Britain Honours War Dead

Millions of people joined in a two-minute silence Saturday to remember Britain's war dead. Across the country people will pay their prayerful respects in church services on Sunday.

The start of Saturday's silence was heralded at 11am by a lone bugler at a London service on Armistice Day, the anniversary of the official end of World War One.

Many gathered for a service in the capital's Trafalgar Square where they were invited to place in the fountains red poppies, worn on lapels since just after the end of World War One to honour those who die in battle because the poppy grew on the battlefields of northern Europe.

British forces in Iraq and Afghanistan also observed the silence.

In London four Royal Air Force fighter jets flew low over the capital to mark the end of the two-minute silence.

The Queen was joined by New Zealand's Prime Minister Helen Clark at a service to dedicate 16 bronze memorial sculptures in Hyde Park. The specially commissioned sculptures honour New Zealand's war dead and give special acknowledgement to the links between the two countries, reports Reuters.

Families of servicemen killed in Iraq later laid wreaths at the Cenotaph in central London, accompanied by a lone piper.

The names of more than 100 British servicemen who have died in Iraq were read out before a letter was delivered to Prime Minister Tony Blair's office calling for the return of British troops.

Special services will be held in churches up and down the country Sunday to commemorate Britain's war dead while the Queen is due to lay a wreath at the Cenotaph.

THE Archbishop of York, Dr John Sentamu, will preach at the annual Remembrance Service in Beverley Minster for the first time on Sunday.

The service starts at 10.50am, with the Act of Remembrance observed at 11am. It is followed by the annual procession to the Memorial Gardens in Hengate, for a wreath-laying ceremony.

Earlier in the week, the Rt Rev Alan McDonald, Moderator of the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland, laid a wreath under the Menin Gate Memorial in Ypres.

The wreath laying was part of the daily Last Post Ceremony which has taken place every day since 1928 to honour the soldiers of the British Empire who fought and died in the immortal Ypres Salient during the First World War. Here local buglers play the Last Post, a bugle call traditionally played in the British Army at the end of each day.
The Menin Gate Memorial, designed by Sir Reginald Blomfeld, is the most important edifice in Ypres and its walls are engraved with the 54, 896 names of missing soldiers.

The ceremony was part of a four day trip by the Moderator to Belgium. Other highlights included a meeting with Dr Michael Weninger, European Policy Advisor on Dialogue with Religion, Churches and Humanism of the EU, a reception hosted by Scottish Conservative John Purves MEP and worship at St Andrew's Church Brussels.