When you go home, tell them
of us and say,
"for your tomorrow we gave our today"
These memorable words, engraved on the 2nd division Memorial at Kohima that marks those fallen in the Burma campaign during the second world war, have become quoted at the remembrance services almost as frequently as the third verse of Laurence Binyon’s poem for the fallen adopted as the RBBL’s traditional Exhortation. Many think that the words were composed by an inspired regimental padre who had officiated at the burial of a comrade on the field of battle.
However their origin lies over 2400 years earlier – in 480 BC in fact.
The epigram, because that is what it is, was originally composed by the Greek poet Simonides (557 BC to 476 BC) who specialised in composing poems in celebration of victories and for monuments to heroic figures.
In the summer of 280 BC a small force of 300 Spartan soldiers, famous Greek warriors from the city-state of Sparta, led by their King Leonidas, successfully held the mountain pass at Themopylae, a key defense feature linking northern and southern Greece, against a large invading army under the Persian King Xerxes. The Spartan objective was to protect the Greek fleet, then engaged in battle off the nearby coast.
However, due to the treachery of a local man, an enemy force was led over the mountains to attack the Spartans from the rear. Thus surrounded, Leonidas sent a warning message to the fleet while he and his gallant 300, heavily outnumbered and surrounded, fought the Persians to the very last man. By deliberately sacrificing their own lives, they enabled the fleet to make a safe retreat.
This was recognised as a feat of outstanding valor, a shining example of selfless courage and devotion to duty against hopeless odds.
This noble tradition of self-sacrifice to save the lives of comrades has been repeated many times in the profession of arms – not least in the traditions of the British military forces.
Simonides was moved to mark this single act of heroism by composing the famous epigram under the title The Three Hundred who fell at the Battle of Thermopylae (480BC) and it was subsequently translated from the Ancient Greek into English by the distinguished classical scholar J.Maxwell Edmonds of Jesus College, Cambridge. It is this translation that is engraved on the Kohima memorial.
Colonel Jimmy Hughes
