Hello Everyone,
Wow, I have to say that the amount of people my blogs are reaching nowadays is really great. Although we will be talking about the Norfolk Regiment I’m glad, and hope, that everyone is truly enjoying the blogs and taking a little bit of the dispensed knowledge with them afterwards.
So once again, thank you for continuing to read them and I will continue to try my best to deliver interesting subjects for discussion.
Back to the focus point though. The Norfolk Regiment. Well as most of you can guess it has to do with something vanishing or disappearing because that’s the topics of discussion lately. Well, you’re absolutely right. This time, however, instead of one person disappearing with many or few witnesses to testify to the accounts it was an entire regiment that disappeared.
Who, When, Where:
Well like the title states it was a Norfolk Regiment (250 soldiers, 16 officers, and one Sir Horace Proctor-Beauchamp). They were last seen marching into battle on August 12th, 1915 on the Anafarta Plains. It was an area held but the Turks and needed to be cleared out for Allied advancement. The regiment was separated from its larger battalion but pushed on anyways. They were met by a fierce hail of bullets form the opposing forces but advanced into the flaming forest never to be seen again.
After the war was over an investigation took place as to the missing soldiers but the opposing forces claimed to have never heard of them and did not have them in any prisoner of war camp. Of the 36,000 commonwealth soldiers who died during the war, 14,000 were never found. This was highly due to the conditions of warfare and the numerous unmarked graves after the war.
However:
This is where it gets real eerie. After the investigation was complete many people considered it a closed case. Due to insignia and other traceable evidence found on the battlefields that could prove the regiment was there it all seemed to be wrapped up. But then 50 years later a few eye witnesses came forward.
A team of Sappers form New Zealand came forth and delivered a different explanation form what they saw that day. One of them stated that he noticed strange brown-grey clouds above the battlefield where the regiment was. The clouds seemed to remain perfectly still despite the heavy winds that were blowing through that day.
He later went on to describe a denser cloud hovering just below the other clouds and hugging the ground where the regiment proceeded to march. Not long after the regiment entered the dense cloud and disappeared from view the cloud began to rise back up and find its place between the other clouds in the sky. The only problem was that the regiment was no longer there either. Like it simply vanished with the cloud.
Outcome of the Norfolk Regiment:
So even though evidence shows that the soldiers were there from investigations it is denied by the Turks that they even encountered them. Playing Devils advocate I could state that the conditions of the regiment and battle preparedness was harsh. Perhaps they purposefully separated from their larger battalion and went somewhere else. Or, if the Turks did engage them how would they know it was this particular regiment and not another. Or what if they simply got lost in the forest and perished from exposure. Maybe some of the soldiers were killed in battle that day and the rest were taken POW and then never returned and the simple fact of denying it was just taken as truth in the afterwards investigations.
Well whatever it was, I don’t believe any of those last things I mentioned while playing advocate. I like to imagine a more mysterious possibility into the disappearance of the Norfolk Regiment.
Thanks for Reading,
Joshua Crane Dowidat
