The British Legion has backed our campaign to honour Croydon’s forgotten war heroes, saying soldiers who suffered breakdowns were often vilified by their superiors, “when they needed care and understanding”.

The Croydon Guardian launched a campaign to have the names of dozens of soldiers who died at Cane Hill asylum in Coulsdon to be included on the Debt of Honour – the list of those service men and women who died after fighting in war.

The men, who were admitted to the asylum suffering from shellshock, or post traumatic stress disorder as it is now known, are today buried in a mass grave without proper military honours.

Adrian Falks, a Church of England minister and former grave digger said: “It is chilling to think that these men were forgotten about and simply thrown in a mass grave.”

In a letter, Barry Cordery, from the Royal British Legion Club in Norbury, said: “One of our members, Doug, served in the RAF as a rear gunner in Bomber Command in WWII.

“He, like most others who served, is reticent to discuss his experiences during the war, but points out there were some aircrew who reached a moment where they could stand the horrors no longer and broke down mentally.

“These unfortunate people were classed as lacking moral fibre (LMF) and were cast out and vilified by their superiors when they needed care and understanding.

“These people too were heroes. The only difference between those that survived, the thousands that died and the poor souls that broke down mentally and were classed as mad, because of the constant strain and horrors they faced, was the fact that instead of losing their lives, they lost their sanity.

“As well as losing their minds, they lost their homes, loved ones and friends. They risked just as much but lost more than most who were lucky enough to live through their ordeals, Doug once said the key to his survival was 10 per cent concentration and 90 per cent luck. Even though they ended their lives in various institutions, it must be remembered that they still served and gave their all for our freedom, therefore giving them the right to recognition and a proper and decent military grave. Maybe these people were the biggest heroes of all.”

Mr Falks began researching the fate of Cane Hill’s soldiers after discovering a friend’s father had been committed to an asylum after suffering a mental breakdown in 1917.

Public outcry led to the men receiving full military funerals and being buried separately from other asylum patients.

They lay forgotten until in 1981 when the Portnalls Road cemetery at Cane Hill was cleared to make way for a housing development.

During the careful exhumation of more than 3,000 bodies, no distinction was made between the soldiers’ remains and those of ordinary patients.

The names of these brave men now only appear on a burial list from Cane Hill in Croydon’s local studies library.

As the men had no immediate family or anyone who would claim responsibility for their funerals they were simply buried and forgotten.

A spokesman for the Commonwealth War Graves Commission said: “The process is quite clear – we will investigate these cases, then pass the information to the MoD.

“It is they, not us, who will decide if the men qualify for commemoration by ourselves. That is the same process with all of the commission’s member governments – it is they who instruct us on matters of who is to be commemorated.”

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