Countable war memorial

Records are reasonably accurate as to the numbers and general area in which most WW1 fatal military casualties occurred.

This is a remembrance project showing the true scale of the events.

At dusk on 10 November, volunteers report to depots set up along former battlefields. They collect life-size inflatable humanoid figures dressed in a facsimile of battledress (these figures will need to be cheaply mass produced in huge numbers) and transport them to designated grid references where they are inflated and fixed with weights, wires and pegs.

The figures would have the name, rank and date of death on a small panel on the chest. Where original photographs can be provided, the image of the actual soldier could be overprinted on the face.

Eventually, the scheme could be extended to include civilians who were killed in the battles.

The grid references will correspond as far as possible to the location of fatal casualties. For those whos body was never found, the head and hands will be transparent, to signify their "invisibility".

At dawn on November 11, there will be an endless vista of still, silent figures, standing shoulder to shoulder, or in groups, for hundreds miles, throught towns, cities, fields, hills and valleys. It would resemble a temporary version of the "Terracotta Army" but on a much larger scale.

Anyone viewing the scene could not fail to be impressed by the scale of the sacrifice.

At midnight on the 11th, the volunteers take them all down again and pack them away until the next year.