PRIVATE ROBERT EDWARD RHODES
ROYAL FUSILIERS
5TH SEPTEMBER 1917 AGE 21
BURIED: LA CLYTTE MILITARY CEMETERY, BELGIUM
Robert Rhodes' family prayed that he would survive - that he would live. God heard their prayers and gave Rhodes eternal life. I've come across this inscription before in the war cemeteries but each time I see it I get the feeling that, for the family, this was the wrong answer.
Rhodes was a nineteen-year-old bicycle enameller from Newcastle-under-Lyme when he joined the army in 1915. He served with the 12th Battalion Royal Fusiliers, which took part in the opening of the Passchendaele Offensive on 31 July 1917, and in the Battle of Langemarck on 16 August. After which the regimental history records that:
"the wet weather and the arrangement of new tactics to suit the new elastic defence of the Germans imposed a long interval in the operations; and although minor assaults were delivered here and there, no further concerted movement took place in this area until September 20th".
Rhodes was killed during this period. His brother, Albert, who was 18 years older than him, chose his inscription.