The Real Cost Of War

There are those who would say that Europe is an old and tired continent and while I'd disagree, it has every reason to be that way.

Every inch of turf here has had blood spilled on it down the centuries, and everyday there are reminders of small tragedies, unremarked and unrecorded, that have left families with gaps in their ranks.

Sixty years ago, Evan Davies, who came from the Welsh valleys, married his sweetheart and two weeks later, went off to war to fight with the British troops crossing the River Rhine. He never came back and his body was never found. Until the other day, when something as mundane as workmen digging a new housing development in The Netherlands uncovered his body.

Sergeant Major Evan Davies was identified by his id tag and his cap badge. And so on June the ninth, another body will be buried, with full military honours, in one of the vast military cemeteries that litter this continent. His widow is now too old to attend the ceremony, but the rest of the family will be there, most of them too young to have known anything more of Sgt Major Davies than a faded photograph and the stories and memories of his wife.

Sgt Major Davies was a casualty of the Second World War, but still in Belgium and France, the remains of soldiers who fought in the 1914 to 1918 war, the Great War, are being uncovered every week, by diggers working on new roads, new housing and new shopping malls, here in the new Europe.

Of course, for the relatives of the dead men, knowing where they are buried can be a great comfort, but these little reminders of small, family tragedies serve as a constant reminder to us all of the real cost of conflict, for the likes of Grace Davis, living out her old age alone in the valleys of Wales.

By Simon Bates