Pupils behind AI war film to lay wreath at Cenotaph

A group of schoolchildren given national recognition for bringing history to life through AI, is to join the national Armistice commemoration in London.

Pupils from Penair School in Truro have been invited to lay a wreath at the Cenotaph, Whitehall, after their work examining the lives of Cornish miners recruited to tunnel under enemy lines during World War One.

The students spent 400 hours examining wartime diaries and census data, before creating a film with images generated through AI.

Erin, 14, said it was amazing to talk about the role Cornish people played during World War One, adding: "It's really important to remember all the things that these people have done."

The pupils' project, Beneath the Battlefields, won a Western Front Association (WFA) award for its research into the wartime role of Cornish miners, many of whom brought their specialist mining skills to the Western Front.

Erin said: "I know that they died a long time ago but you almost get to know them in a way.

"One of the men that we researched actually lied about his age and ended up coming out two years earlier, got promoted then got demoted again because he had no authority over the men he was in charge with.

"We were very personally attached to the men that we were researching.

"We got very upset when we found the records of their deaths."

Morley, 13, reflected on the experience of Cornish miner Harold Dwight at St Agnes Museum: "He was a mine director out in Burma directing mines and came back to Cornwall once the war started so he could join a regiment.

"They wanted people that could tunnel under No Man's Land to get to the German trenches.

"They would have had to have had some explosives experience as well to detonate the mines once they got under the trenches, so that would have taken a bit of training."

Morley added: "I would sum it up as the pinnacle of my school time just because it's been such a brilliant experience just to almost get to know these men."

The students' research uncovered a particularly poignant chapter in Cornwall's wartime history.

Five of the miners survived the war but lost their lives in the 1919 Levant mining disaster in Cornwall.

An underground elevator system collapsed and 31 men died while many more were severely injured.

Erin said: "Edwin Pascoe was in the Levant mine disaster and that helped us find some of the other men."

History teacher Tina Turuelo paid tribute to the project team: "It was an emotional experience for them.

"They became very close to their stories, very invested in their stories and the men became very real to them and are still very real to us today."

The Penair group had been invited to lay a wreath at the memorial to the Unknown Warrior at Victoria Station on Monday.

They have been invited to lay another wreath at the Cenotaph in Whitehall to remember the tunnellers on Tuesday.

The national Armistice Day ceremony is organised by The Western Front Association and pays tribute to all those who served during the Great War of 1914–1918.

This year also marks the 110th anniversary of the Battle of the Somme.

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