Ypres Salient and the Somme

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Blighty Valley CWGC

South of Authuille towards Albert is Blighty Valley, a busy and often dangerous thoroughfare to the front lines facing the Leipzig Redoubt and Thiepval. 993 British soldiers lie here.

From http://www.stevemelia.co.uk/mydeadname.htm:

My Dead Name

This letter was found unsigned in woods near Blighty Valley British Cemetery, Départment de la Somme.

Dear Viv,

This is the strangest letter you will ever receive from me. Please forgive me if this story disturbs you. I must tell someone and you are so much a part of this alter-ego to whom I always turn my whispers and my pen in times of trouble.

Of course you were right – this was not the way to recuperate, not the right ‘holiday’ under the circumstances. It all started well enough; the weather has been glorious here. It’s harvest time and the corn shimmers a pink-tinged beige before the combine harvesters. Remember what I read to you about the Golden Virgin of Albert? Well, I didn’t know they had rebuilt her until I reached the brow of a hill and saw her radiating over the Town in the afternoon sunshine. I stepped off my bike to savour the moment. I could feel my physical health returning, and as for the other…I had almost forgotten.

Five of Albert’s hotels were closed, their owners gone on holiday to avoid the tourist season. The sixth, needless to say, was full. I climbed out of the Town, tired but still in good spirits, vaguely heading towards the British monument at Thiepval. It wasn’t difficult to find. It dominates the landscape and casts a long shadow over its procession of pilgrims, mainly English, like me. I sat under one of the pillars covered with names and watched them come and go, recognising some of the same faces from the other cemeteries. What brings them here? I searched the visitors’ books and found only repetition: “lest we forget”, “rest in peace” – a collective failure of language, of imagination. I cheated, with a quote: “These men are worth your tears”.

My spirits were sinking with the sun as I set off again in search of accommodation. You’ll see no woods of any size on the map of this area, but I seemed to have found one. I’m surrounded by it as I write and I still haven’t found the way out. Perhaps it was my tiredness but I seemed to ride for ages until I saw a sign saying “Auberge”. Crossing my fingers over the handlebars I turned down a gravel track through the trees to what I can only describe as a chateau, like the ones you see in the forests around Paris – pointed towers, grand arches – unusual for these parts. Some iron chairs and tables were arranged café style to one side of the main entrance. There was no sign of life at the reception or anywhere else. I slumped into one of the chairs, exhausted, and closed my eyes for a moment. When I opened them, an old man was sitting opposite me. I sat up, startled, and tangled my French.

“It’s O.K., I’m English, like you,” he said, smiling at me through discoloured teeth.
“I, I tried to ring but no-one came. Do you know if there are any rooms available?”
“I should think so. Gaston will be along presently.” His clothes were shabby but he spoke with an upper-class home counties accent.
“Any idea how much the rooms cost here?” The place looked a bit grand for my budget.
“It’s not expensive – two, three hundred francs a night.” He leaned towards me and I watched his sunken eyes disappear into the gloom. “You weren’t planning to pay by cheque, in Euros were you?”
“No, no in cash, in francs.”
“Good. Gaston and I are of one mind about that. Two world wars have not changed the nature of the beast, the Boche…What do you think?” I didn’t feel like that kind of discussion, so I said nothing. “This is your first time here, isn’t it?” I nodded (how did he know?).
“Let me show you something.” From his bag he pulled a rusty artillery shell. “See this? I have hundreds of these at home. And there are thousands more where this came from. Every so often the authorities say they are going to clear them all but they never will. There are too many of them, too deep.” He was brandishing the shell like a weapon towards me and I felt a twitch of fear. Was he just a harmless eccentric, or something more sinister? A dim light came on inside and I was about to excuse myself when he said:

“Let me tell you what first brought me here. I think we share a common interest in this war, you and I. I can see the pity in your eyes. I have a particular reason for my fascination, my obsession you might say…”
“Did you serve in the Second War?” He snorted a laugh.
“How old do you think I look?”
I tried to make out the lines of his ashen face in the glow from the window. “Late fifties?” I lied. He laughed again.
“My friend, I am forty-seven, and whatever hope is yours, was mine also, not so long ago. I was about your age when I suffered my first…reactive depression, they called it.” I could feel my throat tightening, and that sensation of looking at someone down a long tunnel. These were the last things I wanted to hear. Then fortunately we were interrupted by the sound of feet on the gravel.
“Here comes Gaston.”
“Monsieur?”
“I would like a room for the night…”
“And first, a beer,” said my new friend.
“A beer, yes I could do with one.”
“Une bière?” echoed Gaston. The old man smiled and said nothing.
“Deux, s’il vous plait.” It looked like I was paying.
“Deux bières?” Gaston asked, as though he hadn’t understood my prononciation.
“Oui, deux bières,” I repeated, slightly annoyed.
The old man watched him leave before asking: “Have you ever heard of regression therapy?”
“Yes, yes I saw a television programme about it once.”
“I was recommended to someone. He started with my childhood and worked backwards. I listened to the tapes he gave me at the end of each session, remembering nothing – my voice and the words of another man, a soldier. After the fourth or fifth session I started to see flashbacks. I remember one of us all jumping naked into a lake. They were a good-looking bunch, my lads.” He moved his bony hand across the table to grasp mine. “You remind me of one of them.” I pulled my hand away.
“Funny, as a cure it seemed to work by distraction. At each session I would find another clue to the identity of this unknown soldier. On one tape I mentioned a name – my ‘dead name’ we came to call it: Richard Nevilleson. You’ll see it inscribed over there at Thiepval.” He gestured towards the dark valley. “Anyway, this quack, therapist, call him what you will, advised me to write down my thoughts, to keep a diary. I gave it a try and found strange words kept creeping in, out of context: ‘the Hun’, ‘toffee apple’, ‘Blighty wound’…Then, one night I woke to what I thought was artillery fire, and half-awake, half-asleep I staggered to my desk and wrote this…He pulled a crumpled letter from his inside pocket as Gaston arrived with the beers and my key.
“Monsieur, you will be in room three.” I looked up to thank him and thought I saw puzzlement, even fear, on his face as he turned to leave us.
“Can you read it?” I turned the paper to the light and read:

June 30^th 1916

My dearest mother,

I hope this letter passes the censor. By the time it arrives, our ‘secret’ will be out. Tomorrow is the big day and I sense we may be moving up the line for the last time. There’s a wood on the side of a hill near here and I reckon whatever happens there will seal my fate. With luck it’ll be a Blighty and I’ll see you again before too long. If not, please take care of my diaries until Jane is old enough to appreciate them.
You remember what I wrote when I first signed up, and now, all I can do is warn…

“You didn’t finish it, then?”
“No, I tried many times and always came to a block at that point. That’s when I decided to come here, to look around. It didn’t take me long. Look.”
He pulled something else from his pocket. Turning it to the light I recognised a British Army standard identity disc: ‘Essex Regiment, Lieutenant Richard Nevilleson’.
“Where did you find it?”
“Over there, under a rock.”
“D’you know how he died?”
“Not exactly but I knew as soon as I set eyes on this wood, this was the one – the final resting place for the chosen many. Don’t you feel it?” The tips of his fingers froze against my hand. I stood up.
“Erm, a fascinating story. Look...I, I must go and check in now. Perhaps I’ll see you at breakfast tomorrow?” He made no reply.

I turned to snatch the panniers off my bike and hurried indoors, up the staircase lined with old rifles and photographs from the Great War, slammed the door of my room and turned the key. That night, it all started again: the sweating, the turning, the racing pulse. Unable to sleep, I dressed and went outside. On the table where we had sat were one full and one half-full glass, the letter and the identity disc. It was starting to drizzle, so I picked them up and hurried back inside, to see Gaston in a dark jacket with polished buttons facing me with a hard expression. I extended my finds as a peace offering.
“The monsieur who was drinking with me earlier, he has left these on the table.” He lifted one eyebrow.
“Quel monsieur?”
“The one opposite me when you served us with beer.” His eyes narrowed as he shook his head. Exasperated, I turned away, looked again at the disc, just to reassure myself I hadn’t imagined it. There it was: the regiment, and below it in shaky capital letters – my name.

Boezinge and Elverdinghe

Boezinge Demarcation StoneDestroyed by the Germans in October 1914, this town marked the most northern part of the British sector. Beyond the point the French held the line meeting with the Belgian army near Diksmuide. It was fiercely fought over during the 2nd Battle of Ypres in 1915 as well the 3rd Battle two years later which saw the French make a successful attack.
This stone is in the centre of the village and behind the hedge is a German blockhouse on top of which is a German mortar.

Continuing down the N333 towards Poperinghe are the following Commonwealth War Graves:

Bleuet Farm CWGC

Named after a Dressing Station situated at the farm, the cemetery which can be found in a corner of the re-built farm was started in June 1917 and in use until December that year. After the armistice, two graves in isolated positions nearby were moved into the cemetery.
There are three who lie buried here after having been Shot at Dawn: Private T. Hawkins, 7th Royal West Surrey Regiment (Queen’s), who was executed for desertion on November 11 1917,

Private A. H. Westwood, East Surrey Regiment, executed for desertion the November 23 1917, and Rifleman F. N. Slade, executed December 14 1917 for "disobedience."The one German grave buried beside the 442 of the British Empire.

Ferme Olivier CWGC

On the Steentjesmolenstraat roughly four miles to the Northwest of Ypres just after reaching the village of Elverdinge on the outskirts of Ypres is this cemetery containing a mass grave of thirty seven men of the Monmouthshire Regiment killed by a naval shell fired from the Houthulst Forest nearly fourteen miles away. The CWGC was used continuously between 9 June 1915 and 5 August 1917, with the 62nd, 16th, 9th, 11th, 129th and 130th Field Ambulances successively having dressing stations close by. Due to its proximity to German artillery, a collective grave is here containing the remains of 37 men of the 3rd Battalion Monmouthshire Regiment killed on parade on 29 December 1915 by a single shell fired from a naval gun in Houthulst Forest. Alongside the 408 Commonwealth graves in toto (6 of which are unidentified) are three German war graves.

Continuing down the Veurnseweg (N8) and then turning right on the Elzendammestraat is Canada Farm CWGC

The cemetery takes its name from a farmhouse used as a dressing station during the 1917 Allied offensive in this area, and most of the burials are of men who died at the dressing station between June-October 1917. Victoria Cross recipient Corporal James Llewellyn Davies of the 13th Battalion Royal Welsh Fusiliers is buried here among 906 others.

Messines

An incongruous site cycling towards Messines.

While it would strike me as a bit rich of the Irish setting up parks expounding on peace beyond its own shores, this replica of an Irish ‘Round Tower’ at the Island of Ireland Peace Park near Messines was unveiled on 11 November 1998 by the President of Ireland Mary McAleese in the presence of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II and King Albert II of Belgium to all Irishmen who served and died in World War I, especially in the three divisions raised in Ireland of the BEF: the 36th (Ulster) Division, the 10th Division and the 16th Division.
The New Zealand Battle Memorial for 1917 on the Messines Ridge taken September 29, 1918 by the 30th, 31st and 34th Divisions.

The Messines Ridge (New Zealand) Memorial to the Missing is situated within Messines Ridge British Cemetery about five miles south of Ypres. Messines was considered a strong strategic position, not only from its height above the plain below, but from the extensive system of cellars under the convent known as the 'Institution Royale'. The village was taken from the 1st Cavalry Division by the German 26th Division on 31 October-1 November 1914. An attack by French troops on 6 -7 November was unsuccessful and it was not until the Battle of Messines on 7 June 1917 that it was retaken by the New Zealand Division. On 10-11 April 1918, the village fell into German hands once more after a stubborn defence by the South African Brigade, but was retaken for the last time on 28-29 September 1918. This monument stands within Messines Ridge British Cemetery and commemorates over 800 soldiers of the New Zealand Expeditionary Force who died in or near Messines in 1917 and 1918 and who have no known grave. It is one of seven memorials in France and Belgium to those New Zealand soldiers who died on the Western Front and whose graves are not known all of which are found in cemeteries chosen as appropriate to the fighting in which the men died.

Overlooking the German positions taken by NZ troops to reach the ridge.

German pillboxes taken that remain on either side of the monument.

German pillboxes taken that remain on either side of the monument.

Messines Church

Hitler's painting of the church during the war

Inside the crypt where Hitler had been billeted.

Derry House #2 CWGC

This cemetery is just north of Messines on a road leading from the Rijselseweg N365, which connects Ypres to Wytschaete and on to Armentieres.

The cemetery was begun in June 1917 by the 11th Division (32nd Brigade) and used as a front line cemetery until December 1917. It was used again in October 1918 by the 2nd London Scottish. Although this cemetery is named "No.2", there is no other cemetery of this name. Altogether there are 126 British and 37 Australians buried here.

A pillbox beside the dead, created by remains of a concrete command post built by engineers of the 37th Division in July 1917; you can see it in the darkened box-shape in the centre of the CWGC plan below.

Pillbox and crater along the Dammstrasse to Bayershof (White Chateau)

A British pillbox

Behind is the Bayershof German Headquarters

Bayershof (White Chateau)

This French memorial erected in 1935 at Bayernwald is dedicated to Lieutenant Lasnier the 11 non-commissioned officers, 174 corporals and men of the 1st French Battalion on foot who died here between the 3rd and the 15th of November 1914. Since 1935,

Nearby is what to the Allies was known as Croonaert Wood and to the Germans 'Bayernwald' because of the Bavarian troops stationed there - Adolf Hitler served here in 1914-1915, and was awarded an Iron Cross nearby. Private Hitler, of the 16th Bavarian Reserve Infantry Regiment,
was lightly wounded here on November 15, 1914 whilst rescuing his Lieutenant. He painted "Painting from Croonaert" He returned here on June 1, 1940 as Leader of the German Reich.

Displays along the road allow one to compare the panorama then and now from the German positions.

German trenches behind.

Bleue Maison CWGC, Eperlecques

Arrived here July 23 in the village of Eperlecques. This small cemetery was established in May, 1918-April, 1919, mainly by the four Casualty Clearing Stations posted at Watten in April-October, 1918. After the Armistice a number of graves were brought into it from Mardyck and Oye Churchyards; three American graves have been removed. There are now 60 buried here from the Great War. The cemetery covers an area of 280 square metres and is enclosed by a stone rubble wall.

Some of the stones stand out by the unusual dark colour.

This isolated plot holds dead from two world wars with this single unidentified grave from the Second World War.

Brandhoek Military Cemetery and New Military Cemetery

Brandhoek is a small hamlet in Belgium situated between Ypers, Vlamertinge and Poperinge. During the First World War, Brandhoek was within the area comparatively safe from shell fire, which extended beyond Vlamertinghe Church. Field ambulances were posted there continuously using it as a Field Ambulance and Casualty Clearing Station. It contains three Commonwealth War Graves Commission cemeteries.
The cemetery was begun by the British in May 1915 in a field next to a dressing station. The cemetery was closed in July 1917 when Brandhoek New Military Cemetery was opened. 601 are buried here.

Entering the cemetery one immediately sees signs of wear

Until July 1917 burials had been made in the Military Cemetery, but the arrival of the 32nd, 3rd Australian and 44th Casualty Clearing Stations in preparation for the new Allied offensive launched that month made it necessary to open the New Military Cemetery, followed in August by the New Military Cemetery No 3.

Brandhoek New Military Cemetery contains 530 Commonwealth burials of the First World War and 28 German war graves. The burials are of July and August 1917 and among them is the grave of Captain Noel Chavasse, VC and Bar, MC, one of only three men who have won the Victoria Cross twice.
The battlefield of Mametz was to see acts of astonishing heroism by Captain Chavasse, the only man to win the Victoria Cross twice during the Great War. In 1916, Chavasse was hit by shell splinters while rescuing men in no-man's land. It is said he got as close as 25 yards from the German line, where he found three men and continued throughout the night under a constant rain of sniper bullets and bombing. He performed similar heroics in the offensive at Passchendaele to gain a second VC and become the most highly decorated serviceman in the war. Although operated upon, he was to die of his wounds two days later in 1917.

His Headstone is unique in having two small VCs instead of the usual large one.

This nearby church continues to honour him and Private C.A. Rudd who was his batman.The Noel Chavasse Memorial on display at the Army Medical Services Museum back in the UK.

Chester Farm CWGC

British Empire troops began using the site as a cemetery in March 1915 named after a nearby farm. The cemetery organisation is unusual in that the dead are mostly grouped by battalion, departing from the usual Commission practice of there being little or no order other than date to the burials.

There are special markers for six soldiers (five British and one Canadian) who are known or believed to be buried in the cemetery but whose actual plot was lost or destroyed. These stones usually have the Rudyard Kipling-derived footnote "Their glory shall not be blotted out".

Just outside this crater remains at the entrance of Palingbeek Park, now a golf club.

Suffolk CWGC

The cemetery was founded by Commonwealth troops in March and April 1915. It was then disused, except for one 1917 burial, until October 1918. The cemetery was founded under the name "Cheapside Cemetery" by the Suffolk Regiment. The October 1918 burials were of soldiers from the York and Lancaster Regiment who had been killed the previous April. There are now 48 buried here.
The cemetery was designed by J R Truelove who also worked on the Tyne Cot memorial to the missing.