Lest we forget

In November our thoughts turn to those who have left us, with Christians around the world celebrating All Souls’ Day on 2 November, swiftly followed by Remembrance Day, which commemorates the millions of soldiers who lost their lives in service since the First World War.

Meanwhile, we are reminded on an almost weekly basis of the number of deaths in operations: figures released in September count 382 British military deaths in operations since 2001 in Afghanistan alone, with a further 44 having lost their lives from accidents, illness or non-combat injuries.

End of days

Yet even today, the plight of those who do survive is rarely remembered. Over 60 years after the end of the Second World War, we are still seeing the results of lives shattered by coming back from the front – in theory, the ‘victors’. Having survived the war, many young men returned to a civilisation they would be forever alienated from; shell shocked and broken in mind, they were forced back into civilian life as though nothing had happened.

One such case landed on our desks a few months ago; a solicitor contacted us to find the named beneficiaries of a gentleman who died in a nursing home at the beginning of the year. William Arthur Evans had never had any visitors in the nursing home in which he lived to a grand age of 90; more sadly, he had been referred there from a psychiatric hospital in which he had lived since 1976, also without visitors.

As our researchers meticulously took to researching the ‘Evans’ name in Wales, not an insignificant feat in itself, details slowly emerged from enquiries, piecing together William’s tragic life.
William had enlisted into the army with his best friend in 1939 at the tender age of 19 and had been sent to Palestine to fight the Italian and German invasions. Following glowing reports, William and his friend were sent to take part in the Western Desert Campaign in El Alamein, Egypt, in 1942. One day, when they were walking side by side on patrol, his friend stepped on a landmine.

William was found wandering wounded in the desert two days later, a broken man whose life had in effect ended at that moment. Suddenly the full tragedy of war overwhelmed him. Following a number of increasingly serious disciplinary offences, he was finally discharged in March 1945 as “permanently unfit for military service”, shipped back to England and handed over to his mother.

Lasting effect

His mother did her best to try and rehabilitate William back into the life that he had led before the war, but, much to her chagrin, the slightest noise, commotion or sudden movement sent his thoughts back into the trenches on the front – he would dive under the table, shouting at everyone to do the same because the Germans were coming, and getting very flustered if they did not.

These increasingly aggressive outbursts became too much for his mother to be able to cope with, and he was finally left with the Salvation Army. Following his continued aggression, he was sectioned and taken into a psychiatric home. William would later be diagnosed with both schizophrenia and dementia.

He lived out the next 50 years in care, cut off from his family and never talking about what happened to him. In his older years, when the nurses wanted to cheer him up or to start a conversation with him, they would sing army songs and he would joyously join in. Apart from that, he was always alone.

William Arthur Evans was in no way an isolated incident and time and again we hear the comments that people simply weren’t equipped with the information, knowledge and tools to cope with war and its aftermath – not only armed forces but the soldiers themselves, and also the families left to endure the consequences. We can only hope that in years to come we will not encounter cases such as William’s from those serving their country this time around. n

Kasia Oberc is a relationship manager at Fraser & Fraser. Find who you’re looking for; email legal@lostkin.co.uk or call 020 7832 1430