LIEUTENANT JOHN KIPLING
IRISH GUARDS
27TH SEPTEMBER 1915 AGE 18
BURIED: ST MARY'S A.D.S. CEMETERY, HAISNES, FRANCE
At one time this burial was simply identified as 'A Lieutenant of the Irish Guards', and it carried the inscription 'Known unto God'. This was the formula that Rudyard Kipling had devised for all unknown burials. Where absolutely nothing was known about the body the headstone read: 'A soldier of the Great War. Known unto God'. This was adapted to include any scrap of information that could be discovered about the dead man, for example, a Canadian soldier, a German soldier, a British Private, a Corporal of the Black Watch, a Lieutenant of the Irish Guards. It just so happens that this particular Lieutenant of the Irish Guards is now thought by the Commonwealth War Graves Commission to be Rudyard Kipling's own son.
On 27 September 1915, two days after the opening of the battle of Loos, John Kipling led his platoon under heavy fire over a mile of open country towards their objective at Chalk Pit Wood. By the end of the day it was realised that he was missing and despite extensive enquiries his body was never found, or perhaps it was.
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