Echoes of War

Ypres

2009-09-20T23:55:00.000-07:00

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Ypres Salient and the Somme

Click to enlarge

In the Middle Ages Ypres became world famous because of its cloth trade. Commercial relations flourished, particularly with England, which provided much of the wool on which the town’s great prosperity was based. The most obvious symbol of this prosperity was the magnificent Cloth Hall, built during the 13th century. Ypres was occupied by the German army for one night at the beginning of the Great War. It was recaptured on 14 October 1914 - and remained in Allied hands until the end of hostilities. Some five million British Empire soldiers passed through Ypres on their way to the Salient. Reduced to rubble by constant bombardment, the town came to symbolise the meaningless slaughter of the Great War. After the Armistice, the British government wished to acquire the ruins of Ypres as a permanent memorial to the sacrifices of its army between 1914 and 1918. However, the returning refugees wanted to rebuild their homes and the wishes of the local population finally prevailed. Now restored to its former grandeur, Ypres still contains numerous poignant sites and monuments linked to the war.

The Cloth Hall

In flames in 1916

The Cloth Hall Ypres, [ca. 1918] after J. Kerr Lawson with Canadian troops passing the ruins of the Cloth Hall.

Panoramic image of Ypres from 1919, showing the town's destruction.

On the same road nine decades earlier.

Hitler visiting the town in 1940

St. Martin's Cathedral

Saint Martin's Cathedral (although no longer technically a cathedral, it is still often referred to as one) is, at 335 ft in height, one of the tallest buildings in Belgium. Construction started on in 1230, and was finished in 1370. It was heavily damaged during the Great War and was rebuilt afterwards, following the original plans.

Inside is a plaque honouring the Imperial soldiers reading: "To the glory of God and to the memory of one million dead of the British Empire who fell in the Great War 1914-1918, many of whom rest in Belgium".

Ypres Cloth Hall and Cathedral in 1918

Office of the CWGC

The Menin Gate

"Who will remember, passing through this Gate,
The unheroic Dead who fed the guns?"

-- Siegfried Sassoon, On Passing the Menin Gate

The site of the Menin Gate after the war.

The building of the Gate and ten years after the Armistice

The Menin Gate Memorial commemorates the missing of the Salient, and was designed by Reginald Blomfield with construction completed in 1927. It lists the names of 54,332 men of Britain and the Dominions (apart from New Zealandwho fell in the Salient and who have no known grave. The names represent the fallen of Britain, Ireland, and what were then the Dominions (apart from New Zealand which chose top have its own separate memorial) up until 16th August 1917 after which the other names are recorded at Tyne Cot CWGC.

Every evening at 20.00 the Last Post is played at the Menin Gate, with a local policeman on call to stop traffic. Buglers from the local fire brigade play ”The Last Post”. The ceremony was begun in 1928 and the buglers have performed it faithfully ever since, although they were banned from playing during the German Occupation of 1940-44. Brookwood Barracks in England took over the ceremony during the war, but the tradition was immediately re-established on the first day after the liberation in September 1944. Sometimes the ceremony is attended by just a few spectators; on more formal occasions, hundreds can be present. Irrespec- tive of numbers, the Last Post remains a unique and moving experience.
Info: T 057/48 66 10 - www.lastpost.be
During the ceremony a verse from the poem ’For the Fallen’ by Laurence Binyon is usually read out loud:

They shall not grow old, as we that are left grow old: Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn. At the going down of the sun and the morning We will remember them

Belgian firemen preparing to perform the Last Post.

The names are inscribed on panels arranged by Regiment, and within that by rank.

Hitler visiting the Gate in 1940...

... whilst veterans from other wars pay their respects

Continuing from the Menin Gate is the Menin Road South CWGC

This cemetery is on the infamous Menin Road (N345) running from Ypres to the front line and remained an Allied possession throughout the war. It was founded in January 1916 and used until the summer of 1918. After the Armistice, the neighbouring Mein Road North cemetery was concentrated into this cemetery, with additional concentration from single battlefield graves from the front itself. 1658 lie here with 119 unidentified.
A particualrly interesting inscription is for that of 22 year old Lt. Charles Douglas Lucas Hill of the 9th Battalion, Royal Sussex Regt, killed February 14, 1916:

"He passed out of the sight of men by the path of duty."

Captain Thomas Riversdale Colyer-Fergusson, VC, was killed in action on July 31, 1917 after having encountered the enemy with a sergeant and five men only. Nevertheless he carried out the planned attack and managed to capture the enemy trench. When the Germans counter-attacked, he resisted with only an orderly beside him and captured a German machine-gun, which he then directed against the attackers. Later still, aided only by his sergeant, he again attacked and captured a second enemy machine-gun, only to be killed by a sniper.

Ypres Town CWGC

This cemetery is about an half-mile north-east of the Menin Gate where some six hundred lie here, some two to a grave. Among them once was Prince Maurice of Battenburg, a grandson of Queen Victoria. Although the body now lies elsewhere, his grave remains (although I couldn't find it at the time).

Ypres Reservoir CWGC

Today and as it looked after the Armistice.

http://www.ww1battlefields.co.uk/flanders/ypres.html

St. Martin's can be seen on the right. An intriguing inscription on one of the stones of that of Joseph McCarthy who served for six years in the Garrison Artillery at the Fremantle Forts, Western Australia. His stone records an even older family-military link:

Beloved son of D and M McCarthy. Grandson of Cpl. D McCarthy (Crimea).

There are 2,613 soldiers of the Commonwealth either buried or commemorated here, among whom are three men who had been executed by the military authorities - Privates Moles, Lawrence and McColl, "shot at dawn" for cowardice when they could have simply been suffering from shell shock. Moles's grave, like many S.A.D.s (Shot at Dawn), with a small cross planted by a visitor.

The grave of Brigadier General Francis Aylmer Maxwell, who earned the Victoria Cross in South Africa when he was a 28 year old Lieutenant in the Indian Staff Corps attached to Roberts's Light Horse during the Second Boer War.

On 31 March 1900 at Sanna's Post (aka Korn Spruit), South Africa, Lieutenant Maxwell carried out the self-imposed duty of saving the guns from capture by the enemy. He went out on five different occasions and helped to bring in two guns and three limbers, one of which he, another officer and some gunners dragged in by hand. He also went out with two other officers and tried to get the last gun in and remained there until the attempt had to be abandoned. During a previous campaign in British India, (the Chitral Expedition, 1895) he had removed the body of a lieutenant colonel of the Corps of Guides, under fire.

He was eventually shot by a German sniper here in Ypres on September 21, 1917 whilst commanding the 27th Brigade, 9th (Scottish) Division.

Ramparts CWGC

Lille Gate

http://www.ww1battlefields.co.uk/flanders/ypres.html

South of Ypres
Bedford House CWGC
Less than two miles south of the Ypres Lille Gate, this is one of the largest cemeteries in the Salient.

Pictures showing the cemetery shortly after the war, giving some indication of its deceptive enormity.

A generation later a new inscription had to be added to mark those dead from another world war.

Inscribed on the grave of M.H. Ride, died at age 19, September 30, 1915 of the King's Royal Rifle Corps: 'DAD'S BEST PAL'
The entrance with its gates and driveway lined with conifers was in fact for the original 'Bedford House' - the name given by the British to the existing Chateau Rosendal that stood here. Throughout one sees the remains of the building scattered around the site.

5,139 soldiers either lie buried or commemorated here, over 3,000 of which remain unidentified.

Example of remains of the original chateau.

Blauwepoort Farm CWGC

Immediately after the war and today.

http://www.ww1battlefields.co.uk/flanders/zillebeke.html

This cemetery was started in November 1914 by the French with British soldiers being laid to rest here a few months later. The cemetery closed in November 1916, with the French graves being removed after the armistice.

Railway Dugouts CWGC

The name derives from the dugouts located in the railway embankment that was located here during the war. Siting dugouts on the side away from the Germans protected them from artillery fire. The railway still passes today, and trains can be seen rushing past the cemetery from time to time. One poignant inscription for Pte. Merchant of 58th Bn., Canadian Inf. who died aged only 16 years on June 6, 1916 reads:

"THE ONLY CHILD OF AGED PARENTS"

The cemetery just after the war and a near-approximation of the same area.

There are just under 2,500 buried here, with 400 brought in after the Armistice who had survived long enough to be sent or brought back from the front line, but eventually succumbed to their wounds at the Advanced Dressing Station.

War debris I came across nearby.

Southeast of Ypres
Larch Wood Railway Cutting CWGC

The cemetery was founded by Commonwealth troops in April 1915 and remained in use until April 1918, when the Western Front had moved away from the area. Most of the dead are from the defence of the nearby Hill 60. After the Armistice, the cemetery was enlarged with the concentration of graves from the battlefield, smaller cemeteries in the area and Commonwealth troops buried in from German war cemeteries.

The graves of 86 people are defined as "special memorials" in that they are either recorded as being buried here but the CWGC was unable to find proof (headstones marked "Believed to be buried in this cemetery") or they are known to be buried here but their exact location was lost or destroyed by later fighting (headstones marked "Known to be buried in this cemetery"). These graves all carry (unless replaced by a personalised family message) the inscription at the foot of the stone "Their Glory Shall Not Be Blotted Out" - a line from Sirach 44:13 suggested by Rudyard Kipling as seen in the last photograph here.

Poppies across from the entrance

Oak Dump CWGC

A typical pastoral scene across from and outside the cemetery.

Oak Dump Cemetery is a few miles south of Ypres on the Bernikkewallestraat a road leading from the Rijselsesweg (N365) through the Lille Gate to Armentieres.
It was made by fighting units in July, August and September 1917 and one grave of 1914 was brought in after the Armistice. In March 1918 a sap opposite the cemetery was blown in, and seven men of the 180th Siege Battery were killed. Their bodies were found in 1927 and buried in the cemetery. The cemetery now contains 111 Commonwealth burials of the First World War, five of them unidentified. Two of the graves destroyed by shell fire are represented by special memorials. The cemetery was designed by W H Cowlishaw.

North of Ypres
La Brique CWGC

This cemetery, named after a now-lost brickworks near to the site, is divided in two by the main road. Cemetery No 1 was founded in May 1915 and used until December 1915. It is the smaller of the two. Cemetery No 2 was founded in February 1915 and was used until March 1918. Originally containing 383 graves, the cemetery was expanded by concentration of graves from the battlefield after the Armistice. It now contains 840 graves.

White House CWGC

http://www.ww1battlefields.co.uk/flanders/east.html

Between the wars, before the wooden crosses were replaced and the stones standardised.

The cemetery was founded in March 1915 and remained in use until April 1918. It was on the site of forward dressing stations found within cellars in 1915; the village it is within, Bellewaerdebeek, was utterly destroyed in 1917. After the Armistice the cemetery was enlarged by concentrating graves from eight outlying cemeteries.
Among the inscriptions here, a striking one is for Sergeant Kenneth W Vear of the 37th bn Australian Infantry who died October 3, 1917:

Good Old Ken
A Man's Man.

Robert Morrow VC. At the age of 23 whilst serving as a private in the 1st Battalion, The Royal Irish Fusiliers, on April 12 1915, he rescued and carried to places of comparative safety several men who had been buried in the debris of trenches wrecked by shell fire. He carried out this work on his own initiative and under heavy fire from the enemy. His citation reads:

For most conspicuous bravery near Messines on 12th April, 1915, when he rescued and carried successively to places of comparative safety, several men who had been buried in the debris of trenches wrecked by shell fire. Private Morrow carried out this gallant work on his own initiative and under very heavy fire from the enemy.

Within a fortnight he would be killed in action.

1,163 soldiers of the Great War lie buried here including four men executed by the Commonwealth military authorities. Private HH Chase of the Lancashire Fusiliers was executed for supposed cowardice on June 12, 1915. On November 7, 2006, the British government announced a pardon for all soldiers executed in the Great War.

Essex Farm CWGC

Essex Farm and the 49th Division Memorial between the wars.

Although only nine of the 1199 buried here are from the country, Canada felt the need to fly its current flag over the dead.

Among the dead lies the body of Private Thomas Barratt, VC.

His citation from The London Gazette, dated 4th September 1917:

On 27 July 1917 north of Ypres, Belgium: For most conspicuous bravery when as Scout to a patrol he worked his way towards the enemy line with the greatest gallantry and determination, in spite of continuous fire from hostile snipers at close range. These snipers he stalked and killed. Later his patrol was similarly held up, and again he disposed of the snipers. When during the subsequent withdrawal of the patrol it was observed that a party of the enemy were endeavouring to outflank them, Private Barratt at once volunteered to cover the retirement, and this he succeeded in accomplishing. His accurate shooting caused many casualties to the enemy, and prevented their advance. Throughout the enterprise he was under heavy machine gun and rifle fire, and his splendid example of coolness and daring was beyond all praise. After safely regaining our lines this gallant soldier was killed by a shell.

Private V.J. Strudwick, only 15 at the time of his death.

Overlooking this cemetery on the canal bank is the monument to the 49th (West Riding) Division

The view of the CWGC from its base.

In front of the cemetery is this Albertina marker commemorating the date May 3, 1915 when the In Flanders Fields had been written, apparently beside the cemetery:

Just to the left of Essex Farm Cemetery is what had been the No. 4 Aid Station of Lt.-Col. Surgeon John McCrae where it is claimed that he wrote in May 1915 possibly the most famous war poem of the 20th century, In Flanders Fields.

This photo does not do justice to the claustrophobic atmosphere that must have prevailed whilst medical personnel had to undergo non-stop surgery during barrages and shelling.
This monument to John McCrae was unveiled in October 2005 next to the first-aid station. The poem is inscribed on a bronze plaque with, I noted, incorrect punctuation that did not match with what McCrae himself used (his handwritten copy of which is also inscribed for good measure).

In Flanders Fields
In Flanders Fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved, and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch, be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.

This video starts in the Essex Farm Commonwealth War Graves Commission cemetery on the northern edge of Ypres. Close by is the medical bunker where McCrae was stationed and is now a site dedicated to his memory. It shows the grave for Rifleman VJ Strudwick (The Rifle Brigade) who died on 14th January 1916 aged just 15. The family inscription on his grave says, 'Not Gone From Memory or From Love'
The video continues through the medical bunker area and to the start of the 'Flanders Fields' behind.

http://www.videohistorytoday.com

Continuing North along the the N369, are these two CWGCs:

Bard Cottage CWGC

Continuing from Essex Farm to Boezinge, is found Bard Cottage cemetery. The original Bard Cottage was the name given to a house behind the line and near a bridge dubbed Bard's Causeway; this cemetery was made nearby in a sheltered position under a high bank. The graves date between June 1915 and October 1918, reflecting the presence of the 49th (West Riding), the 38th (Welsh) and other infantry divisions in the northern sectors of the Ypres Salient, as well as the advance of artillery to the area in the autumn of 1917.

Talana Farm CWGC

This site was roughly a mile from the edge of the Salient during the war and today has 529 Commonwealth burials.

Duhallow A.D.S. CWGC

Duhallow Advanced Dressing Station is thought to have received its name from a southern Irish hunt. The cemetery contains many graves of the artillery and engineers and 41 men of the 13th Company Labour Corps, killed when a German aircraft dropped a bomb on an ammunition truck in January 1918. The special memorials shown in the two photos above commemorate a number of casualties known to have been buried in two of these cemeteries, Malakoff Farm Cemetery, Brielen, and Fusilier Wood Cemetery, Hollebeke, whose graves were destroyed by shellfire. There are now 1,544 Commonwealth casualties of the First World War buried or commemorated in this cemetery, 231 of the burials unidentified. There are also 57 war graves of other nationalities, mostly German, and one Commonwealth burial of the Second World War, which dates from the Allied withdrawal ahead of the German advance of May 1940.

West of Ypres

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Southwest of Ypres

Reninghelst during the war.

As Alec Paton was passing through Reninghelst he noticed a sign, erected by HQ for the troops, which read 'DO NOTSPEAKTOTHECHINESE.' Underneath, also in large letters, a wit had written, 'WHO THE HELL CAN?'.
THE CHINESE LABOUR CORPS IN FRANCE 1917-1921, BRIAN C FAWCETT

Unique iron wreath at entrance.

La Clytte Military Cemetery is located about five miles southwest of Ypres turning off on the N375 connecting Ypres to Dikkebus, Klijte and on to Loker onto the N304 Klijtseweg.

1082 lie here.

John Lynn, VC, DCM

On 2 May 1915 near Ypres, Belgium, when the Germans were advancing behind their wave of asphyxiating gas, Private Lynn, although almost overcome by the deadly fumes, handled his machine-gun with great effect against the enemy, and when he could not see them, he moved his gun higher up the parapet so that he could fire more effectively. This eventually checked any further advance and the outstanding courage displayed by this soldier had a great effect upon his comrades in the very trying circumstances. Private Lynn died later from the effects of gas poisoning.

Lynn was recipient of the Cross of the Order of St. George, 4th Class, from Russia.

West of Ypres

Railway Chateau CWGC
This small cemetery of roughly an hundred graves less than a mile west of Ypres was originally known as Augustine Street Cabaret Cemetery when it was begun in November 1914 as well as L.4 Post Cemetery.

Some graves have two to a plot.

Belgian Battery Corner CWGC

A couple of miles south of Ypres at a road junction where three batteries of Belgian artillery were positioned in 1915 lies 573 casualties. The cemetery was begun by the 8th Division in June 1917 after the Battle of Messines (although one grave in Plot III, Row A, predates this) and it was used until October 1918, largely for burials from a dressing station in a cottage near by. Almost half of the graves are of casualties who belonged, or were attached, to artillery units. Seven of the burials are unidentified and special memorials commemorate three casualties known to have been buried in the cemetery, but whose graves could not be located.
Among the poignant inscriptions is this for Private Frederick Charles Nutkins, 6th Battn. Machine Gun Corps, Infantry:

A brave boy
and a good son.
Sadly missed,
remembered by all.

Lijssenthoek CWGC

During the First World War, the village of Lijssenthoek was situated on the main communication line between the Allied military bases in the rear and the Ypres battlefields. Close to the Front, but out of the extreme range of most German field artillery, it became a natural place to establish casualty clearing stations. The cemetery was first used by the French 15th Hopital D'Evacuation and in June 1915, it began to be used by casualty clearing stations of the Commonwealth forces. From April to August 1918, the casualty clearing stations fell back before the German advance and field ambulances (including a French ambulance) took their places. The cemetery contains 9,901 Commonwealth burials of the First World War, 24 being unidentified. There are 883 war graves of other nationalities, mostly French and German, 11 of these are unidentified. There is 1 Non World War burial here. The only concentration burials were 24 added to Plot XXXI in 1920 from isolated positions near Poperinghe and 17 added to Plot XXXII from St. Denijs Churchyard in 1981. Eight of the headstones are Special Memorials to men known to be buried in this cemetery, these are located together alongside Plot 32 near the Stone of Remembrance. The cemetery, designed by Sir Reginald Blomfield, is the second largest Commonwealth cemetery in Belgium.

The cemetery soon after the war.

The soberly beautiful Lijssenthoek Military Cemetery is the largest of the hospital cemeteries which grew up around the casualty clearing sta- tions to the east and west of Poperinge. Soldiers devised amusing names for these CCSs, which sounded curiously Flemish, but still had a grim meaning: Mendinghem, Dozinghem and Bandaghem. Lijssenthoek was also popularly known as Remi Cemetery, from the name of the farmer who lived behind the clearing station’s complex of tents. This farm can still be seen today.

During one visit I was most fortunate to have been given a tour of the cemetery by Mr. George Sutherland, an ex gardener of the CWGC, born adjacent to the cemetery in the interwar years to an ex RAMC veteran who was also one of the first CWGC gardeners. Both George and his father Walter Sutherland worked for over 70 years in Lissenthoek cemetery. His son now carries on the tradition.

The grave of Frederick Harold Tubb, VC after the war and today

For most conspicuous bravery and devotion to duty at Lone Pine trenches, in the Gallipoli Peninsula, on 9th August, 1915. In the early morning the enemy made a determined counter attack on the centre of the newly captured trench held by Lieutenant Tubb. They advanced up a sap and blew in a sandbag barricade, leaving only one foot of it standing, but Lieutenant Tubb led his men back, repulsed the enemy, and rebuilt the barricade. Supported by strong bombing parties, the enemy succeeded in twice again blowing in the barricade, but on each occasion Lieutenant Tubb, although wounded in the head and arm, held his ground with the greatest coolness and rebuilt it, and finally succeeded in maintaining his position under very heavy bomb fire. —The London Gazette, No. 29328 15 October 1915

He later achieved the rank of major and died of wounds suffered in battle at Polygon Wood on 20 September 1917 whilst serving with 7th Battalion, 2nd Brigade, 1sr Australian Division when he was shot by a German sniper. Whilst being carried to the rear he was struck by British artillery shells and died here at the dressing station beside the cemetery:

Belying the stereotype of lions being led by donkeys, there are a number of senior officers buried here, giving lie to the myth that the Generals in the Great War kept safe and sound out of harm's way:

Hugh Gregory Fitton, GOC 101st Brigade, 34th Division, has the unique distinction of being the only general officer to become his division’s first battle casualty. On 18 January 1916, three days after the division completed its deployment to France, he was wounded by a German sniper while on an instructional visit to 16th Brigade and died two days later. He was the seventeenth British general to be killed in action or to die of wounds on the Western Front.

Maj The Hon. Sir Schomberg Kerr McDonnell QOCH was born in Glenarm, County Antrim, and was educated at Eton and Oxford. He served as private secretary to Prime Minister Lord Salisbury. He fought in the Boer War and was knighted in 1902. He died at Ypres in 1915.

Brigadier-General Alister Gordon, who commanded the 153rd Infantry Brigade, and was a veteran of the Ashanti Campaign of 1901 and also the South African War. He died of wounds on the 31st of July 1917 aged 45. On that day, the 153rd Brigade, part of the 51st Highland Division, attacked at 3.50 a.m. south-east of Langemarck on the first day of Third Ypres.

Brigadier General Gore commander of the 101st Infantry Brigade Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders who died on Saturday 13 April 1918 at the age of fifty.

Major-General Malcolm Smith Mercer, CB (17 September 1859 – 3 June 1916) was a Canadian general, barrister and art patron who practised law in Toronto and led the 3rd Canadian Division during the first two years of the First World War before he was killed in action at Mount Sorrel in Belgium. Mercer was an experienced militia commander and had demonstrated a great flair with training and organising the raw Canadian recruits during the opening months of the war. He also demonstrated courage under fire, visiting the front lines on numerous occasions at the height of battle and personally directing his forces in the face of poison gas attacks and heavy shellfire. Mercer remains the most senior Canadian officer ever to die in combat and was unfortunate to be killed at the opening engagement of the largest battle of his career, when he was trapped by shellfire during a front line reconnaissance and overrun during the subsequent German attack. The division Mercer created and trained remained one of the best units of the Canadian army under his successor Louis Lipsett and Mercer was remembered by the men under his command, many of whom attended his funeral in the aftermath of the battle of Mount Sorrel.

Mr. Sutherland showing a German grave where the widow's ashes were deposited many years after the war.

A photograph remembers Lieutenant Christian Creswell Carver, of "A" Battery, 83rd Brigade, Royal Field Artillery, age 20, who died of wounds 90 years ago on 23 July 1917 by the battery dug out on the banks of Zillebeke Lake and died of his wounds several days later in the Remy Sidings Casualty Clearing station. Buried nearby in this cemetery is his Battery Commander Major George Eustace Summers MC, aged 29, who died on 26 July.

The grave of Lieutenant John Edward Raphael of the King's Royal Rifle Corps who had captained England during the All Blacks' first UK tour 1905.

'A volunteer from the USA to avenge the Lusitania Murder'

Among the inscriptions found in this cemetery is this for Sapper John Rees Davies 343rd Road Construction Coy. Royal Engineers who died August 8, 1917 at age 39

"Tread softly and doff thy cap for such as he stopped the gap."

Staff Nurse Nellie Spindler of the Queen Alexandra's Imperial Military Nursing Service was with the 44th Casualty Clearing Station then based near Brandhoek when she died on the 21st of August 1917, aged 26 after the Germans had shelled the area at around 10 a.m., critically wounding her. She was buried here with full military honours with the Last Post played over her grave and was officially described as 'killed in action' by the War Office after only having been on the Western Front since May 1917. According to the CWGC records she is one of only two female Great War casualties who are buried in Belgium.

Memorial stones placed on the graves of the many Jewish soldiers buried here.

A section given to French dead.

Beside the French graves is a section to those of the Chinese Labour Corps.

Major (acting Lt Col) George Ernest Beatty-Pownall, awarded the DSO in the June 4, 1917 Gazette 'for distinguished services in the field.' Died of his wounds October 10, 1918.

One of the three graves in the cemetery marked as American (despite non-American dating system on stone) as they had fought under the American flag. Other Americans buried here joined the Canadian or the British Army until April of 1917. To maintain the fiction that the US was neutral, any American who joined a foreign army before then automatically lost his US citizenship and were left effectively stateless upon their deaths. This had changed in the twenties when the US Congress adopted a law that retroactively restored their citizenship.
James Pigue left for Europe on May 4 1918, leaving behind forever his newlywed wife and a son who he would never know. His regiment was assigned to the British Second Army near Ypres for training. Given that the British Second Army was experiencing a shortage of officers at this time. Pigue spent some time commanding British and Australian artillery units. On July 18 he was at an observation post when a sniper shot him through the heart. He was the first man from the Old Hickory Division to be killed in action during the First World War.

West of Ypres to Kemmel

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.

Godezonne CWGC

The cemetery was founded in February 1915 by the Royal Scots and Middlesex Regiments in the garden of the original Godezonne Farm and was used again in 1916 for three more burials and again after the Armistice to concentrate battlefield burials from the north and the east.
Elzenwalle Brasserie CWGC

The cemetery was started in February 1915, formed from eight regimental burial grounds. The graves are of individual soldiers killed holding the line of the trenches during the long stalemate of the front and the new forward line after the Battle of Messines. The name itself comes from the brewery opposite the road.

Ridge Wood Military CWGC

The name of the cemetery is actually misspelt on the stone.

The cemetery is located in Voormezeele, West Flanders, Belgium, in the Ypres Salient of the Western Front and was established in May 1915 for front line troops defending the area. The cemetery was used by the Royal Irish Rifles, the Durham Light Infantry and Canadian battalions.

The cemetery is in a dip behind a ridge that was the site of a wood. In the Spring Offensive of 1918, German forces pushed the front line on to the ridge, being moved back in July, before being swept away completely later in the year during the Hundred Days Offensive by the 6th and 33rd Divisions.

Of the 621 burials at the site, 292 are from Canada, 280 from the United Kingdom, 44 from Australia and 3 from New Zealand, in addition to two from Germany. The cemetery previously contained graves of a number of French soldiers, but these were concentrated elsewhere later.

Lindenhoek Chalet CWGC

This military cemetery is about five miles west of Ypres from the Kemmelseweg (N331) connecting Ypres to Kemmel.

67 of the 315 here are unidentified.

After getting directions from the Tourist office in Heuvelland, I turned left at the roundabout on the Kemmelseweg (N331) and went north towards Ypres.

La Laiterie CWGC

About seven kilometres south of Ypres is this cemetery, final resting place for 751 Commonwealth servicemen, of whom 571 are identified. The cemetery had been named after a dairy farm and was begun in November 1914 and used until October 1918 by units holding this sector of the front.

Demarcation Stone

Near the approaching American memorial seen on the left side of the road is this Demarcation stone surmounted by a French helmet.

One can still faintly read the legend Kemmel.

Memorial to the American 27th and 30th Divisions near Vierstraat

This large white Rocheret stone monument set up in 1929 commemorates the 27th and 30th American Divisions who fought in August and September 1918. Around 1,300 from the 27th Division and 800 from the 30th Division died during this engagement, and the monument stands in the middle of the area fought over.

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.

Ploegsteert Wood, Messines and Wytschaete

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Eight miles south of Ypres, Ploegsteert Wood was a sector of the Western Front in Flanders in World War I, part of the Ypres Salient. After fighting in late 1914 and early 1915, it became a quiet sector where no major action took place. Units were sent here to recuperate and retrain after tougher fighting elsewhere and before returning to take part in more active operations. British Tommies referred to it as "Plugstreet Wood". There are numerous cemeteries around the wood.

View of 'Hunters Avenue,' a well known duckboard path which ran through Ploegsteert Wood, on February 16, 1918. The photo on the right shows the same spot 90 years later.

On the road is this sign noting the famous people who had served in this area.

Inside Ploegsteert Wood itself are three evocative cemeteries; entering from the North are:

Ploegsteert Wood CWGC

The cemetery was founded by enclosing a number of small cemeteries made by individual regiments. The grounds were established in December 1914 as the "Somerset Light Infantry Cemetery", expanding in April 1915 when the "Bucks Cemetery" was started by the Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire Light Infantry. A further cemetery was established by the Gloucesters and the Loyal North Lancashire regiments in October 1915, named "Canadian Cemetery, Strand" after its 28 Canadian graves and the nearby Strand trench. The cemetery was used by New Zealanders in 1917. It fell into German hands on 10 April 1918 and remained occupied until 29 September, when the Hundred Days Offensive swept fighting out of the Salient.
Toronto Avenue CWGC

Despite the name, derived from one of the paths running through Plug Street Wood, it has no connection with Canada but is in fact the only all-Australian cemetery in Belgium. 78 officers and men from the Australian 9th Brigade (3rd Division) who were killed during the Battle of Messines between June 7th and 10th 1917 lie here.

Rifle House CWGC

This beautiful cemetery in the middle of Ploegsteert Wood and containing 229 graves takes its name from a strong point that stood in Ploegsteert Wood and was first established the first year of the war.

Footage of the cemetery

Mud Corner CWGC

This is the first cemetery upon entering through the official access way to Ploegsteert Wood via a muddy track just north of Ploegsteert Wood reached by a small road leading off the main road to Ypres.

It is one of the smaller of the 23 000 cemeteries maintained by the Commonwealth War Graves Commission, with just 85 graves (two unidentified) dating from the outbreak of the Battle of Messines in 1917. It's too small to have an altar of sacrifice. All but one British grave are Australians and New Zealanders.

If you keep going down the road you reach Prowse Point Cemetery.

This is the only CWGC named after a person -Brigadier-General C B Prowse, DSO, Somerset Light Infantry, who died in July 1916, whilst commanding the 11th Infantry Brigade. In fact, Prowse is actually buried in Louvencourt Military Cemetery on the Somme, in France.

Footage of the cemetery

The pool in front is the result of a shell and was actually part of the front line.

Prowse Point is where the remains of men whose bodies have been discovered in recent times in or near the wood have been reburied. One such recovered body was Private Harry Wilkinson of the 2nd Lancashire Fusiliers, found in 87 years after, identified by his name tag and buried here in 2001 with full honours.

Strand CWGC

Cycling north from Ploegsteert on the N365 north is Strand Military Cemetery with over 1000 burials. 'Charing Cross' was the name given by the troops to a point at the end of a trench called the Strand, which led into Ploegsteert Wood. In October 1914, two burials were made at this place, close to an Advanced Dressing Station.The cemetery was in German hands for a few months in 1918, but was very little used by them. There are now 1,143 Commonwealth servicemen of the First World War buried or commemorated in this cemetery. 354 of the burials are unidentified but there are special memorials to six casualties known or believed to be buried among them, and to 13 whose graves in four of the concentrated cemeteries were destroyed by shell fire.

There are also eight Second World War burials (three of which are unidentified) all dating from May 1940 and the withdrawal of the British Expeditionary force to Dunkirk ahead of the German advance.
Nearby one can see three British bunkers behind a house on the same side of the road.

Ploegsteert Memorial to the Missing and Berks Corner CWGC

Just over the provincial (and linguistic) border, not far from Messines, lies the burial ground known as Berks Cemetery Extension. The most striking feature of this cemetery is the memorial to more than 11,000 missing soldiers from Great Britain and South Africa, who died as a result of ‘routine’ trench warfare or in one of the minor operations designed to support major offensives elsewhere. On the first Friday of every month the Last Post is sounded here at 1900 hours.

Further down the road is this impressive memorial where 11,369 men with no known grave are commemorated. The inscription on the interior of the circular top of the memorial shows that the memorial commemorates "those who fell fighting between the River Douve and the towns of Estaires and Furnes". The area covered runs from approximately near Warneton in the north (about three miles north-east of Ploegsteert) to Estaires in the south and includes Armentieres and Bois Grenier.

The arms of the Country and of the Regiment on either side.
The names are arranged by Regiment, and then alphabetically within each regiment.

One lion growling in defiance in war and in repose in peace.

The cemetery extenstion with 876 graves is across the road from the memorial.

Members of Belgium's l'école Royale Militaire paying their respects in a short ceremony at the site.

Lancashire Cottage CWGC

Less than a mile along the rue de Ploegsteert is this CWGC started by the 1st East Lancashire (who have 84 graves in it) and the 1st Hampshire (who have 56) in November 1914. It was used as a front line cemetery until March 1916 and occasionally later. The cemetery was in German hands from 10 April to 29 September 1918 and they made a few burials in it during that spring and summer and now it has 256 Commonwealth burials and 13 Germans.
Underhill Farm CWGC

Turning right on the N365 just after the coming from the Ploegsteert Memorial to the Missing on the north-west edge of Ploegsteert Wood.

The dressing station from which the CWGC gets its name.

190 bodies lie here in toto from the UK, Canada, Australia and New Zealand.

Towards Messines along the N365

An incongruous site cycling towards Messines from the south.

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.

Footage of the official opening of the park by McAleese, November 1998

Messines

The Battle of Messines began on 7 June 1917 when the British Second Army under the command of General Herbert Plumer launched an offensive near the village of Mesen (Messines) in West Flanders, Belgium. The target of the offensive was a ridge running north from Messines village past Wytschaete village which created a natural stronghold southeast of Ypres. One of the key features of the battle was the detonation of 19 mines immediately prior to the infantry assault, a tactic which disrupted German defences and allowed the advancing troops to secure their objectives in rapid fashion. The attack was also a prelude to the much larger Third Battle of Ypres, known as Passchendaele, which began on 11 July 1917.

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.

This is a small sample of the video clips showing views of the NZ Memorial, Messines Ridge, Belgium taken from the Video History Today database.

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

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

Messines Church

Hitler's painting of the church during the war

Standing inside the crypt where Hitler had been billeted.

16th Irish Division and 36th (Ulster) Division Memorials
In 1917, the 16th Irish Division took a major part in the Battle of Messines alongside the 36th (Ulster) Division, due to both their recognition and reputation. Their major actions ended in the summer of 1917 at the Battle of Passchendaele after moving under General Hubert Gough's Fifth Army command. By mid August the 16th (Irish) had suffered over 4,200 casualties and the 36th (Ulster) had suffered almost 3,600 casualties, or more than 50% of their numbers.The 36th were one of the few divisions to make significant gains on the first day on the Somme. They attacked between the Ancre and Thiepval against a position known as the Schwaben Redoubt. According to military historian Martin Middlebrook:

The leading battalions (of the 36th (Ulster) Division) had been ordered out from the wood just before 7.30am and laid down near the German trenches ... At zero hour the British barrage lifted. Bugles blew the "Advance". Up sprang the Ulstermen and, without forming up in the waves adopted by other divisions, they rushed the German front line ..... By a combination of sensible tactics and Ulster dash, the prize that eluded so many, the capture of a long section of the German front line, had been accomplished.

During the Battle of the Somme the Ulster Division was the only division of X Corps to have achieved its objectives on the opening day of the battle. This came at a heavy price, with the division suffering in two days of fighting, 5,500 officers and men, killed, wounded or missing.

Their attack was one of the finest displays of human courage in the world
—War correspondent Philip Gibbs, 1st July, 1916

Of nine Victoria Crosses given to British forces in the battle, four were awarded to Ulstermen.

Wytschaete

The village of Wytschaete was fought over throughout the war, originally taken by the Germans in November 1914, it was retaken by Commonwealth forces during the Battle of Messines on June 7th 1917, it then fell into enemy hands once again in April 1918, before it was finally retaken on 28th September 1918.

Wytschaete in April, 1916

Wytschaete CWGC

Wytschaete (or 'White Sheet' as Tommies referred to it) cemetery contains 486 British, 31 Australian, 19 Canadian, 11 South African, 7 New Zealand, 1 German and 673 unknown burials. The cemetery also contains some 25 special memorials.

16th Irish Division Memorial

Just outside the cemetery is a memorial that had been unveiled on August 22 1926 to commemorate the 16th (Irish) Division at Wytschaete and commemorates its capture of Wytschaete on 7 June 1917, the opening day of the Battle of Messines.

Somer Farm CWGC

Somer Farm during the war and today with 87 graves from Britain and Australia and one unknown grave is a cemetery so small it doesn't have a registry box.

Oosttaverne CWGC

Originally there were two cemeteries (No. 1 and No. 2) here and had been started after the village was captured during the Battle of Messines.

One of two bunkers that can be seen still behind the cemetery.

The cemetery was is situated in what had been No Man's Land before the Battle of Messines, 1917. During the Second World War, the British Expeditionary Force was involved in the later stages of the defence of Belgium following the German invasion in May 1940, and suffered many casualties in covering the withdrawal to Dunkirk. The cemetery contains 1,119 First World War burials, 783 of which are unidentified. Scattered among these graves are 117 from the Second World War, five of them unidentified.

Spanbroekmolen CWGC
Spanbroekmolen was the name of a windmill 1 mile south-west of Wytschaete on the Messines Ridge.

About five miles south of Ypres, this lonely cemetery is named after a windmill which stood nearby and contains the graves of men killed in action on the first (or, in three cases the second) day of the Battle of Messines in 1917. The cemetery was destroyed in subsequent operations but found again after the Armistice. There are 58 casualties of the First World War buried or commemorated in the cemetery or whom six remain unidentified who have special memorials commemorating their graves which had been later destroyed.

Going back to the main road towards Kemel is Irish House CWGC

The wall around this plot sited midway between Heuvelland and Wytschaete is reminiscent of those dry stone walls one sees throughout Ireland.

This lovely graveyard initiated in 1917 by the Irish Division contains 77 and over half remain unidentified. After Operation Michael the Germans took it from April to August 1918.

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 on the right.

South East Belgium

2009-01-02T07:53:00.000-08:00

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Wewelgem

Packhorse Farm Shrine CWGC

This was the scene of a German gas attack in April 1916, fought off by the 3rd and 24th Divisions. Packhorse Farm was the name given to a farm on the eastern side of the most direct road from Lindenhoek to Wulverghem, and this cemetery was one of two made by the 46th (North Midland) Division during their occupation of the sector in 1915. Of interest is the sad fact that two brothers are buried here- Privates Ernest Arthur and James Emerson Proctor of 1st/5th Bn. Lincolnshire Regiment, from Scunthorpe aged 22 & 21 respectively. Both were killed on the same day, May 20, 1915, either through an enemy mine under their trench in the Dranoutre sector, or through the subsequent rescue attempt.

Kandahar Farm CWGC
An especially evocative name today, Kandahar Farm is roughly eleven miles south of Ypres on the Niewkerkestraat (N314) which leads from the N365 connecting Ypres to Wijtschate, Messines and on to Armentieres. The cemetery is near Wulverghem and the front line ran a little east of the village.
A candidate for oldest serviceman buried in Belgium in the Great War is E. Taylor of the Royal Engineers killed July 21, 1917 and whose stone has his age as 61. The inscription reads:

HE IS NOT DEAD
BUT OVER WAR'S LOUD SWELL
HE HEARD HIS CAPTAIN'S CALL
AND ALL IS WELL

Nieuwkerke Cemetery

Belgian memorial to their dead.

This small communal cemetery holds the dead of two world wars. The churchyard was used by field ambulances and fighting units at intervals during the war and later saw service in the Second World War when the British Expeditionary Force was involved in the later stages of the defence of Belgium following the German invasion in May 1940, and the subsequent withdrawal to Dunkirk.

Southwest of Nieuwkerke is this striking Commonwealth Cemetery:
Westhof Farm CWGC

Westhof Farm is set on an incline and was used by the New Zealand Division as its headquarters in May and June 1917.

Five German graves in total stand next to those of the Commonwealth.

Courtrai (Kortrijk)
Courtrai used to serve as a major base for the German army which would fall to the 9th Division on October 17, 1918.
Kortrijk (St. Jan) Communal Cemetery

The Union Flag carelessly flown upside down over the graves of 221 Great War and 34 Second World War Commonwealth soldiers.
Courtrai had been heavily bombed in the summer of 1917, but even more damaged by the allied bombing in 1944.

Bissegem Communal Cemetery

Bissegem is 2 km west of Courtrai town centre.

Last resting place for 31 soldiers who all died within weeks of the Armistice, including that of Rifleman Collier killed three weeks before the end...

Hill 60

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Directions for Hill 60 in the 1920s and today

Hill 60 was a low rise on the southern flank of the Ypres Salient, named for the 60 metre contour which marked its bounds. It wasn't a natural hill but was created by the ground removed whilst constructing the railway line nearby. The hill had been captured by the Germans on December 10, 1914 from the French forces. During the race for the sea, it was obvious the Hill had to be retaken. A great deal of the fighting around Hill 60 was underground as can be seen by the memorials today. The British immediately began tunnelling a number of mines beneath the hill. By April 1915 twenty one mines had been completed. At 19:00 on April 17, 1915 the mines were detonated, demolishing a large part of the hill and killing many German soldiers occupying the trenches. The British battalions suffered only 7 casualties in capturing the hill.

A German counter-attack succeeded in recapturing the hill but the British regained possession on April 18. Fighting continued until April 22.

Hill 60 was eventually taken by the Germans following a gas attack on 5th May, 1915. The results were devastating. The front trenches were overrun when the forward companies were almost wiped out. Only 2 officers and 70 men from one battalion remained. It was only due to the heroic defence by a platoon of the Devon and Dorsets and the Battalion Headquarter Staff of the Duke of Wellington's Regiment that a major breakthrough was prevented.

Sketch of German position at Hill 60 in early April 1915

1st Australian Tunnelling Company Memorial

http://www.ww1battlefields.co.uk/flanders/hill60.html

Just outside the entrance to Hill 60 is this monument to the Australian 1st Tunnelling Company who took over maintenance of the British mines underneath whilst the Germans were holding it in November 1916. You can clearly see the bullet holes on the memorial plate from the Germans' return engagement in the Second World War, apparently out of a fit of pique.

14th Light Division Memorial

This monument to the 14th Light Division, next to that of the 1st Australian Tunnelling Company, records that the Division landed in France in May 1915, comprising KRRC, Rifle Brigade, Ox & Bucks Cyclist Co., Royal Engineers, Signals, Pioneers and a Mobile Veterinary Section. The battle honours of the Division listed include Ypres, the Somme and Arras.

Looking across from both memorials one can see Ypres next to nearly the same view soon after the war.

There are a number of remaining pillboxes on Hill 60. This one was originally German, but modified by the Australians in 1918.

Throughout the area are the remains of craters blown by mines. This particular depression was blown at the start of the Battle of Messines.

Queen Victoria's Rifles Memorial

The original memorial before it was destroyed by the Germans during the Second World War and today. This is where the regiment fought their first open engagement beginning at dawn on April 21, during which they lost 12 officers and 180 men in casualties. It was here too that Lieutenant Geoffrey Harold Woolley left a position of safety to take command of the troops on the Hill. Only 40 QVRs were left in the front line, but rallying the troops with encouragement and letting the men know that reinforcements were on the way, Woolley helped repulse the Counter attack by throwing bombs at the advancing Germans. For his gallantry Lieutenant Woolley was awarded the Victoria Cross, the first to be won by the Territorial Force. The QVR’s remained in France for the rest of the war. Nearby Hill 60 along the road going past is the QVR cafe and museum.

Near the entrance over the railway bridge is this small memorial to two members of the French resistance killed during the Second World War, erected in 1969.

Poperinghe and Vlamertinge

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Poperinghe was the primary military centre for British forces located in Flanders, just under 10km west of Ypres (itself formerly a bitter trade rival). Its population in 1904 was placed at 11,680.

Poperinghe in 1917, with Scottish troops in the Grande Place and the re-named Grote Markt today with the Stadhuis in the background.

Talbot House & Concert Hall

During the war and after

Talbot House in Poperinge is one of the most evocative sites from the Great War era. It was here that two army chaplains, Philip ‘Tubby’ Clayton and Neville Talbot, opened a club for soldiers. Named in honour of Gilbert Talbot, who was killed at Hooge in 1915, it became known as Toc H after the army signal code used in the war. More than half a million soldiers visited the club, which was housed in the mansion of a local hop trader, who had fled the country. It was a place where everyone was welcome; where military rank did not count; and where the troops could play the piano or borrow books (simply by leaving their cap as a deposit!). In short, it was a place where soldiers could become human again. Th e authentic interior has been largely preserved and the unique spirit of the place can perhaps best be experienced in the chapel - simply called the ‘upper room’ - which has remained untouched since 1918.

The Reverend Philip Thomas Byard Clayton CH (known as "Tubby Clayton") was an Anglican clergyman and the founder of Toc H, this being signal terminology for "T H" or "Talbot House". It closed temporarily in 1918 when the German front had drawn too close.

Exhibits from the museum inside

For soldiers who had to live for days at a time in a world of mud and shot-up trees, the garden was an oasis of rest and peace. The lay-out of the garden has been restored as it was during the Great War. It has been recently listed as a monument by the Belgian Monument and Landscapes service.

The adjoining hop store (better known during the war as the Concert Hall) and the former bathhouse (referred to as the ‘Slessorium’, after its creator, Major Peter Slessor) were both restored in 2004. After the peaceful and quiet atmosphere of Talbot House, visitors can go to the first floor of the former hop store, the actual Concert Hall. It was this room that became the stage for many recreational activities in 1917. Visitors are shown a film of a concert given by the performers 'The Happy Hoppers'. Sentimental and happy songs, jokes and dances are brought together in a non-stop show and this gives a good idea of how things were in 1917. A life-sized ‘album’ about ‘Life Behind the Front’ and a filmed re-enactment of a ‘Concert Party’ are now on permanent display allowing visitors to experience the true atmosphere of Talbot House during the war years and shows how soldiers spent their time away from the trenches.

Skindles Hotel

According to Keegan in The First World War, "the infamous Skindles for officers who wanted a good meal and the company of loose women...is scarcely identifiable" (199-200) but there's no probit's hard to understand whilst comparing photos then and now.

Train Station

According to Coombs MBE (11) it was said that

whenever a leave train was due to depart, the enemy artillery interfered, but this did not prevent the place being the most popular and the most-loathed spot in the vicinity; always thronged with travellers waiting for the trains. Returning men, however, did not loiter with the same indifference. A rumour which took a great deal of scotching was that the stationmaster of Pop had been shot as a spy due to the suspicious regularity of the shelling.

Execution Post
The execution post on display in the inner courtyard of the Poperinghe Town Hall is said to be that used on 8th May 1919 for Wang Ch'un Ch'ih of the 107th Chinese Labour Corps. He is buried at Poperinghe Old Military Cemetery. Sixteen others executed in Poperinge were buried at Poperinghe New Military Cemetery.

Poperinghe New Military Cemetery

Poperinghe Old Military Cemetery

The grave of Lieutenant-Colonel George Baker, 38, OC 5th Canadian Mounted Rifles (Quebec Regiment), who was a member of the Canadian House of Commons. He is the only Parliamentarian to have ever lost his life while fighting for Canada. He had been the son of the Honourable George Barnard Baker KC (member of Canadian Senate).

In the Official War Diary of the 5th Battalion, Canadian Mounted Rifles it was written:

Particularly regretted is the death of our O.C. Lt. Colonel G.H. Baker who has been O.C. since the Regiment was recruited in January 1915. He had endeared himself to Officers and men alike by his tact and cheerfulness under all conditions. Our comfort is that he died as he wished, at the head of his men, and his cross in the new MILITARY CEMETERY at POPERINGHE (LOT 2, G1) is inscribed “Killed in action”, the epitaph of a man. He was buried with full military honours.

The grave of Coolie C. C. Wang, Chinese Labour Corps, executed for murder on May 8, 1919.

Poperinghe Communal Cemetery

Dozinghem CWGC

Dozinghem is one of a trio of British Cemeteries which served the hospitals and casualty clearing stations in the locality of Proven. The other two are named Mendinghem (mending 'em) and Bandaghem (bandage 'em) - all three names coined by British troops to sound like local Flemish ones.

The Cemetery is located to the north-west of Poperinghe near Krombeke. The Cemetery is at the end of a track into woods, off the Krombeekseweg.

Westvleteren was outside the front held by Commonwealth forces in Belgium during the First World War, but in July 1917, in readiness for the forthcoming offensive, groups of casualty clearing stations were placed at the three positions called by the troops Mendinghem, Dozinghem and Bandaghem. The 4th, 47th and 61st Casualty Clearing Stations were posted at Dozinghem and the military cemetery was used by them until early in 1918. There are now 3,174 Commonwealth burials of the First World War in the Cemetery and 65 German war graves from this period. Of the inscriptions, no less than three stand out:

Gunner Joseph Hatcher's of the 144th Siege Battery, November 6, 1917:

We do not know what pain he bore,
We only know he nobly fell and couldn't say goodbye

Tom Larder of the 9th Bn Sherwood Foresters, born in Moscow in 1894, joined the Newfoundland Regiment and died in Flanders Fields:

BY THEIR SACRIFICE, WE LIVE

And this particularly poignant one for Lance Serjeant James McDowell of the Grenadier Guards, Killed July 22, 1917:

AT REST
ALSO IN MEMORY OF HIS LITTLE SON
GONE TO DADDY

Vlamertinge
The image titled Vlamertinghe, from the south west, dated August 1917 by the artist Lieutenant Cyril H Barraund who served in the 43rd Battalion CEF and in August 1917 was appointed to the Canadian War Memorials Fund.

http://1914-1918.invisionzone.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=95530&hl=vlamertinge&st=50

Vlamertinge at the end of the war with German prisoners on the right.

Vlamertinge CWGC
This cemetery is in a village on the Poperinge to Ypres road beneath the rebuilt church. For much of the war it saw intensive activity - during night hours - of transport and troops going to and from the Salient. It was also the site of various medical units. Vlamertinge was often within range of German shellfire and consequently was badly damaged. 1,176 graves of soldiers who died of wounds received in the Salient lie here.
Rose Coombs in her book Before Endeavours Fade pays particular attention to the specially designed gates which were designed for Major, the Honourable C.B.O. Mitford he is buried here as shown in the photo below:
Four Second World War burials dating from the Allied retreat to Dunkirk in May 1940.

On 3 October 1917 Frank Hurley photographed his colleague Captain Hubert Wilkins in the cemetery in Vlamertinghe (near Ypres). The photograph is quite iconic- Hurley is inside the church and the photograph is framed by an arched window with Wilkins striking a moving pose in front of a row of crosses.

http://1914-1918.invisionzone.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=95530&hl=vlamertinge

For a great portfolio of this celebrated photographer:
Mad Photographer:Frank Hurley's Amazing Pictures

The grave of Captain Grenfell, VC who, according to his citation, won what must have been one ofthe earliest Victoria Crosses of the war for the following:

On 24 August 1914 at Audregnies, Belgium, Captain Grenfell rode with the regiment in a charge against a large body of unbroken German infantry. The casualties were very heavy and the captain was left as the senior officer. He was rallying part of the regiment behind a railway embankment when he was twice hit and severely wounded. In spite of his injuries, however, when asked to help in saving the guns, by the commander of 119th Battery, Royal Field Artillery, he and some volunteers, under a hail of bullets, helped to manhandle and push the guns out of range of enemy fire.

He would later recover from his wounds only to later be killed in action at Hooge on May 24, 1915.
Hop Store CWGC

Just beyond Vlamertinge is Hop Store Military Cemetery, containing 248 graves.

250 British and one Canadian lie here in this cemetery opened in May 1915 and named after the Hop Store which still stands nearby. It was sited on the safe side of the village, was always destined to remain small; due to its position between a hedge and the Hop Store building. Also, the site was very wet and marshy and early in 1917 it was necessary for the area to be drained by the Royal Engineers.

The Hop Store itself still remains. During the war it was used by Field Ambulances as well as an HQ for the heavy artillery that was located here.

Vlamertinghe New Military CWGC

1813 lie buried here south of the village of Vlamertinge along the N308 (the Poperingseweg) with Ypres another five kilometres away. For most of the Great War this town was just beyond the normal range of German shell fire and the village was used both by artillery units and field ambulances. Burials were made in the original Military Cemetery until June 1917, when the New Military Cemetery was begun in anticipation of the Allied offensive launched on this part of the front in July. Although the cemetery continued in use until October 1918, most of the burials are from July to December 1917.
London Gazette dated 14 September 1917:

For most conspicuous bravery and good leading. Whilst his company was attacking, machine gun fire opened on the left flank, delaying the advance.

Although C.S.M. Skinner was wounded in the head, he collected six men, and with great courage and determination worked round the left flank of three blockhouses from which the machine gun fire was coming, and succeeded in bombing and taking the first blockhouse single-handed; then, leading his six men towards the other two blockhouses, he skilfully cleared them, taking sixty prisoners, three machine guns, and two trench mortars.

The dash and gallantry displayed by this warrant officer enabled the objective to be reached and consolidated.

Hospital Farm CWGC

The cemetery was used particularly in 1915 and in 1917 by regiments and batteries engaged in the fighting around Ypres. The cemetery contains 115 Commonwealth burials of the First World War and one French war grave.

Hospital Farm Cemetery is 6.5 km west of Ypres on the aptly-named Hospitaalstraat, a road leading from the N308 connecting Ypres to Poperinge. The farm had been a dressing station from June to October 1917.

Leaving Vlamertinge towards Poperinge is Brandhoek, a small hamlet 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:
Brandhoek Military Cemetery

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

New Military Cemetery

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 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. The actions which led to Captain Chavasse's unique collection of decorations are too long to examine here and give them due respect. One article is shown below: http://www.chavasse.u-net.com/chavass...

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

Video of the cemetery and of Chavasse's grave

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.

Just beyond are the following two CWGCs:
Red Farm CWGC

Just beyond Brandhoek is one of the smallest cemeteries on the Salient with 63 burials, the cemetery was only used during April and May 1918.

On the little road just north is Hagle Dump CWGC

Mark Gardiner has found something interesting about this small cemetery regarding Second Lieutenant Alfred Ransdale of the 15th Bn. Loyal North Lancashire Regiment, who

travelled all the way from Argentina to die within four days of his arrival aged 23. British by birth (educated in Shoreham, Sussex), he had lived in the Argentine Republic since 1911 and was a clerk for River Plate Trust, Loan and Agency Co. Ltd. in Rosario de Santa Fe. Posted to Stone Buildings, Lincolns Inn as a Private before 9 November 1917 he was attached to No.19 OC Brigade at Pirbright. Officer commanding wrote that he was "intelligent but is weak in topography, should do all right." Discharged on 30 April 1918 upon appointment to a commission in 3rd (Reserve) Bn. The Loyal North Lancashire Regt., he arrived in Belgium on 27 August 1918 and in letters to relatives that day expressed a fear he would not survive. On 1 September 1918 his company were heavily shelled whilst acting as working parties in the front line. It is unclear whether he was killed outright or died of wounds. His will was in favour of Miss Mabel Choules of Hornchurch, Essex; unsure about the nature of the relationship but it appeared to be a secret he had kept from his family.

Passchendaele

2008-09-20T23:38:00.000-07:00

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Menen German Military Cemetery

47, 864 German soldiers lie within.

The room inside allows you to see the books that have details of the soldiers lying here.

Inside the Chapel.

Nearly twenty to a grave.
The oaks appear to threaten those resting below.

Birr Cross Roads CWGC

Three km east of Ypres with the graves of five hundred soldiers.

Among them is that of Captain Ackroyd, VC, MC, whose citation (4th September 1917) reads:

For most conspicuous bravery. During recent operations Capt Ackroyd displayed the greatest gallantry and devotion to duty. Utterly regardless of danger, he worked continuously for many hours up and down and in front of the line tending the wounded and saving the lives of officers and men. In so doing he had to move across the open under heavy machine gun, rifle and shell fire. On another occasion he went some way in front of our advanced line and brought in a wounded man under continuous sniping and machine gun fire. His heroism was the means of saving many lives, and provided a magnificent example of courage, cheerfulness and determination to the fighting men in whose midst he was carrying out his splendid work. This gallant officer has since been killed in action.

In fact, he had already distinguished himself for bravey a year before before on the opening day of the Battle of the Somme at Montauban and also later at Delville Wood for which he was awarded the Military Cross.

The son of Sir Oliver Lodge, who would write the book Raymond or Life and Death: With Examples of the Evidence for Survival of Memory and Affection after Death. Believing “that there is no real breach of continuity between the dead and the living” the book was written to provide an account of the supposedly successful attempts to contact Raymond through mediums in the months following his death.

The true identity under this stone still remains in question.

Hooge

German flamethrower used at Hooge, 30 July 1915, and the subsequent British charge at Hooge, recapturing trenches lost to flamethrowers

Hooge Crater CWGC

The site in 1919 and ninety years later.

You can see as you enter the cemetery the altar within its symbolic crater.

The cemetery is four km east of Ypres in a small village in Flanders that had been the site of a château used as the Divisional Headquarters for the area. The staff at the château, from the 1st and 2nd Divisions, were all killed when the château was shelled on 31 October 1914.

The crater the cemetery's name refers to was made by a mine sprung by the 3rd Division on July 30, 1915. The château and the crater (craters being strategically important in relatively flat countryside) were taken by the British 6th Division on 9 August. It was reclaimed by the Germans on 16 June 1916 and retaken by the British on 31 July 1917 when the 8th Division managed to push past it by about a mile. The Germans retook the site in April 1918 as part of the Spring Offensive but were expelled from the area by the British on 28 September as the Offensive faltered. During this time, the chateau was completely destroyed along with the entire village; several large craters from underground mines were blown over the course of the 1917 fighting. German forces attacked the château between 24 May and 3 June 1915, and, despite the detonation of a British mine by the 3rd Division, leaving a massive crater, took control of the château and the surrounding area on 30 July.

The cemetery was started in October 1917 by the 7th Division and today holds 2344 graves.

Among the dead is Private Patrick Bugden, awarded posthumously the VC for most conspicuous bravery and devotion to duty when on two occasions our advance was temporarily held up by strongly defended "pill-boxes".

Pte. Bugden, in the face of devastating fire from machine guns, gallantly led small parties to attack these strong points and, successfully silencing the machine guns with bombs, captured the garrison at the point of the bayonet. On another occasion, when a Corporal, who had become detached from his company, had been captured and was being taken to the rear by the enemy, Pte. Bugden, single-handed, rushed to the rescue of his comrade, shot one enemy and bayoneted the remaining two, thus releasing the Corporal. On five occasions he rescued wounded men under intense shell and machine gun fire, showing an utter contempt and disregard for danger. Always foremost in volunteering for any dangerous mission, it was during the execution of one of these missions that this gallant soldier was killed.

Further east towards Menim is the Gloucestershire Memorial at Clapham Junction

Clapham Junction was the name given to this site in the Ypres Salient due to the numerous roads meeting here. This is one of two memorials located here to the Gloucestershire 1st and 2nd Battalions which fought in the First and Second Battles of Ypres.

50th Northumbrian Division Memorial

This monument on "Oxford Road" near the Oxford Road cemetery is to the 50th Division which was established in the north-east of England and sent to the Western Front in April 1915 where it quickly saw action during the Second Battle of Ypres. It helped smash the Hindenburg Line in October 1918. It is inscribed: "To the enduring memory of all ranks of the 50th Northumbrian Division who fell in the Great War 1914-1918 and in memory of their comrades of the same Division who gave their lives in the War of 1939-1945 for the Liberation of France, Belgium and Holland". This indicates that the memorial was later altered as shown in the bottom photo to include a note reflecting the division's heroics in the Second World War. Behind the memorial are barely visible two lines of bunkers and emplacements that made up the line of the Cambrai Redoubt.

Footage of the memorial from http://www.firstworldwar.com/today/50thnorthumbriandivision.htm

Bellewarde
RE Grave Railway Wood

Between the wars and today

RE Grave Railway Wood CWGC is unusual for being both a cemetery and a memorial; additionally, it has no gravestones, choosing instead to commemorate the men who died on the Cross of Sacrifice itself.The original memorial was a wooden cross marking where eight Royal Engineers of the 177th Tunnelling Company and four infantrymen working with them were killed in action underground during the defence of Ypres between November 1915 and August 1917 and whose bodies remain in situ. The inscription reads:
Beneath this spot lie the bodies of an officer, three NCOs and eight men of or attached to the / 177th Tunnelling Company Royal Engineers / who were killed in action underground during the defence of Ypres between November 1915 and August 1917.

Liverpool Scottish Memorial

A little further along the track towards Bellewaarde Farm is the Liverpool Scottish Memorial which had been erected in July 2000 and is clearly visible just inside the woodland when viewing Bellewaarde Ridge from R.E. Grave as can be seen in the photo below:

Commemorating the June 16, 1915 Battle of Hooge (known officially as the 'First Action at Bellewaarde')

'Of 23 officers and 519 other ranks who went into action, only two officers .... and 140 men came through untouched'. Four officers and 75 other ranks were killed; 11 officers and 201 other ranks were wounded and 6 officers and 103 other ranks were reported as missing (almost all of whom were subsequently reported as killed).' (From The Liverpool Scottish 1900 -1919 by Lt. Col A.M. McGilchrist published by Henry Young and Sons 1930)

The action involved the 9th Brigade (of which the Liverpool Scottish was part) and the 7th Brigade, both of the 3rd Division of the British Expeditionary Force. The objective was the German trenches on top of Bellewaarde Ridge about 4km east of Ieper/Ypres just north of the Menin Road

The stone was the keystone above the entrance at the Fraser St (Liverpool) Barracks of the Liverpool Scottish and shows the badge of the 10th (Scottish) Bn, The King's (Liverpool Regiment) with a piece of ropework decoration above it. Most of the Fraser St. building was demolished and in 1978 the stone was relocated outside the new HQ in Childwall in Liverpool (Forbes House) where it was set in a brickwork plinth about five feet high and seven feet across . The stone itself is about four feet high and wedge-shaped. When Forbes House closed in 1999 it was offered to Ypres.

The photograph above was taken by Private Fyfe of the Liverpool Scottish, a press photographer by profession, lying wounded on the German front line. An artillery observation party (an officer and his signaller) can be seen going forward . The banner that can be seen on the right hand side is to indicate the progress of the attacking troops to the friendly artillery so that supporting fire may be lifted and moved on. Wounded men are lying in the foreground and a shell is exploding in Railway Wood.

http://www.liverpoolscottish.org.uk/stoneunv.htm

Nearby I found four grenades and assorted war debris.

18th Division Memorial at Clapham Junction

The second memorial at Clapham Junction to the 18th Division which saw action here in 1917 during the Third battle of Ypres.

Princess Patricia's Canadian Light Infantry Memorial

This monument, unveiled in 1985, commemorates the Princess Patricia's Canadian Light Infantry which, in May 1915, suffered under heavy fire here during the Second battle of Ypres. Only four officers and 150 soldiers escaped the battle unhurt. If you look at the centre of the monument you can see flowers that look rather ill-suited; originally the spaces was to be taken by a maple tree which wouldn't grow and had to be relegated to the back of the monument.

Polygon Wood
Polygon Wood is a forest located between Ypres and Zonnebeke and was a significant Great War battlefield in the Third Battle of Ypres, also known as the "Battle for Passchendaele". It was captured by the Australian 5th Division on September 26, 1917 during the Battle of Menin Road.

The area in September, 1917

Polygon Wood CWGC

Polygon Wood CWGC is about five miles east of Ypres on the Lange Dreve, a road connecting Ypres to Menen. The cemetery contains 103 Commonwealth burials of the Great 17 of them unidentified. 60 of those buried here served with the New Zealand forces. There is also one German grave. A walled avenue leads here, past the Cross of Sacrifice, to the Buttes New British Cemetery. Polygon Wood is a large wood south of Zonnebeke which was completely devastated in the First World War. The wood was cleared by Commonwealth troops at the end of October 1914, given up on 3 May 1915, taken again at the end of September 1917 by Australian troops, evacuated in the Battles of the Lys, and finally retaken by the 9th (Scottish) Division on 28 September 1918. On the Butte itself is the Battle Memorial of the 5th Australian Division, who captured it on 26 September 1917. A walled avenue leads from Polygon Wood Cemetery, past the Cross of Sacrifice, to this cemetery made up of dead brought in from the battlefields of Zonnebeke. There are now 2,108 Commonwealth servicemen of the Great War buried or commemorated, 1,677 of whom remain unidentified.

5th Australian Division Memorial

The entrance leading into the wood which had been completely destroyed during the war. The steps lead to the top of the Butte upon which stands the Australian Memorial. To its right is the cemetery with its 2,103 graves (only 428 of which are identified) where one finds the New Zealand Memorial to the Missing. Inscribed on one of the graves of an Australian lieutenant is

I am all right, mother. Cheerio.

Apparently it came from the last letter home...

St. Julien

The road between Ypres and St. Julien

http://www.ww1battlefields.co.uk/flanders/stjulien.html

The village of St. Julien was taken by the Germans on April 24, 1915 after the first use of poison gas against Canadians at the 2nd Battle of Ypres. By July 1917 the German lines of blockhouses had been completed which provided the only stable areas of resistance when thunderstorms and the allied bombardments rendered the area a putrid, yellowish sinking morass. It was finally taken on August 3 by the 39th Division at the cost of 145 officers and 3,716 other casualties.

St. Julien Dressing Station CWGC

Just off a small road leading off to the right from the main road, within the village itself is this cemetery of 420 graves.

St. Juliaan Monument (The Brooding Soldier)

The shaded area shows the German gains as a result of the first great gas attack, April 24, 1916, at the 2nd Battle of Ypres.

Shortly after being unveiled on July the 9th, 1923 by the Duke of Connaught, with Marshal Foch, the Earl of Ypres (Sir John French) and the Canadian High Commissioner in attendance. Foch, the former Commander-in-Chief of the Allied Armies, said in tribute: "The Canadians paid heavily for their sacrifice and the corner of earth on which this Memorial of gratitude and piety rises has been bathed in their blood. They wrote here the first page in that Book of Glory which is the history of their participation in the war."

On the main road from Ypres to Bruges, this most impressive Memorial at St. Julien commemorates the "18,000 Canadians on the British left [who] withstood the first German gas attacks on the 22-24 April 1915. 2,000 fell and lie buried nearby." This had been the first gas attack of the Great War. "The Brooding Soldier" is almost 11 metres high and displays the bowed head and shoulders of a Canadian soldier in the position of "rest on your arms reversed."

The statue is set in the middle of a garden surrounded by tall cedars, which are kept trimmed to mimic shellfire.

Until 1988 this plaque misleadingly read "2,000 fell and here lie buried" when they in fact lie in the cemeteries scattered outside this park.

Henshaw Memorial
Going back on the road and turning left on what had been dubbed "Winnipeg Avenue," a vital position in 1915 and 1917, is the following private memorial:

In memory of
STEPHEN HENSHAW
Buckinghamhire Battallion OX
Bucks Light Infantry
who was wounded in
Battle Langemark August 16th 1917.
He lay wounded on
these field for six days.
He was found on August 22nd, 1917.
He was moved to Casualty Clearing
Station 61, Dozinghem near Proven
He died of his wounds on 23rd 1917.
Aged 30 years.
He is buried at Dozinghem
Military Cemetery.
Lovingly remembered by all his family.

Seaforth (Cheddar Villa) CWGC

On the main road south-west of St. Julien is Seaforth Cemetery. It was originally known as Cheddar Villa, the name given to a farm on the west side of the road. The soldiers buried here for the most part died during the fighting here on the 25th and 26th of April 1915. , during the battle of St. Julien there was severe fighting here. In 1922 the Commanding Officer of the 2nd Seaforth Highlanders asked that the cemetery change its name to mark the fact that so many men from that battalion lie here. Of those 150 who do so, 21 are unknown and 19 had graves later destroyed during the fighting.

Going along the road a short ways is Cheddar Villa farm itself, still there.

Bridge House CWGC

Just south of St. Julien and named after a nearby farmhouse, this tiny cemetery of 45 graves consists mainly of men from the 59th (North Midland) Division who died in the Battle of Polygon Wood 1917.

's-Graventafel New Zealand Memorial

Heading towards the New Zealand Monument on the left is the remains of this German dugout.
Signposts to hell- the left directing one to Langemark, the other to Passchendaele.

This memorial was unveiled by the New Zealand High Commissioner in London, Sir James Allen, on August 2, 1924 and honours the New Zealand contribution at Passchendaele in 1917 referring specifically to the October 4, 1917 Battle of Broodseinde. On October 12, within two hours over 2,800 New Zealand soldiers were killed, wounded or listed as missing - the most disastrous day in New Zealand’s military history. Given that New Zealand’s population at that time was only around one million, this was a huge number and possibly goes some way to explain why New Zealand alone chose its own memorial rather than have its missing commemorated with those from the other Dominions on the Menin Gate.
The memorials here and at Messines and Longueval are obelisks of Nebrasina stone from Italy with the inscription ‘From the Uttermost Ends of the Earth’ on a plinth at their base as well as a badge incorporating a fern leaf superimposed on crossed taiaha with a frame of Maori carving.

VCDF Air Marshall David Bamfield and Captain Matthew Jahnke laying wreaths at the memorial on July 13, 2007.

http://www.mfat.govt.nz/Photo-galleries/Belgian-World-War-I-Commemorations/0-sgraventafel-wreath.php

Zonnebeke

The area in September, 1917

Dochy Farm New British CWGC
The cemetery is about five miles north-east of Ypres on the Zonnebekestraat connecting Ypres to Zonnebeke.

Formerly the site of a German strong-point taken by 4th New Zealand Brigade on October 4, 1917, there are 1,439 buried here of whom 958 remain unidentified.

Scottish Monument

After 90 years the Scots who fought in the Salient have a very moving and worthy monument. The words from the Declaration of Arbroath transcend their original meaning and are a fitting tribute.

The dedication service

Passchendaele

June 15, October 10, and October 30, 1917

Positions in December, 1917

The Third Battle of Ypres, also known as the Battle of Passchendaele, was one of the major battles of the Great War, in which British, Canadian, South African, French and ANZAC units engaged the Imperial German Army.

The attack served several strategic purposes. A successful attack offered the British chance of inflicting significant casualties on the German army whilst breakthrough into Flanders and thus hinder the German submarine campaign against British shipping whilst also helping prevent German bombers from attacking targets in Britain. It would prevent too the German Army from exploiting the serious morale problems of the French.

During the battle, British troops launched several massive attacks, heavily supported by artillery. However, they never managed to make a breakthrough in well-entrenched German lines. The battle consisted of a series of 'Bite and Hold' attacks to capture critical terrain and wear down the German army, lasting until the Canadian Corps took Passchendaele on 6 November 1917, ending the battle.

Passchendaele has become synonymous with the misery of fighting in thick mud. Most of the battle took place on reclaimed marshland, swampy even without rain. 1917 had an unusually cold and wet summer, and heavy artillery bombardment tore up the surface of the land. Though there were dry periods, mud nevertheless feature of the landscape; newly-developed tanks bogged down in mud, and soldiers drowned in it.

The battle is a subject of fierce debate among historians, particularly in Britain. The volume of the British Official History of the War which covered Passchendaele was the last to be published, and there is evidence it was biased to reflect well on Douglas Haig and badly on General Gough, the commander of the Fifth Army. The heavy casualties suffered by the British Army in return for slender territorial gains have led many historians to follow the example of David Lloyd George, the Prime Minister of the time, and use it as an example of senseless waste and poor generalship. The revisionist school of thought (such as Terraine, p.336-342 and Travers, p.xxi) emphasise the achievements of the British Army in the battle by inflicting great damage on the German Army, relieving pressure on the distressed French, and developing offensive tactics capable of dealing with German defensive positions, which were significant in winning the war in 1918.

Casualty figures for the battle are still a matter of some controversy. Some accounts suggest that the Allies suffered significantly heavier losses than the Germans, while others offer an even score. However, no-one disputes that hundreds of thousands of soldiers on both sides were killed or crippled.
As I cycled towards Passchendaele, the village's CWGC was seen on the left. Of the 2101 buried here, 3/4 are unidentified.

Between the wars and today.

http://www.ww1battlefields.co.uk/flanders/passchendaele.html

Right outside the cemetery is the last of the Albertina markers the Belgians erected to mark the passing of King Albert I. This one states "Ein defensiv Passendale 28th September 1918", and marks the end of the last Passchendaele offensive towards the end of the War.

The road to Passchendaele... and Passchendaele during the Great War. The church had stood on the mound in the background.

http://www.ww1battlefields.co.uk/flanders/passchendaele.html

Inside the church are three stained-glass windows in honour of the 66th Division. There are three windows. The left states "1914" at the bottom, with the names and shields of several northern towns above, including Bury, Accrington, Bolton, Blackburn and Wigan. The larger central window states "66th Division, British Expeditionary Force, In Memoriam" Above St George is pictured, and further up a shield with three lions representing the Duchy of Lancaster. The shields and names of Manchester and Salford are towards the top. The right window states "1918" and has more shields, of Padiham, Bacup, Todmorden and others.

The memorial is situated south of the village at the end of a street called Canadalaan on Crest Hill. It had been a fortified farm on high ground on the line of the final offensive to take the village and the memorial commemorates the attack here made by the 1st and 2nd Canadian Divisions on November 6.

Looking along Canadalaan towards the church.

To the south just outside the village is

Tyne Cot CWGC

Tyne Cot is the largest CWGC Cemetery in the world with 11,953 either buried here or whose graves had been destroyed given that fighting continued throughout and the Germans retook the ground and held it between 13 April to 28 September 1918. As a result, nearly 70% of the bodies lie in unidentified graves.

Between the wars and today; note some of the crosses still have yet to be standardised.

When I visited it hosted a group of Canadians and British schoolchildren.

Among these graves is that of Second-Lieutenant Arthur Conway Young, of the Royal Irish Fusiliers, killed on August 16, 1917, at the age of 26. He was, says the inscription, "sacrificed to the fallacy that war can end war". He had actually been born in Kobe, Japan and was the son of the editor of the "Japan Chronicle."

Another inscription for Captain Clarence Smith Jeffries VC, 34th Battalion of the Australian Imperial Forces reads

ON FAME'S ETERNAL CAMPING GROUND
THEIR SILENT TENTS ARE SPREAD

One of the three visible German pillboxes within the cemetery.

A fourth forms the base of the Cross of Remembrance, at the suggestion of King George V; you can see the wall at the base in the photo.

The grave of James Peter Robertson, VC, a private in the 27th Battalion (of my hometown, Winnipeg), Canadian Expeditionary Force. who died on 6 November 1917 in the final phase of the Battle of Passchendaele. As his platoon was being held up by a machine-gun, Private Robertson rushed the gun, killed four of the crew and then turned the gun on the remainder. After inflicting more casualties and carrying the captured gun, he led his platoon to the final position and got the gun into action, firing on the retreating enemy. During the consolidation his use of the machine-gun kept down the enemy sniper fire. Later when two of the snipers on his own side were wounded, he went out and carried one of them in under heavy fire but he was killed just as he returned with the second man.

Fricourt and Mametz

2008-09-08T04:46:00.000-07:00

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AFTERMATH

by Siegfried Sassoon (1920)

HAVE you forgotten yet?...
For the world's events have rumbled on since those gagged days,
Like traffic checked while at the crossing of city-ways:
And the haunted gap in your mind has filled with thoughts that flow
Like clouds in the lit heaven of life; and you're a man reprieved to go,
Taking your peaceful share of Time, with joy to spare.
But the past is just the same--and War's a bloody game...
Have you forgotten yet?...
Look down, and swear by the slain of the War that you'll never forget.

Do you remember the dark months you held the sector at Mametz--
The nights you watched and wired and dug and piled sandbags on parapets?
Do you remember the rats; and the stench
Of corpses rotting in front of the front-line trench--
And dawn coming, dirty-white, and chill with a hopeless rain?
Do you ever stop and ask, 'Is it all going to happen again?'

Do you remember that hour of din before the attack--
And the anger, the blind compassion that seized and shook you then
As you peered at the doomed and haggard faces of your men?
Do you remember the stretcher-cases lurching back
With dying eyes and lolling heads--those ashen-grey
Masks of the lads who once were keen and kind and gay?

Have you forgotten yet?...
Look up, and swear by the green of the spring that you'll never forget.

Situated on the D147 and D64 junction about 20 miles northeast of Amiens is this town which had been close to the front line for much of the Great War and saw particularly fierce fighting during the Battles of the Somme and the Battles of Albert. It is about a mile from Mametz.
Fricourt British CWGC
This cemetery has 133 graves located in what had been within the No Man's Land of July the 1st 1916.
Right in the back on the right side of the cemetery is this Memorial to the 7th Green Howards Battalion. The stone memorial cross, which replaced the original timber one, was placed here in memory of those Green Howards who died near here that day after having attacked fifteen minutes after zero hour at 7.45 a.m. on the 1st of July 1916 due to some confusion, and were cut to pieces by a single machine-gun as a result.
Fricourt New Military CWGC
Along a small track to the west of the village is this cemetery where 210 lie buried, 26 of whom are still unidentified. This CWGC is in fact made up of four large graves made by the 10th West Yorkshire Regiment after it took Fricourt July 1916.
An interesting additional memorial to a stone, in this case in the form of a scroll for the poet Lieutenant Alfred Ratcliffe, Cambridge University graduate, barrister and a friend of Rupert Brooke:

Optimism

At last there'll dawn the last of the long year,
Of the long year that seemed to dream no end,
Whose every dawn but turned the world more drear,
And slew some hope, or led away some friend.
Or be you dark, or buffeting, or blind,
We care not, day, but leave not death behind.

The hours that feed on war go heavy-hearted,
Death is no fare wherewith to make hearts fain.
Oh, we are sick to find that they who started
With glamour in their eyes came not again.
O day, be long and heavy if you will,
But on our hopes set not a bitter heel.

For tiny hopes like tiny flowers of Spring
Will come, though death and ruin hold the land,
Though storms may roar they may not break the wing
Of the earthed lark whose song is ever bland.
Fell year unpitiful, slow days of scorn,
Your kind shall die, and sweeter days be born.

A. Victor Ratcliffe

Fricourt German Cemetery

To the north of the village is this German cemetery.

Most of these crosses stand for members of the Imperial German 2nd Army. Of the 17,000 names on them, about 1,000 of died in the autumn of 1914 and the ensuing trench warfare; about 10,000 during the Battle of the Somme (July-November 1916); and the final 6,000 in the Spring Offensive and the Allied counter-attack, Hundred Days, that followed it, in 1918. Starting from 1977 the provisional wood grave markers were exchanged with those made of metal with raised names and dates, where possible. The German Federal Armed Forces took over the construction of the concrete foundations necessary for setting up the metal crosses, which were shifted mostly by participants in youth camps.
This cross is actually where the famous German fighter pilot Manfred von Richthofen, the Red Baron, killed on April 21 1918 in aerial combat, was buried with military honours by the British. Later his remains were transferred first to Fricourt, then to the Invalidenfriedhof Cemetery in Berlin, and finally to a family plot in Wiesbaden.
Jewish stones beside crosses show the sacrifice made in an earlier war denied later on. There are in fact 14 graves for Jewish soldiers, each marked with a headstone instead of a cross. The Hebrew characters mean "XXX rests buried" and "their soul may be enwoven into the circle of the living persons."

Mametz is a village about 8 kilometres east of the town of Albert.

Battle at Mametz Wood by Christopher Williams (1918)

Mametz Wood was the objective of the 38th (Welsh) Division during the First Battle of the Somme between July 7th and 12th, 1916. The attack of the 7 July failed to reach the wood before the men were halted by machine gun fire. Further attacks by the 17th Division on 8 July failed to improve the position.

Infuriated by what he saw as a distinct lack of 'push' Sir Douglas Haig and Henry Rawlinson visited the HQ of the Welsh Division to make their displeasure known. Major General Ivor Philipps, officer commanding the Welsh Division, was subsequently relieved of his command. Haig passed control of the Division to Major General Watts, commander of the 7th Division and told him to use it 'as he saw fit'. Watts planned a full scale attack for the 9 July but organising the attacking formations took some time and the attack was subsequently postponed until 10 July 1916. The operational order was blunt, stating that the Division would attack the wood with the aim of 'capturing the whole of it'.

The 10 July attack was on a larger scale than had been attempted earlier. Despite heavy casualties the fringe of the wood was soon reached and some bayonet fighting took place before the wood was entered and a number of German machine guns silenced.

The 14th Welsh (Swansea) Battalion went into the attack with 676 men and after a day of hard fighting had lost almost 400 men killed or wounded before being relieved. Other battalions suffered similar losses. However, by the 12th the wood was effectively cleared of the enemy. The Welsh Division had lost about 4,000 men killed or wounded in this searing engagement. It would not be used in a massed attack again until July 31st, 1917.

A vivid description of the fighting in Mametz Wood may be found in In Parenthesis, a modernist novel written by British poet and visual artist David Jones, who took part in the battle.

38th (Welsh) Division Dragon Memorial

A Welsh language sign in front of a French War memorial

Took me ages of cycling through woods and a rough single lane road to find this. The memorial takes the form of a red Welsh Dragon tearing at barbed wire on top of a 3 metre plinth. It was at this battle that Siegfried Sassoon made a single handed attack on the enemy trenches on 4 July 1916, as recorded in his memoirs. One can still make out overgrown craters and trenches.

Small sample of video clips showing views of the Welsh Memorial at Mametz Wood from the Video History Today database. http://www.videohistorytoday.com

Dantzig Alley CWGC

This cemetery is located east of Mametz, on the north side of the D64, to Montauban. It is very near to the site of the German Dantzig Alley trench, which was captured by the 2nd Queens and 22nd Manchesters on the 1st of July 1916.
A stone in the wall commemorating the Royal Welch Fusiliers killed on the Somme between 1916 and 1918.

Over 2,000 lie buried here, 1535 of whom are identified. A rather strange inscription here reads "OF THE UNION BANK, HYDE".
Apparently the family was proud their relative had made managed to get a good job at a bank.

At the back is this interesting memorial in the form of a seat to the 14th Battalion of the Welsh Fusiliers . It has a quotation by Hedd Wyn, who had been awarded the Bardic Chair at the 1917 National Eisteddfod, Birkenhead, for his poem "Yr Arwr" ("The Hero"):

Ni all pellterau eich gyrru yn ango
Blant y bryniau glan
Calon wrth galon sy’n aros eto
Er a wahan

Distance cannot take away your memory
Children of those dear hills
Heart and heart remain together
Even though you are far away

Wynn had been killed earlier whilst serving with 15th Battalion, Royal Welch Fusiliers, at Pilckem Ridge on July 31st (at the same time as another war poet, Francis Ledwidge).

The memorial also reads "Erected by the Officers, Non-commissioned Officers and Men of the 14th (S) battalion Royal Welsh Fusiliers, 38th Welsh Division in memory of their comrades."

Flatiron Copse CWGC
This cemetery is located about seven miles east of Albert in France. There are now 1,572 Commonwealth servicemen of the First World War buried or commemorated here with 420 of the burials unidentified. It was started by the 3rd and 7th Divisions on July 14, 1916 whilst clearing Mametz Wood which you can see at the back of the cemetery. Among the 1500 graves, there are three pairs of brothers and a VC:
Lieutenants Arthur and Leonard Tregaskis both killed July 7
Lance Corporal Harry and Corporal Thomas Hardwidge, both killed July 11- both killed whilst trying to help the other.Privates Ernest and Herbert Philby, both killed August 21, 1916.

The grave of Lance Corporal Edward Dwyer, VC of the 1st East Surreys; one of four men who won VCs at Hill 60 in 1915. . He took part in the retreat from Mons in 1914 and was promoted in 1915. He was killed in action at Guillemont September 4, 1916. Pte Dwyer received his Victoria Cross from HM King George V at Buckingham Palace on June 15, 1915.
His Citation reads:

For most conspicuous bravery and devotion to duty on “Hill Sixty”on 20th April 1915. When his trench was heavily attacked by German grenade throwers, he climbed on to the parapet and although subjected to a hail of bombs at close quarters, succeeded in dispersing the enemy by the effective use of his hand grenades. Private Dwyer displayed great gallantry earlier in this day, in leaving his trench under heavy shell fire to bandage his wounded comrade.

Painting of Dwyer

Cycling from Calais to Belgium

2008-08-30T22:46:00.000-07:00

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Leaving Dover for Calais; the weather rarely improved the whole time...

Calais Southern CWGC

The military cemetery is located within the communal cemetery towards the rear.

720 lie buried here from all over the Empire- UK, Canada, New Zealand, Australia and South Africa.

A merchant navy 'deck boy' killed less than a fortnight into the Second World War

Private memorial to Flight Lieutenant Herbert Wanklyn
The graves of Frenchmen who died during the Great War, their flag flying above.

Les Baraques CWGC

The graves of four men executed for murder are here- one British, Private J Chandler, 10th Bn. Lincolnshire Regiment, and three men of the Chinese Labour Corps.

The Friends' War Victims' Relief Committee had originally been set up in 1871 by Quakers, and by the time of the war undertook relief and reconstruction work overseas.

Nearby the contribution of Brits and Canadians are remembered in the liberation of Calais.

St. Omer

By winning the Victoria Cross during the Indian Mutiny, Lord Roberts became the highest-ranking British soldier to ever hold a V.C. His citation:
On following up the retreating enemy at Khodagunge, Lieutenant Roberts saw in the distance two sepoys [going away with a standard. He immediately gave chase, overtaking them just as they were about to enter a village. Although one of the fired at him, the lieutenant was not hit and he took possession of the standard, cutting down the man who was carrying it. He had also on the same day saved the life of a sowar who was being attacked by a sepoy.”
In 1899, he took command of British troops in the South African (Boer) War, relieving Kimberley and advancing to Pretoria and the following year was made Earl Roberts and Viscount St Pierre, of Kandahar in Afghanistan, and Pretoria in the Transvaal Colony, and of the City of Waterford. At the age of 82 he took on the ceremonial post of Colonel-in-Chief Overseas Forces, taking particular interest in the welfare of the Indian troops. It was whilst reviewing them that he caught a cold which turned into pneumonia. He died here.

Former residence of Sir John French and Field Marchall Haig.

Here at the square in St. Omer, Place du Marechal Foch, Lord Roberts' funeral took place, attended by the Prince of Wales.

Ruminghem Chinese Cemetery

This was the first CWGC I visited on the trip after being surprised to find on my map a 'cimetiere chinoise' apparently in the middle of nowhere. In fact, there are more Chinese dead than villagers.
The village itself lies between Calais and St. Omer and the cemetery is to the west of the village, and a little north of the road to Muncq-Nieurlet. This area had been the Headquarters of No. 11 Labour Group and a Chinese Hospital were stationed at Ruminghem. There are now over 70, 1914-18 war casualties commemorated in this site with 39 originally having been brought in from St. Pol-sur-Mer Chinese Cemetery. The cemetery covers an area of 340 square metres and is enclosed by a wall of rubble and flint.

Hard to imagine in this isolated corner of Northern France a cemetery containing Chinese is being continually maintained by the Commonwealth War Graves Commission while I doubt anyone knows about these dead back in China.

The farmer who had offered to show me around when I arrived told me how, only a few months earlier, two bodies had been identified (after 90 years!) and the stones were replaced with these markers while awaiting new, inscribed headstones.

He had told me that the Chinese Government intends to erect some kind of memorial to the Chinese Labour Corps; can't fathom what propaganda purpose that would serve in the new, strident and assertive China of today...

Typical Chinese headstones found throughout France and Belgium.

This field across from the cemetery is where most of these Chinese actually died, clearing out the German ordnance, hence the dates indicating death almost all come nearly a full year after the Armistice.
As early as 1915 the Imperial War Graves Commission initiated a scheme to import and plant home grown maple seeds on Canadian graves; that same year the Australian wattle plant was planted on graves in Gallipoli. In the same spirit, cuttings of oleraia and Veronica traversii were imported from New Zealand. After the war the commission went to great lengths to ensure that only plants considered sacred and appropriate for commemoration were planted on Indian and Chinese graves. In this case you can see the two towering Gingko Bilbao trees which, this farmer informed me, had survived the atomic blast in 1945 (he didn't know which one) and brought here. In my schoolboy French I tried to explain that Chinese would not appreciate Japanese trees to be selected for the purpose, and perhaps willows would have been netter suited.

For a detailed examination of the Chinese serving in the Great War, you can read Brian C. Fawcett's THE CHINESE LABOUR CORPS IN FRANCE 1917-1921 at sunzi1.lib.hku.hk/hkjo/view/44/4400862.pdf
The CWGC also has a three page leaflet on the Chinese Labour Corps which is available to download in pdf form at http://www.cwgc.org/admin/files/cwgc_clc.pdf

on the other side of the Foret d'Eperlecques is
Bleue Maison CWGC

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.

Cassel CWGC

Cassel is on the hill upon which the Grand Old Duke of York marched his 10,000 men up only to march them down again. It was here that Sir John French set up his HQ followed by Marchal Foch and General Plumer.

The dead of two world wars lie in this communal cemetery

Belgian and French markers beside British allies