In our regular focus on monuments in the Borough Bobby Wasmuth discovers the little known Anglo-Romanian tribute to eight Romanian pilots who served in the First World War

When we think about the first World War it is natural to think primarily about the killing fields of France and Belgium. We think of the familiar countries which were subjugated, and those who resisted the Austro-Hungarian-German advances. But little has been said about the position of little Romania, how it came to have a British born Queen, that it declared war as an ally of Britain, and that it suffered the terrible price of over 600,000 lost lives.

On the 100th anniversary of the Armistice a moving ceremony was held in the garden of Zaraza Romanian Restaurant, Forest Gate. A photograph had recently been uncovered showing eight brave Romanian pilots who had travelled from the east theatre of war across to Britain to train with the Royal Flying Corps (pre-dating the RAF) in order to learn more skills so they could return to the skies and fight for liberation.

Those eight men have been honoured on a small but special plaque in the community garden at 344 Katherine Road. Alongside it is a tree, protected by a preservation order, commemorating the unification of Greater Romania, achieved in no small measure by Queen Marie at the Paris Peace Conference, supported as she was by Winston Churchill and by her cousin George V.

Since 2018, on 11 November, poppies have been laid at the base of the tree, including by Stephen Timms MP, community leader Imam Sohail Bawa, and by local children.

Forest Gate lays claim to this World War I Memorial to Anglo-Romanian partnership, the first and only such bond between our nations to exist in Britain, and the people of Newham are proud to have achieved this.

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