A SPECIAL delivery has arrived in Southampton today to symbolically represent the eight million troops who travelled through the city during the First World War.
The Queen Mary 2 has transported the final sandbag from the First World War cemeteries in Belgium for the culmination of a project that began several years ago.
Captain Kevin Osprey was due to lead a procession down the gangway where the bag was to be presented to the Mayor of Southampton Sue Blatchford and loaded on to a military vehicle. It was then being taken to the Civic Centre with the assistance of soldiers from the maritime regiment.
The bag is the last one to make the journey across the Channel and on to the Guards Museum in London, where a memorial garden is being constructed with the collected soil.
The Commonwealth War Graves Commission has never previously allowed soil to leave battlefield cemeteries but more than 1,000 children from Britain and Belgium were permitted to gather 70 bags of soil during the summer of 2013.
A Cunard Line spokesman explained: “It is highly appropriate for this last sandbag to return via Southampton as the rail routes to Southampton played a vital role in the First World War, transporting many thousands of troops and pieces of equipment.”
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