| In mid April we set off for a tour of the First World War battlefields and to spend 2 weeks in Luxembourg at two different caravan sites. We started our month long tour in Ypres. Our campsite was a 10 minute walk from the Menin Gate, where they play the last post every night. |
| Ypres after the 1st WW – These photos were on the wall of our favourite café |
| Cloth Hall Ypres 13th Century | Bugler on top of cloth hall |
| Vivaldi our favourite café | Cloth Hall |
| ANZAC day parade - There was a large presence of Australians, Canadians and New Zealanders |
| German War Cemetery, Langemark, Belgium The German Cemeteries are administered by the Volksbund Deutsche Kriegsgraberfursorge (VDK). Each gravestone has many names on it. The total number of war dead in this cemetery is 10,143. |
| Later in the day we visited the largest British cemetery in the world, Tyne Cot, designed by Sir Herbert Baker, 11,908 graves are registered here. |
| Extract from ‘The Great War’ website Tyne Cot cemetery first came into being in October 1917 when the ridge where the cemetery is now located was captured by the British Army. One of several German blockhouses was large enough to be used as an Advanced Dressing Station. As a result of casualties not surviving their wounds in this medical Dressing Station there were 354 burials near the Dressing Station. Most of the graves in the vicinity of the Cross of Sacrifice will, therefore, be identified as they died of wounds in this place and were subsequently buried here. The graves of these burials are for soldiers, including some Germans, who died between 6th October 1917 and the end of March 1918 when the German Army attacked and retook this ridge of high ground south of Passchendaele village. The cemetery was then again in German occupied ground from 13th April until 28th September 1918, when the Belgian Army captured the ridge in the final push during the last weeks of the war. |
Double click to read the following photo.
| The base of the Cross of Sacrifice was built around one of the remaining blockhouses. Look for the concrete in the middle of the wreath. |
| Tyne Cot Memorial to the Missing – there are the names of 34,000 British and New Zealand soldiers whose remains are still missing. |
| A cup of tea at the ‘Memorial Museum Passchendaele 1917’ |
| John Condon was an Irish soldier long believed to have been the youngest Allied soldier killed during the First World War at the age of 14 years, as shown on his gravestone, in Poelkapelle Cemetery. |
| Hill 62 (Sanctuary Wood) Canadian Memorial is a block of white Quebec granite weighing almost 15 tonnes, set in a large circle of green lawn at the top of three landscaped terraces. It bears the inscription - HERE AT MOUNT SORREL ON THE LINE FROM HOOGE TO ST. ELOI, THE CANADIAN CORPS FOUGHT IN THE DEFENCE OF YPRES APRIL - AUGUST 1916 |
| St. Julien Canadian Memorial at Vancouver Corner Extract from The Great War website: ’The memorial, also known as “The Brooding Soldier”, commemorates the Canadian 1st Division in action on 22nd to 24th April 1915. The Canadian division held its position on the left flank of the British Army after the German Army launched the first ever large-scale gas attack against two French divisions on the left of the Canadians. From the start of the battle at 17.00 hours on 22nd April and for the next few days the Canadians were involved in heavy fighting, losing some 2,000 casualties - killed, wounded or missing - from the division.’ |
| Extract from the web - ‘In the summer of 1915, the British positions around Hooge have become precarious. From their vantage point the Germans here have a good view over the British frontline. With a limited but well targeted attack, the British try to eliminate German strongholds. On 19 July 1915 they denonate a charge of 1,700 kilograms of explosives in a tunnel that had been driven by the special Tunnelling Companies of the Royal Engineers. Immediately after the explosion the allies rush the crater in order to consolidate their advance. Later it was referred to as 'the Hooge Crater’ The crater is now flooded – see the photo below. |
| Lots of left over hardware, it’s best not to touch! |
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| Sue in the trenches |
| Bedford House Cemetery: Zillebeke was directly behind the Western Front, making it a useful site for divisional headquarters and field ambulance stations. Château Rosendal, a large house with a moat and extensive gardens was put to this use. The British forces in the area named the château "Bedford House" or "Woodcote House", with the former becoming the official name used for the post-war cemetery. Whilst the area remained in Allied hands through the war, it was devastated by shell fire and the château was razed over the course of the war, being hit by German 8-inch shells, as well as 500 gas shells in just one day of the Third Battle of Ypres. |
| One evening we went into Ypres for the last post at the Menin Gate. On approaching the Menin Gate the Canadian Pipes and Drums were heading there too. Once there we managed to get a viewing spot at the back – there were many more people there before us. |
| The Menin Gate Memorial to the Missing is one of four British and Commonwealth memorials to the missing in the battlefield area of the Ypres Salient in Belgian Flanders. The memorial bears the names of 54,389 officers and men from United Kingdom and Commonwealth Forces who fell in the Ypres Salient before 16th August 1917 and who have no known grave. |
| Inside the Menin Gate |
Oldie Photo:
| 1988 Following a teachers’ meeting many of us headed to the battlefields. Sue is here with Andy and Rae Michie looking for a Michie relative. |
| Andy and Rae at the gravestone – unfortunately ‘Michie’ was spelt ‘Mitchie’. This has since been amended – see information below photo. |
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