scapa Flow stirs a traditional Christmas pudding, while the First Lieutenant adds a tot of rum. Although the wartime caption does not mention the ship, this is possibly HMS Tyne. The ship served as the flagship of Rear-Admiral R.L. Burnett, CB, DSO, OBE, RN while Destroyer Flotillas of the Home Fleet/ He would later be appointed Flag Officer of the 10th Cruiser Squadron, with HMS Belfast as his flagship. Image Copyright: © IWM. IWM catalogue reference A 13317. Original Source: http://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/205186123

WHEREVER YOU ARE, whatever your traditions at this time of year the staff and volunteers of IWM would like to wish you  peace, health and safety now and for the year ahead.

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IWM is the world’s leading authority on conflict and its impact on people’s lives from
1914 through to the present day and beyond.
You can learn more about volunteering at IWM here.

War Baby – a poem by Pamela Holmes

Richard Maddox

BRITAIN QUEUES FOR FOOD, 1945. Image Copyright © IWM. IWM catalogue reference D 25039. Original source: http://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/205202060

He has not even seen you, he
Who gave you your mortality;
And you, so small, how can you guess
His courage or his loveliness?

Yet in my quiet mind I pray
He passed you on the darkling way –
His death, your birth, so much the same –
And holding you, breathed once your name.

War Baby was written by Pamela Mavis Holmes, tying together two significant events in her life, her pregnancy and the death of her husband Frederick Claude (Peter) Hall.

Lieutenant Frederick Hall served with the Artists Rifles.

While seconded to 1st Battalion, East Surrey Regiment and serving in Tunisia, he was posted missing, believed killed in early December 1942.

He was aged 27 at the time of his presumed death. ⁽¹⁾

Their daughter was born four months later.

Having no known grave, he is one of almost 2000 men commemorated on the Medjez-el-Bab Memorial to the Missing, some sixty kilometres from Tunis. ⁽²⁾

More Information

A small selection of Second World War poetry can be seen on the Commonwealth War Graves Commission blog at https://www.cwgc.org/our-work/blog/remembering-the-poets-of-world-war-two

An introduction to the Artists Rifles can be found at https://artuk.org/discover/stories/the-artists-rifles-a-history-of-the-regiment

A little about the 1st Battalion East Surrey Regiment during the Second World War can be found at https://www.queensroyalsurreys.org.uk/short_history/sh14.shtml

Source

⁽¹⁾ https://www.cwgc.org/find-records/find-war-dead/casualty-details/2542009/frederick-claude-peter-hall – retrieved 23 March 2022

⁽²⁾ https://www.cwgc.org/visit-us/find-cemeteries-memorials/cemetery-details/2054200/medjez-el-bab-memorial – retrieved 23 March 2022.

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IWM is the world’s leading authority on conflict and its impact on people’s lives from
1914 through to the present day and beyond.
You can learn more about volunteering at IWM here.