Screams Unheard

 Dear reader,

The Imperial War Museum was established to record the military and civilian contributions, toil, and sacrifices of the British Empire.

It opened in 1920 at Crystal Palace, moving to its current Lambeth Road location in 1936, and has expanded to cover all modern conflicts.

It was proposed by Sir Alfred Mond and approved in March 1917 to collect materials while the war was still on going.  It aimed to be a record of the war effort rather than a monument to victory.

The War Museum holds a vast collection of over 33 million items, including personal letters, photographs and large objects like tanks and aircraft offering a comprehensive view of modern war.

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From D.H. Lawrence    February 9th   1919 in Derbyshire

'It is marvelous weather - brilliant sunshine on the snow, clear as summer, slightly golden sun, distance lit up.  But it is immensely co;d - everything frozen solid - milk, mustard, everything.  Yesterday I went out for a real walk - I have had a cold and been in bed.  I climbed with my niece to the bare top of the hills.  Wonderful it is to see the foot marks on the snow - beautiful ropes of rabbit prints, trailing away over the brows; heavy hare marks; a fox so sharp and dainty, going over the wall: birds with two feet that hop; very splendid advance of a pheasant; wood pigeons that are clumsy and move in flocks; splendid little leaping marks of weasels coming along like a necklace chain of berries; odd little filigree of the field-mice; the trail of a mole- it is astonishing what a world of wild creatures one feels about one, on the hills in the snow.' 

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Screams unheard

 

It is very well done, she said,

the War Museum,

we will visit one afternoon.

Visit the dead?

I know the grief and loss wars cause,

I remain silent, pause

then say, yes why not.

 

We did visit,

people crowded everywhere.

Schoolchildren were

chewing gum, shouting,

scribbling on odd pieces of paper,

bored with the uncool dead,

and old history.

 

We lunched in the restaurant

on hot soup, buttered buns,

then hurried downstairs to

inspect tanks and guns.

Under lowered lights

in ominous gloom,

sepia scenes of uniformed men

hung in a darkened room.

 

Underground now,

the bowels of the earth.

Ah, the virtual reality attraction

the gas chamber.

Permission to touch

the white tiles, the copper pipes

where the gas would come

not very nice, but very well done.

 

A teenager laughed

licked his ice cream,

then wandered away,

obscene, obscene.

 

Normandy landings next

on film,

Sea-sodden soldiers, exhausted, cold,

weary young faces, made old,

blasts of noise, terror and blood,

bulleted corpses floating in mud.

Screech, more aircraft over,

some of ‘our boys’ after the Hun.

Very clever, very real,

very well done.

 

We should have gone to the Dolls

Museum, she said.

Perhaps more entertaining

than the dreary dead.

 

Did anyone else hear the screams,

or feel the grief, the anger, the fear,

all of the things I felt there…..

 

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With very best wishes, Patricia                                                                             *