RS Capel remembered at Villiers Bretonneux

Gidday Bronwyn,

My wife Kelly and I recently went for a week-long tour through the battlefields of Northern France and Southern Belgium. We took 4 x hand crocheted poppies that were made by my Mother-in-law Jennifer at Beechwood near Wauchope in NSW. We had decided to place two of the poppies at random on headstones in the Military cemetery at the Villiers Bretonneux Australian National Memorial which is near the French town of Corbie.

One of the remaining poppies was placed on the former grave of the unknown soldier in the Adelaide Cemetery, who is now interred as the unknown soldier in the Australian War Memorial in Canberra. The last poppy was placed on my wife’s uncle’s grave which is located in the Ainsdale cemetery in Northern England.

I randomly chose RS Capel to be the benefactor of my poppy and Kelly chose a soldier called LO Chamley. They are buried in close proximity to each other at Villiers Bretonneux Cemetery.

Since I have got back to home soil I started wondering who were RS Capel and LO Chamley? [Roy had been buried twice; Leighton was only buried once] This morning I started to find more out about Royston and straight away came up with info off the internet and was able to see what the man actually looked like. Very amazing to look back at these old photos and peer into the past.

Royston was a member of the 33rd Battalion and had been killed in action on the 30th of March 1918 and ‘’the Field France’’ is all it says of this location. He has a 47 page military record in the National Australian Archives that is easily locatable should any one wish to read more. It contains all his war service, when he was wounded at different times, when he was killed and even his last will and testament in which he left his estate to his father George.                                                                                                                                                                                           

It was an amazing experience to attend this memorial ceremony at Villiers Bretonneux and also be part of the other amazing, but sad experiences that we had. I had a grandfather and a great uncle that fought in the same locations as Roy and Leighton, miraculously they both survived to return to Australia but never lived long enough to make old bones.

The four other servicemen that are buried either side of Roy had also been also buried more than once, and this was pretty common throughout many cemeteries. Roy was previously buried at Hangard Wood cemetery which is a British war cemetery and that may be why he was relocated although there are four other Aussies still buried there.

If you were able to peer over the hedge behind Roy’s grave you would see the town of Corbie about 2klm away. It was a very picturesque location far removed from what it looked like in the 1916 -1918 period.

I have written a reasonably detailed daily journal with photos of our trip each day and I will send you the Anzac Day one to read also. I hope this small step back into a sad part of Australian history brings some interest to the members of the Capel family and others in the Barraba district.

Best regards

Stephen McBride