Remembering the Fallen of the Second World War

Trinity College remembers the 133 members of College who gave their lives in the Second World War.

On the 80th anniversary of Victory in Europe Day, the College is holding a VE Day memorial service in the College Chapel to remember those fallen in the conflict. Their ages ranged from 54 – Brigadier Frank Witts, matriculated in 1906, to 18 – Royal Artillery cadet Norman Dawe, who spent just a few months in college in 1945.

The names of the fallen are inscribed on an oak board at the far end of the War Memorial Library, where they face an equally sombre roll of those who were killed in the First World War. At the foot of each board is a quotation from a classical Greek author. For the conflict of 1939-45 a line from the orator Hyperides was chosen; translated, it reads ‘never have men fought for a nobler cause or against a stronger enemy or with so few on their side.’ It is particularly apt for a list that includes so many who served in the RAF, where the odds of survival were especially bleak.  

Following the War, a War Memorial Fund was raised, with the intention of providing bursaries for those who otherwise would not have afforded to study at Oxford. A number of scholarships and prizes were also set up in memory of individual men, and a great many college members have been assisted by these funds in the years since. However, a ‘visible memorial’ was also required, and after much consultation the college commissioned a simple gateway between Garden Quad and the garden. Unobtrusive, but visible from both directions, a bronze plaque reads: SVOS DOMVS LUGET LAVDAT [The college mourns and praises its own]

Trinity College Archivist Clare Hopkins notes: ‘Today, the War Memorial Gate is always open, and college members and visitors walk through it freely and daily without a second glance, an act perhaps symbolic of the freedom from fascism and peace in Europe that has so often been taken for granted since 1945. On the anniversary of the end of the terrible conflict that was the Second World War, it is good to pause, to read the inscription, and to be grateful for each one of the lives that was sacrificed.’