One of the first to fall victim to flu was Captain John Bawtree Hawkins, of Wivenhoe, Essex, who died in August 1916, aged 47. On either side of Herbert’s final resting place are the graves of 11 men who all died within the same week in 1918. The family had cause for optimism, but knew nothing of the flu outbreak that was stalking the wards. Please come home to see me soon for I am growing so high.” “This is first to wish you many happy returns of the day. Most poignant of all, however, is a postcard in the name of Herbert’s daughter Joan, Nigel’s mother, who was then just three years old. Nigel also still has the perfectly preserved letter signed by King George V, with a Buckingham Palace letterhead, in which the monarch expressed gratitude for “a brave life given for others in the Great War”. Herbert’s wife Jane received the British War Medal and Victory Medal conferred posthumously on her husband by the War Office. Today Nigel, of Devizes, Wilts, treasures the medals which are the only evidence of what his ancestor achieved. It is the largest in France, where more than 11,000 men have been laid to rest. “They ignored the vastly greater, though less obvious threat: from the pathogens carried by the millions of birds as, from time immemorial, these headed down one of Europe’s principal migration routes via the mouth of the Somme,” Professor Oxford wrote.Īt the vast Etaples Commonwealth War Graves Cemetery, the long lines of white marble headstones today pay testament to the tragedy that afflicted so many British servicemen. Unsanitary, overcrowded and packed with already weakened soldiers, it was the ideal breeding ground for the H1N1 flu virus that then spread around the world like nothing before or since.Īlthough the base was shielded from attacks, commanders had failed to take into account the spread of disease.
In research carried out by a British team led by eminent virologist Professor John Oxford, the Etaples camp was identified as the centre of the pandemic. As the war drew to a close, many of those patients were like Herbert, suffering flu symptoms.
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