Memorial

Letter to family George Scott Cook

Our proud soldier, George Scott Cook, born in the hospital of Balclutha on the 31th of March 1890 and died in the fields of Flanders for freedom of his family, for the future of the next generation.

When I saw this, I was shocked. We are living in this modern, safe environment. While 100 years ago people had to fight for their freedom, hundreds of thousands people died in these fights. Like in the Great War, here there even died 57000 men in ONE morning. We unfortunately remember these people less and less and live our lives. We don’t think of the fact that if these soldiers didn’t fight, we wouldn’t have our freedom as how we have it now.

Our great soldier, George Scott Cook was born in the city of Balclutha, and when the war started propaganda was there too, so at the age of 26 George had joined the New Zealand expeditionary force and embarked his ship to France in Wellington at the 6th of May 1917 and arrived at the 7th of May 1917, when George arrived in France he went by train to the trenches, and fought in the First Battle of Passchendaele. The temperatures were freezing cold. The soldiers were fighting and fighting in their trenches. On one day when the battalion had to give up and return back to their base, George Scott Cook went missing in the dark nights on the fields of Flanders

 Searches for casualties of the fight had started with not so much success in the beginning. On the Friday evening on the 12th of October 1917, our proud and brave soldier died because of shots in his chest of a machine gun. We will miss him. With love we are looking back at the warmth he gave to his family and the care he gave to his battalion mates. We’re admiring the strength he had to deal with the sadness and death on the battlefields in his life. George Scott Cook was one of the bravest soldiers we had.

Writen in memory of George Scott Cook,  31-3-1890   -   12-10-1917