IN HIS tribute to the Devonshires at Mametz (Times, June 28), Sir Ray Tindle ends by quoting the words on the Kohima memorial of the second world war.

I find this rather apt as the words were originally written by John Maxwell Edmonds (1875-1958) as part of a collection of 12 epitaphs for use during world war one and can therefore be said to have been written for those who died on the Somme, which includes the Devonshires at Mametz.

Major John Etty-Deal suggested the words be used on the Kohima memorial, which commemorates the dead of the 2nd Infantry Division which had refused to surrender whilst surrounded and attacked by the 100,000 strong Japanese 15th army.

The 2nd Division were supplied by air until relief came to free them. It is said that had the Japanese taken Kohima they would have taken India.

The Devons were part of the 2nd Infantry Division and distinguished themselves in the fighting.

The poem is said to be based on the writings of the Greek poet Simoides of Ceos (556-468BC) who wrote after the battle of Thermopylae in 480BC: 'Go tell the Spartans, thou that passeth by, that, faithful to their precepts, here we lie'. Their precepts being to fight on until they were carried off on their shields, dead.

The full poem reads:

When you go home,

Tell them of us and say.

For their tomorrow,

We gave our today.

Went the day well?

We died and never knew

But, well or ill

Freedom, we died for you.

'Freedom, we died for you? Try telling that to the political leaders of today, who are happy to spit on the graves of our war dead by surrendering our freedoms to foreign powers.

J W Reid

7 Limehayes Road

Okehampton

SIR Ray Tindle's excellent article about the appalling and senseless slaughter of 20,000 British soldiers and many other of different nationalities on July 1 1916 is a timely reminder of the danger of nationalism and the disproportionate cost of war. Twenty five years later Britain was again at war against a stridently nationalist state.

It was in the aftermath of these events that Sir Winston Churchill and other great visionaries formulated the concept of a European community.

The prime political aim was the avoidance of war between European countries even though in practical terms it started as a trading organisation. In this aim it has been entirely successful in preventing war between member states for the last 40 years.

Though war may occur outside the European Community, it will hopefully relegate the appalling intra-European wars to the history books.

Rupert Gude

Treveglos

Whitchurch