Army chaplain who took the Unknown Warriors secret to his grave

After the first world war, Rev George Kendall had the job of finding and exhuming a fallen soldier to lie in Westminster Abbey

The tomb of the Unknown Warrior is the first monument that visitors to Westminster Abbey encounter, just inside the great west door. As they pause to read the inscription on the massive marble slab, many wonder about the man buried there 94 years ago and whether he was truly unknown.

The army chaplain who had the task of finding the body, exhuming it with five others and bringing them to a military base in France, where one was chosen for a state funeral, took the secret to his grave. David and Tim Kendall, son and grandson of the Rev George Kendall, say that although journalists pursued him until his death in 1961, even his family never learned the truth.

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