Guwahati: British Deputy High Commissioner Nick Low made his maiden visit to the Commonwealth War cemetery in Kohima on Friday to lay a wreath in memory of all the fallen brave soldiers on Remembrance Day. He paid his respect to the soldiers on 11 November at 11 hours, 11 minutes (11.11.11).
During his visit Low said, “Occasionally you have the opportunity to do something that you will remember for the rest of your life. Laying a wreath at the Kohima War Cemetery at the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month is such a moment and a huge honour.”
“I do so in honour of all those who fell here and for the veterans who had hoped to be in Kohima on the seventy-fifth anniversary of the battle but were prevented by the pandemic,” he added.
On Thursday, Low visited Mary Help of Christians Cathedral in Kohima.
“A place of stunning beauty which will live in my memory. My thanks to Father Vemedo Kezo for receiving me and to Bishop James Thoppil for the traditional Naga shawl,” he tweeted.
On the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month in 1918, the guns of Europe fell silent. After four years of bitter fighting, The Great War was finally over. The Armistice was signed at 05:00 am in a railway carriage in the Forest of Compiegne, France on November 11, 1918. Six hours later, at 11:00 am, the war ended.
The first Remembrance Day was conducted in 1919 throughout Britain and the Commonwealth. Originally called Armistice Day, it commemorated the end of hostilities the previous year. It came to symbolise the end of the war and provide an opportunity to remember those who had died.
In a letter published in the London Evening News on 8 May 1919, an Australian journalist, Edward George Honey, had proposed a respectful silence to remember those who had given their lives in the First World War. This was brought to the attention of King George V and on 7 November 1919, the King issued a proclamation that called for a two-minute silence.
“All locomotion should cease, so that, in perfect stillness, the thoughts of everyone may be concentrated on reverent remembrance of the glorious dead.”
After the end of the Second World War in 1945 Armistice Day became Remembrance Day to include all those who had fallen in the two World Wars and other conflicts.
Since 1919, on the second Sunday of November, otherwise known as Remembrance Sunday, a two-minute silence is also observed at 11am at war memorials, cenotaphs, religious services and various public places throughout the UK and across the Commonwealth.
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