Duke of Cornwall’s Light Infantry War Memorial, Bodmin

Duke of Cornwall’s Light Infantry War Memorial, Bodmin, Cornwall. Sculpture by Leonard Stanford Merrifield. Unveiled 17 July 1924 by the Colonel-in-Chief of the Regiment, HRH the Prince of Wales. Upgraded to Grade II*. © Historic England DP196387. This memorial was erected by the Regiment to commemorate the 4,282 of its men who fell in the First World War. The Regiment suffered particularly heavy losses at the Battle of Passchendaele, with one battalion of several hundred men reduced to a fighting strength of just 70 by the end of the offensive. The bronze figure on a granite plinth - modelled on an ex-soldier - is unusual, both in its accurate detail and for its depiction of a solider in an aggressive pose: he has a fixed bayonet and is holding a Mills bomb with its pin pulled out, both indicative of combat. His open gas mask bag slung across his chest with its respirator pipe sticking out is a rare reference on a memorial to battlefield gas attacks.