Rye & District Branch of the Royal British Legion

Rye British Legion is the lead organisation for Rye’s services of remembrance; it is also represented at RAFA Wings Day, Mary Stanford Lifeboat Remembrance service at Rye Harbour, St George’s day parade and other civic occasions in Rye.

In addition Rye British Legion have arranged a number of pilgrimages to remember Rye’s fallen, in April 2009 a party of 48 people from Rye to visit the sites of a number of Battles in France where young men from Rye fought and lost their lives during WW1. A short service of remembrance was held at Cabaret Rouge Cemetery near Arras for Private Charles Jarrett, born and enlisted in Rye, who fell on 29 April 1915 during the Aubers Ridge offensive aged just 18.

Others remembered from Rye at the Le Touret Memorial were Private W Bourne, Rifleman J Bray, Private A Britt, Private G Huggett and Sergeant W Neve who all served with the Royal Sussex Regiment.

Rye War Memorial can be found in the south-east corner of the grounds of St Mary’s Church, Rye and bears the names and initials of 145 men from the WW1 and 48 from WW II plus two from recent campaigns: one from the Gulf War and one from the Iraq.

The memorial was designed and its construction supervised by Sir Reginald Blomfield, who had a home in Rye. Its form is a two-stepped base surmounted by two stone blocks, a plinth and a tapering shaft with a cross of sacrifice with a metal sword on the face of the cross with the inscription carved into the sides of the blocks.

The memorial was unveiled by Lord Leconfield and dedicated by the Rev. A P Howes on 19th October 1919.

The WW II names include eight civilian air raid casualties and one member of the Home Guard.

IRAQ WAR

Corporal John Rigby. 4th Battalion The Rifles, aged 24, from Rye, died from injuries sustained by a roadside bomb attack in Basra on Friday 22 June 2007. Buried in Shornecliffe military cemetery near Folkestone