SECOND LIEUTENANT WALTER HENRY ALEXANDER DAMIANO
ROYAL DUBLIN FUSILIERS
2ND JULY 1916 AGE 19
BURIED: BEAUVAL COMMUNAL CEMETERY, FRANCE
Walter Damiano's parents beautifully capture their son's qualities in the first two lines of this headstone inscription, and then express the essence of Laurence Binyon's poem, 'For the Fallen'.
They shall not grown old, as we that are left grow old:
Age shall not weary them, not the years condemn.
At the going down of the sun and in the morning
We will remember them.
Second Lieutenant Damiano died of wounds received on the first day of the battle of the Somme when,
"The 2nd Battalion, Royal Dublin Fusiliers, with the 4th Division began to advance at 9 am, immediately encountering heavy enfilade fire from Beaumont-Hamel. At 9.05 am two runners arrived and informed Major Walsh, the commanding officer, that the attack was to be postponed. He managed to stop part of C and D companies advancing. However for the rest of the battalion, already in No-Man’s-Land, the recall order came too late. At 12 noon, when the order was finally received from Corps HQ to attack and consolidate the position, Walsh reported that this was impossible. Of the twenty-three officers and 480 men who had assembled that morning, fourteen officers and 311 men were now casualties. The order had to be amended and Major Walsh was now told to collect all available men to defend the British front-line."
The Irish at the Somme