The Unknown Warrior was selected to rest in Westminster
Abbey, as a representative of the hundreds of thousands
of British troops who had died during the
First
World War. In late 1920 four groups of British soldiers
were sent out to the four biggest battlefields of the Western
Front - Aisne, Arras, Somme and Ypres - where crude wooden
crosses marked the graves of British soldiers.
Each group located a cross which showed that the identity
of the soldier buried there was unknown. The body was then
exhumed and taken to a temporary chapel at St Pol in Northern
France. The four sets of remains were guarded overnight
and the next day a high ranking British officer (some reports
say that he was blind-folded) entered the chapel and touched
one of the bodies, all of which were covered with Union
flags.
The chosen body was placed in a plain coffin and taken to
Boulogne. With the coffin went sacks of soil dug from the
spot where the soldier had died, so that the earth of France
that he was defending would cover his last resting place
in Westminster Abbey. On 10 November 1920 the body was placed
in a larger oak coffin and, amid great ceremony, taken aboard
HMS Verdun. The ship sailed from Boulogne to Dover escorted
by six destroyers.
At Dover people lined the cliffs to see the Unknown Warrior
return home. At the
Admiralty
Pier representatives of the nation were waiting and
Dover’s civic leaders were among those there to pay homage.
With great ceremony the remains were loaded onto the special
train and taken to London. The next day, 11 November 1920,
the second anniversary of the signing of the Armistice,
the remains of the Unknown Warrior were carried through
the streets of London and laid to rest in Westminster Abbey.
By the end of the day 200,000 people had visited his graveside.
He represented more than 300,000 British and Dominion soldiers
with no known grave.
