Burial of the ' unknown warrior ' . The cortege passing through Boulogne , France . 1920 Selection of the soldier (or perhaps sailor or airman) destined for burial in the Nave at Westminster Abbey began in France, where the remains of four unknown British war casualties were exhumed from Aisne, the Somme, Arras and Ypres. The four bodies, from the four different battlefields, were transported to St. Pol in Northern France on the night of November 7, 1920. There Brigadier General L.J. Wyatt, commander of all British troops in France and Flanders, entered the chapel where the unknown soldiers lay, each covered with a Union Flag. At random the general selected one to become the Unknown Soldier of the Great War, and two officers placed the body in a plain coffin and sealed it. The remaining bodies were reinterred at a nearby military cemetery. On the morning of November 8 a service was held to commemorate the sacrifice of the Unknown Soldier, officiated by chaplains from the Church of England, the Roman Catholic Church, and the Non-Conformist Churches. The body was then escorted under a French Honour Guard to Boulogne, drawn by a wagon with six horses and following by a mile-long procession