PRIVATE JOSEPH BELL
WELCH REGIMENT
30TH DECEMBER 1916 AGE 21
BURIED: GUARDS' CEMETERY, COMBLES, FRANCE
Private Bell's mother chose his inscription. It's the first line of a popular evening hymn usually sung by children:
Now the day is over,
Night is drawing nigh,
Shadows of the evening
Steal across the sky.
Twenty-one-year old Joseph Bell was killed in action on 30 December 1916 and buried in Priez Farm Cemetery, Combles. As the war progressed several of the graves in this cemetery were destroyed and lost in the subsequent fighting. Bell's was one such grave. He now has a 'special memorial' in a memorial plot in Guards' Cemetery, Combles. The memorial plaque reads:
To the memory of these 29 British soldiers, killed in action in 1916, 1917 and 1918 and buried at the time in Priez Farm Cemetery, Combles, whose graves were destroyed in later battles. "Their glory shall not be blotted out."
The quotation in the final line comes from Ecclesiasticus 44:13 and was chosen by Rudyard Kipling for the special memorial headstones that commemorate soldiers whose graves were destroyed subsequent to their known burial.