A WAR veteran who died in Lyon within the late Seventies, but was buried in consecrated grounds in Gravesend, can’t be exhumed for reburial in France, the Consistory Court of the diocese of Rochester has ruled.
The proven fact that the deceased had been highly decorated in France in recognition of his services through the Second World War didn’t justify a departure from the presumption that Christian burial in consecrated ground was everlasting, the Diocesan Chancellor, the Worshipful David Willink, said.
The stays of Lt. Pierre Louis Le Chêne were interred in Gravesend Milton Cemetery in 1980 on the request of his widow, Evelyne Le Chêne, who lived within the town on the time, but who now lives in France.
In her petition, she said that she wished for his stays to be moved to a reserved plot in a consecrated cemetery in Jaillans, within the Drôme region of southern France, because all of the deceased’s family were buried within the country and he or she had reserved a spot for herself there. It had not been her desire, either on the time of her husband’s interment, or now, to be buried in Gravesend, nor was it her late husband’s selection.
Her earlier petition for a similar faculty had already been refused by the Consistory Court. She applied for permission to appeal, providing additional information that had not been put before the court before.
Since among the additional information seemed to be “barely at odds with” information that had “played a fabric part” within the court’s earlier decision, the Chancellor treated the appliance to appeal as an application to put aside the sooner decision, and thought of the petition afresh.
The deceased was born in England in 1900 to French parents. During the war, he had served with distinction as a wireless operator within the Special Operations Executive in France. He was captured in late 1942, interrogated, and tortured, then taken to Mauthausen concentration camp. He survived there until its liberation in May 1945.
After the war, it was said that he continued to work for military intelligence. But it was also recorded that he moved to France to open a hotel together with his brother and sister-in-law. He was awarded the MBE (Military), the Croix de Guerre with palm, and was made an Officer of the Légion d’honneur.
He died in a military hospital in Lyon in 1979. His stays were returned to England to be interred in his wife’s hometown of Gravesend. That had been done with the help of the Memorable Order of Tin Hats, a veterans’ association with its roots within the South African forces within the First World War, who had also, in communication with the Commonwealth War Graves Commission, arranged for the interment within the cemetery in Gravesend.
His widow, Mrs Le Chêne, said that, when her husband was dying, she had promised him that, when her time got here, she could be reunited with him, and he or she had never had any intention of forgetting that promise. The circumstances of his burial in England were, she said, the results of a promise to her dying husband to “be all my life with him”. This remained the motivation for her current petition.
Her husband was the holder of the best decoration that France could bestow for courage and loyalty, she said. He was also the primary Chevalier of the order, a type of knighthood, and considered one of the rare British to be promoted to officer rank throughout the order, which was a “mighty promotion indeed for a ‘foreigner’”. His award was signed by General de Gaulle himself, she said.
The French state organisations had been “waiting to receive Pierre’s urn, and intend to organise what will probably be a powerful reception of his stays and installation in France”, she said.
The Chancellor ruled, nonetheless, that the excellence of being a non-French officer appointed as an officer of the Légion d’honneur was not in itself a reason for exhumation and reinterment in France, and “to accede to the petition on [that] ground could be to treat the stays as portable.”
The Chancellor also noted that the casket by which the deceased’s stays had been interred in Gravesend was designed to accommodate a second set of stays, which might accord with the petitioner’s evidence that she had promised the deceased that she could be interred with him.
“It would seem objectively, due to this fact, that she should have been content that each he and he or she could be interred in Gravesend when her time got here,” the Chancellor said. “To the extent that mistake and alter of mind are a dichotomy,” he said, “it [did] appear that the motivation behind the current petition [could] higher be characterised as a change of mind than a mistake.”
Although there was the crucial legal right for a family grave to be established in Jaillans, that would not “take away from the proven fact that there’s already a family grave in Gravesend, there’s a casket designed to take the petitioner’s cremated stays when her time comes”.
The Chancellor concluded that to grant the petition “could be quintessentially to treat [the deceased’s] stays as portable”, which was “precisely the denial of the principle of permanence” which the court was required “by binding authority to protect against”.
The refusal of a school wouldn’t stand in the way in which of the petitioner’s stays’ resting with those of her husband in due time. The existing casket would have to be exhumed in order that her stays may very well be placed in it, and that temporary exhumation would wish to have a school.
The Chancellor directed, nonetheless, that a letter from her executor to the Registry should suffice and that no further fee ought to be payable.
The Chancellor concluded that the approach he had taken favoured the petitioner in 3 ways. First, her petition had been considered entirely afresh slightly than merely reviewed. Second, he had been able to contemplate all the extra evidence that the petitioner had wished to place before the court. That wouldn’t have been possible on an appeal. Finally, the petitioner retained the precise to hunt permission to appeal against this fresh judgment.
