The next stop on the tour didn’t have anything to do with World War One.
Werken has a historic Catholic Church with a “Way of the Cross” outside the
building around the outside of the cemetery and church grounds. The rain
had let up a bit, so I stopped as the Stations of the Cross are always
interesting. Do they stop with the crucifixion, or do they continue to the
resurrection? Unfortunately this one only had 7 of the prescribed 13
(though most stop at 12 and skip the resurrection), and like most Catholic
Churches and their Stations of the Cross, they stopped with the crucifixion.

But, two other things caught my eye! First was a small town memorial
erected in 1920 to the town’s sons who had died in the war. At the bottom
of the memorial were the words “Alles voor Vlaandren voor Christus” (All
for Flanders and for Christ). The letters AVV AVC (or AVV VVK) were often
arranged in a cross with the center V as the crux (see the Peace Gate picture at Diksmuide, or the view from the Peace Tower, for example). This phrase was
the rallying cry during The Great War for the Flemish separatists.

Secondly, at the entrance into the cemetery was the now-quite-recognizable
green War Graves Commission sign meaning that there are graves of British
soldiers in the cemetery. Since the guidebook I’m following had only to do
with World War One and made no mention of this cemetery, I looked for the
graves. I found a row of six graves, all airmen who died in 1941. One was
listed as being a New Zealand Air Force pilot. The rest looked to be bomber
crewmen. As I remember, the New Zealand Air Force provided fighter cover
for the British Lancaster bombers in the early days of the war. This fellow
died at age 26, someone’s son, buried a very long way from home.

It was only a brief respite. The rain has returned and it’s now really
coming down!

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