Grieving widow finally reunited with her husband after 60 years - beautiful story

Antipodean Andy · Jul 21, 2008

Together after 60 years: World War Two widow's ashes buried in husband's grave in Athens | Mail Online - wonderful pics at link.

Very moving.

A woman who spent 60 years grieving for her hero husband killed in World War Two has finally been reunited with him after her ashes were placed in his foreign grave.

Beatrice Mitchell never got over the death of husband Wilfred, so much so that she never re-married and would kiss a photo of him every night before going to bed.

After she died her son Brian - who was just two-days-old when his father went off to war and never came back - thought it only right she should be buried alongside him.

So he travelled with her ashes to the war cemetery in Athens, Greece, where his father was buried in 1944, and had them interred in his grave during a moving ceremony.

Brian, 66, said: 'My father was the love of mum's life, there was never anyone else for her.

'She had a framed photo of him on her dressing table and she used to kiss that every single night before going to bed.

'After mum died I thought it only right they should be together again at the end.

'As her ashes were buried in his grave I just said 'there you go, I've got you two together again.''

Wilfred Mitchell was a school caretaker when he met Beatrice, whose father was a groundsman at the same school in Dorchester, Dorset.

They married in the late 1930s before Mr Mitchell joined the 50th Royal Tank Regiment and was sent to East Sussex and Yorkshire to train for the war.

Their son Brian was born on April 28, 1942 and Wilfred sailed with his regiment to Africa on May 2.

Brian said: 'My father must have only had two days with me at the most when I was born.

'He was then away for two years and never came back.'

Wilfred fought under General Montgomery in north Africa and his regiment helped win the famous Battle of El Alamein, a major turning point in the war.

He was promoted to sergeant and in 1943 his regiment took part in the Allied invasion of Sicily.

His brave actions in re-supplying troops with ammunition under heavy enemy fire earned him a mention in dispatches.

But in December 1944 Wilfred was tragically shot and killed while leading a night-time patrol against communist insurgents during the Greek civil war. He was 34.

His body was buried at the Phaleron Military Cemetary in Athens and was initially marked with a simple cross.

Several years later it was replaced with a proper headstone after Beatrice's neighbours held a whip-round to pay for it.

Beatrice never met anybody else nor had anymore children and raised Brian with the help of her parents who she moved in with.

Brian, a retired local government officer, said: "Every anniversary of my father's death mum would place a memorial piece in the local paper.

'But she never visited his grave, she could never find the strength to do it. I think she thought she wouldn't be able to cope with it.

'She never met anybody else because as far as she was concerned nobody could replace him.

'I was going to join the army when I was younger but mum didn't want me to in case I got killed as well.'

Brian has spent years researching his father's army career and visited his war grave himself in 1966 and then again seven years ago.

His mother died aged 88 in 2002 following a short illness and since then he agonised over whether to inter her ashes in his father's grave.

After making his decision her ashes had to be taken to the Greek Embassy in London to be put in a sealed casket and then flown to Athens where they were received by an undertaker.

Brian, a father-of-two from Tincelton, near Dorchester, said: 'They were buried in the grave by my father's headstone.

'It was a very emotional moment but straight away I knew I had made the right decision. Both my sons agreed with me.

'I hope they will both be happy. I feel that is what mum would have wanted - to be with her beloved Wilf after all these years.'
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Pathfinder · Jul 22, 2008

That's a touching story. I'm glad that they're finally together after all these years.

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Grieving widow finally reunited with her husband after 60 years - beautiful story

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