SO YOUNG SO CLOSE TO HOME

To the glorious memory of Sgt P.V.R SUTTON aged 24 years.

A2 BOM SQDN RAF.

Also his five comrades who lost their lives here through enemy action 31.7.1941

The memorial is erected on the spot in the Ashdown Forest , East Sussex., where their Wellington bomber crashed on it’s way back from a bombing mission to Cologne by the mother of the deceased.

This poem is for all of the above.

SO YOUNG SO CLOSE TO HOME

So young so close to home

Our freedom was your conscience

What do you make of the world you fought and died for?

Was your death no more than theft?

A life stolen. No court no justice to convict the thief.

Your memorial stands alone against wind and rain just as the country you fought for stood alone all those years ago.

You were so young and so close to home.

The flowers planted for you bloom so brightly each spring.

They die in sympathy for you come the winter snow.

Dear soul we owe you so much

For all the freedoms we take for granted each day

The Europe of today is united we are proud to say

You carried that dream in your heart that day you took off in the summer of 1941.

And while we all bicker about our petty differences your dream's lie still never to be fulfilled.

Never the less we thank you for our freedom today

We pay our respects at the spot where your memory lays

You died for all of us that fateful day

You maybe gone but your sacrifice will never fade