THE LONGEST GRAVE IN ENGLAND? GERMAN SEAMEN IN VERYAN CHURCHYARD, CORNWALL, UK...

If They Had Only Known…

If they had only known

What lay months ahead:

An assassination,

A culmination of muscling,

Tussling

And the outbreak of a rotten war,

Directed by commission,

For troopers of tradition.

If they had only known

What lay off Nare Head:

An abomination,

A termination of grounding,

Drowning

And the slaughter of a rotten mist,

Sinking by collision,

But not by ammunition.

If they had only known

What lay in Veryan, dead:

An indication,

A validation of mourning,

Warning

And the burial of a rotten crew,

Deformed by putrefaction

And a bacterial reaction.

If they had only known

What lay on ocean bed.

An eradication,

A celebration of empathy,

Sympathy

And the cursing of a rotten wreck,

Silenced by dejection,

Such a natural rejection…

If I had only known

What lay on grave’s head:

An appreciation,

A pacification of indifference,

Deference

And the memorials of a rotten death,

Blessed by resurrection

And the eternal perfection…

Pete Ray

The German barque ‘Hera’ sank off Nare Head, January 2nd, 1914, only months before the First World War broke out and yet the locals buried the dead German fellows in what is reputed to be the longest grave in England and a good many people turned out to honour the seamen. Veryan churchyard was the final resting place and Joseph Johns dug the 75 foot grave. Fog, a broken chronometer and a slow ship’s clock, along with other errors and the slow turning speed of the barque, plus difficulties in locating the wreck, led to only five of the company of twenty-four surviving. The first mate was lashed to a mast but died from exposure, other men clung to the mast until they fell, others found the one boat, which had been stashed on the port side of the ship but that was upturned too…

Oddly, the Falmouth Seamen’s Chaplain was a Mr Badger and the German vice-consul was a Mr Fox of Falmouth… 

THE HERA...

ABOVE & BELOW: THE LONGEST GRAVE IN ENGLAND?