Pipe Major Darren Walker, 51st Highland Battalion at a rededication service, Hannover War Cemetery, Germany, 2016

Digital photograph by Dominic King, 2016.

A rededication service for two previously unidentified British officers killed after an escape from a German prisoner of war camp during World War Two (1939-1945).

Major Roy Wadeson, Royal Engineers, and Lieutenant Hugh Mackenzie, Seaforth Highlanders, escaped from the Oflag VIIIF camp in the Sudetenland in April 1944. The ashes of Wadeson and Mackenzie were sent to Oflag 79 in unmarked urns some weeks after the escape attempt, with the explanation that they had been shot while trying to escape.

A British officer informed Major Wadeson's wife that the urns were buried with due ceremony at Garrison Cemetery in Brunswick. In May 1947 ten graves were relocated by the Commonwealth War Graves Commission to the Hannover War Cemetery. Two of these graves were recorded as containing urns of an unknown major and lieutenant. Research by Major Wadeson's son, the Commonwealth War Graves Commission and the Ministry of Defence confirmed the two graves as those of Major Wadeson and Lieutenant Mackenzie.

From a collection of digital photographs associated with British Army music and bands, 2014-2017.