Day four (Tuesday 25th) - Homeward bound

All too soon, our tour of the battlefields was coming to an end. We had seen so much since Saturday yet were very aware that it was just the tip of the iceberg. After breakfast we got packed and checked out of the hotel, then boarded the coach with rain falling on our heads - the three glorious days were nice while they lasted! We didn't have far to go before our first stop of the day. The Devonshire Cemetery is 800 metres south of the town of Mametz. This settlement was within the German lines until 1st July 1916. On that day, the 8th and 9th Battalions of the Devonshire Regiments (parts of the 7th Division) attacked from a plantation called Mansell Copse, due south of Mametz village. Losses were heavy and it was in the copse that the Devonshires buried their dead. Six officers and 116 soldiers from the 9th Devonshires lie in a section of their old front line trench. The Cemetery contains 163 Commonwealth burials of the First World War, ten of which are unidentified. At the entrance is a commemorative stone which states "The Devonshires held this trench. The Devonshires hold it still." Our next stop was where I had my most awe-inspiring experience of the whole trip. The Lochnagar Crater was formed on the morning of Saturday, 1st July 1916. It was created when British tunnelling engineers detonated a huge mine placed beneath the German front lines. First they dug a shaft down about 90 feet into the chalk. They then dug horizontally 300 yards under the Germans and placed 27 tons of high explosive in two large chambers 60 feet apart. When the mine was detonated it created the huge crater which is still there today. Debris was flung almost a mile into the air, instantly killing an unknown number of enemy troops. A Royal Flying Corps pilot, Cecil Lewis in his book 'Sagittarius Rising' described what he saw from the air. He says, "The whole earth heaved and flared, a tremendous and magnificent column rose up into the sky. There was an ear-splitting roar, drowning all the guns, flinging the machine sideways in the repercussing air. The earth column rose higher and higher to almost 4,000 feet." The site was bought by a British businessman, Richard Dunning, so that it will be always preserved as a memorial to all the soldiers of both sides who died on that day. The crater has its own website which can be accessed by clicking here. The aerial photographs of the site are amazing! I think I will always remember my first site of the crater. I climbed up a slope towards a wooden cross memorial right on the edge of the crater. When I looked over the edge I gasped and my mouth fell open with amazement! Below me lay the largest hole in the ground I had ever seen. With a diameter of approximately 300ft (91 metres)and a depth of 70ft (21 metres) it has been described as "the largest crater ever made by man in anger". I have placed a short video sequence here which starts with the many poppy wreaths at the memorial and then the crater itself, though it is hard for the pictures to capture the awe that I felt on first seeing the crater!

The very thought of the explosion that caused it was, to me, utterly shocking in the extreme. It is hardly surprising that the site has over 200,000 thousand visits every year - and rising. Our last visit of the tour was at a place called Pozières. This village is on a ridge between Bapaume and Albert, and was of great strategic importance to allies and Germans alike. The village was taken on the 25th of July, and the crest of the ridge eleven days later. The first and second Australian Divisions were the victors, whilst the Australian fourth Division later took Mouquet Farm, not far from here. There were over 23,000 casualties in these actions. On the 5th of August, Douglas Haig recorded, "The Australians gained all their objectives north of Pozières and beat off three counter-attacks. A fine piece of work." Perhaps something of an understatement! At Pozières can be seen a Tank Memorial. It was from here that three tanks set off on the first day they were used as weapons of war - the 15th September 1916. At each corner of the memorial is a small-scale replica of some of the tanks used. Directly opposite the Tank Memorial is one of several sites associated with the Australians who fought in this area. At a time there was a windmill here. The site is flanked by the flags of Australia and France. A walkway leads up to a memorial stone bench with an inscription that records the capture of this site on August the 4th 1916, and states that the Australians "fell more thickly on this ridge than on any other battlefield on the war". After this last stop we headed back towards the Channel Tunnel terminal at Calais. Steve and Susan played a variety of songs from the era of the Great War - some well known, others not so. A brief snatch of video appears here:



As we were all provided with song sheets we were free to join in the singing. It was a very fitting ending to the long weekend.

I hope you have found this blog interesting. I can thoroughly recommend "Guided Battlefield Tours" to anyone interested in visiting this historic region. Steve and Susan were most excellent hosts, very knowledgeable, thoughtful and kind and made us all feel more than welcome guests. Even touches like keeping us well supplied with tea, coffee, biscuits, buns, toffees and chocolates contributed greatly to our enjoyment of the trip. Their website can be viewed by clicking here.

What better way to end this blog than with the words of Laurence Binyon (1869-1943), the poet and art critic, who was born in Lancaster in 1869. The fourth verse of his poem, "For the Fallen" are the very well known:

They shall grow not 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 in the morning
We will remember them.

Day three - We invade Belgium!

We had an earlier start today as we were going up to the Ypres area - a name that was notorious during the Great War. Our first port of call was at a place in Flanders called Hooge (pronounced "Hoo-guh"). It has a hotel there with a theme park behind it. In front are a number of old trenches, trees and and a beautiful small lake. During the First World War Hooge was the site of a château which was used as the British Divisional Headquarters for the area. Between 1914 and 1918 control of the area alternated several times between the opposing armies. During the conflict the British exploded an enormous mine which created a crater which in the course of time has become the lovely lake! During this time, the chateau was completely destroyed along with the entire village. Next we travelled on to the largest burial ground for Commonwealth forces in the world, the Tyne Cot Commonwealth War Graves Cemetery and Memorial to the Missing. The cemetery grounds were given to the United Kingdom in perpetuity by King Albert I of Belgium in recognition of the sacrifices made by the British Empire in the defence and liberation of Belgium during the war. It is located outside Passendale. The name "Tyne Cot" is said to come from the Northumberland Fusiliers seeing a resemblance between the German concrete pill boxes, which still stand in the middle of the cemetery, and typical Tyneside workers' cottages - Tyne Cots. The area was strategically important to both sides fighting there. It was captured by the Third Australian Division and the New Zealand Division on 4th October 1917 and soon after a cemetery for British and Canadian war dead was begun. The cemetery was recaptured by German forces on 13 April 1918 and was finally liberated by Belgian forces on 28 September of that year. After the Armistice, the cemetery was massively enlarged from its original 343 graves. The Cross of Sacrifice that marks many British war cemeteries was built on top of a German pill box in the centre of the cemetery,apparently at the suggestion of King George V who visited the cemetery in 1922 as it neared completion. Unusually the tall pedestal on which the cross stands has steps leading up to a viewing platform which allows a panoramic view of the whole cemetery. The stone wall surrounding the cemetery makes up the Tyne Cot Memorial to the Missing. On completion of the Menin Gate memorial to the missing in Ypres, it was discovered to be too small to contain all the names as originally planned. An arbitrary cut-off point of 15 August 1917 was chosen and the names of the UK missing after this date were inscribed on the Tyne Cot memorial instead. There are the names of 33,783 soldiers of the UK forces on the memorial wall, plus those of a further 1,176 New Zealanders. There are now 11,952 Commonwealth servicemen of the First World War buried or commemorated in the cemetery itself. 8,365 of the burials are unidentified. One interesting grave is that of Second Lieutenant Arthur Conway Young. The personal message on the headstone reads "Sacrificed to the fallacy that war can end war". Most unusual to see such a comment! Also interesting were the graves of two German soldiers, - presumably they died as prisoners. After our visit we stopped briefly at the Canadian memorial located in the village of Saint Julien. It commemorates the Canadian First Division's participation in the Second Battle of Ypres which included the defence against the first poison gas attacks along the Western Front. It is a very tall column on top of which is "The Brooding Soldier" the bowed head of a helmeted serviceman. It is enormously striking. Then it was on to lunch at "Varlet Farm" where our host was a delightful lady called Charlotte Cardoen who runs a "bed and breakfast" there. We had our first taste ever of the locally produced Passendale cheese during lunch. It resembles a loaf of bread and has a hard, but edible brown rind with spots of white. Inside, the flesh is golden, dotted with small holes and very creamy. It has a firm and damp consistency, slightly sweet bouquet and mild flavour. Truly delightful! After lunch Charlotte (whose English is amazingly fluent) told us something of the history of the farm which had been completely destroyed during the Great War. She revealed that unexploded munitions are regularly turned up when the land is ploughed and showed us a large collection of such items - some live but mostly harmless. After saying our goodbyes to Charlotte we stopped briefly at a German cemetery - Langemark. More than 44,000 soldiers are buried here. The local village was the scene of the first gas attacks by the German army, marking the beginning of the Second Battle of Ypres in April 1915. It is a sombre area, darkened by many oak trees whose acorns were littering the ground. Four ghostly stone figures can be seen at the far end as one enters the cemetery. There is a mass grave near the entrance. This comrades' grave contains 24,917 servicemen. Between the oak trees, next to this mass grave, are another 10,143 soldiers (including two British soldiers killed in 1918). 3,000 German school students (volunteer soldiers) who were killed during the First Battle of Ypres are buried in a third part of the cemetery. Steve read us a horrifying account of how these idealistic and militarily inexperienced young men were systematically mown down by experienced British soldiers during a German charge. I couldn't help but think of the really likeable German medical students who have come my way for teaching over the years - so intelligent, hard working, enthusiastic and enormously respectful - I'm sure that most of the 3000 would have been similar, had I known them. Next we were taken to "Hill 60" the site of an Australian assault that was subsidiary to the Battle of Neuve Chapelle. Hill 60 was not a natural highpoint, but was created as a result of the digging of the nearby railway cutting. As such, it was a strategically significant area of high ground and was the scene of much intense fighting over the years. In the first operation of its kind by the British, the Corps of Royal Engineers specialist tunnelling companies laid six mines nearby by April 10, 1915, right under the Germans. These were filled with around 10,000 pounds of explosives, with the resulting explosions ripping an enormous crater over a period of some 10 seconds. It flung debris almost 300 feet into the air and scattered it for a further 300 yards in all directions. No one knows how many Germans were killed as a result. The 90 feet deep crater is now in a forest and time has transformed it into a lake with trees and grass growing on the steep slopes running down to the water's edge - a peaceful beauty spot today! We moved on to Ypres, a city which nearly a hundred years ago had been devastated by the conflict but has been beautifully rebuilt. We spent some time looking round the fascinating museum of WW1 artefacts then went to the famous Menin Gate to watch the sounding of the Last Post and Reveille ceremonies - daily events since the Armistice apart from when the Nazis occupied the city. It was enormously well attended - by parties of school children as well as many adults. I have placed a short edited video of the ceremony here. Apologies for the poor quality of the pictures - lighting was less than adequate.



The Menin Gate is very beautifully illuminated by night as shown in the photograph here.

It was all in all a very sobering and thought-provoking day and I'm sure caused much reflection in many of our minds as to the rights and wrongs of armed conflict.

Day two - an especially interesting day for Ulster people!

After a very nice breakfast on a beautiful cloudless but cold morning, we headed off to the Thiepval Memorial to the Missing of the Somme - 72,195 British and South African men who died in the Battle of the Somme and who have no known grave.
It is near the village of Thiepval, Picardy. The memorial is 150 feet (46 m) high. Designed by Sir Edwin Lutyens, the memorial was built between 1928 and 1932 and is the biggest British battle memorial in the world. It was inaugurated by the then Prince of Wales (later King Edward VIII, who became the Duke of Windsor after his abdication.) on 1st August 1932. The Memorial also serves as an Anglo-French battle
memorial to commemorate the joint nature of the 1916 offensive. In further recognition of this, a cemetery containing 300 British Commonwealth and 300 French graves lies at the foot of the memorial. Many of the soldiers buried here are unknown. The British Commonwealth graves are rectangular and made of white stone, while the French graves have grey stone crosses. On the British headstones is the inscription "A Soldier of the Great War/ Known unto God". The French crosses bear the single word "Inconnu" ('unknown'). The grounds around the memorial are very beautifully laid out and maintained - in marked contrast to the horrific scenes in which all those men died. We located two names of special interest, firstly George Butterworth, who is best known as the composer of the very beautiful orchestral piece "The Banks of Green Willow" which commences with a haunting rendition by a solo clarinet. If you are unfamiliar with it, you can listen to it by clicking here.

The second name that interested us was that of a young Ulster rifleman, William Frederick "Billy" McFadzean VC who was born in Lurgan (the home town of my wife), County Armagh in what is now Northern Ireland. He was only twenty when, as a soldier in the Royal Irish Rifles, he was killed on 1st July 1916, near Thiepval Wood. Apparently a
box of grenades slipped into a crowded trench. Two of the safety pins in the grenades were dislodged. McFadzean, realising the danger to his friends and colleagues, threw himself on top of the grenades, which exploded, killing him but only injuring one other man. As a result, he was awarded the Victoria Cross, the highest award for gallantry in the face of the enemy that can be awarded to British and Commonwealth forces. The on site Visitor Centre is very interesting and well laid out with wall posters and video presentations. The gift shop is bulging with all manner of books about the First World War.
Pte. McFadzean VC

After a very welcome cup of tea, coffee and buns provided by Susan, we moved on to what was for us the highlight of the day, a visit to the Ulster Tower fairly near by. This is a memorial to the men of the 36th (Ulster) Division. The memorial was officially opened on November 19, 1921 and is a very close copy of Helen's Tower which stands in the grounds of the Clandeboye Estate, near Bangor, County Down in Northern Ireland.

The Ulster Tower on the Somme, shown on the left, pictured with Helen's Tower, Northern Ireland.

On the 1st of July 1916, men of the 36th Division made significant advances on the German front line but the enemy mounted counterattacks, and as the Ulstermen's stocks of bombs and ammunition dwindled, many fell back with small parties remaining in the German front lines. The casualties suffered by the 36th totalled over 5,000.

The tower contains a memorial room full of fascinating artefacts relating to the 36th Division's struggle against the Germans. There is an adjoining cafe, staffed by members of the Somme Association, which is based in Belfast. Teddy and Phoebe Colligan have been the custodians for ten years but are due to retire and move back to Northern Ireland in a few days. It was a delight to meet these lovely people who were so welcoming to us all. We would wish them a long and happy retirement.

In this photograph, Claire and I are pictured with them - we are the pair in the middle!

Teddy spent well over an hour telling us about the battle and took us into Thiepval Wood to show us some of the old trenches and tell us many fascinating anecdotes about the happenings there nearly a hundred years ago. Many examples of munitions and other equipment are on display in the cafe and there is even a video display room - well worth a visit. Teddy pointed out that the land on which the tower and cafe stands is a gift from the French people so is in effect "a little piece of Ulster". Visiting French dignitaries will not enter without an invitation as it is regarded as not a part of France - but they don't have to produce passports!

After lunch in the cafe, it was time to say our goodbyes to Teddy and Phoebe and to move on to a battlefield near the town of Serre. This was the site of the Northern "Pals" battalions' attack on 1st July 1916. (The Pals battalions of World War I were specially constituted units of the British Army comprising men who had enlisted together in local recruiting drives, with the promise that they would be able to serve alongside their friends, neighbours and work colleagues ("pals"), rather than being arbitrarily allocated to regular Army regiments.) Here there is a line of cemeteries which we were told stand on No Man's Land, half way between the German and British front lines. Some of the ground was recently ploughed so some of us wandered up and down the furrows looking for shrapnel, bullets etc but didn't find any. At a time, however, many unexploded shells were turned up by farmers and in fact as we were leaving we stopped to look at a shell that had been recently found
and was awaiting collection by a French bomb disposal squad. Amusingly, Steve told us that recently a member of one of his tour parties, on seeing such a shell, started kicking it and had to be told to stop!

Our last visit of the day was to the Newfoundland Park Memorial which commemorates the Newfoundland Regiment, part of the 88th Infantry Brigade within the 29th Division. It attacked the Germans here on the 1st of July 1916, and suffered appalling losses - 90% of the men ending up as casualties. After the War, Newfoundland purchased this land and the Canadian government maintains it in tribute to those brave men.
The statue of a caribou was erected on a hill as it was the symbol of the Newfoundland Regiment.

There is much to see within the park, including memorials and cemeteries as well as well preserved trench lines. The pathways are edged by electric fences, either to keep visitors off the shell-holed grassland, or to keep sheep on it! Soldiers of the Scottish 51st Division also saw action here and towards the rear of the Park is the statue of a kilted Highland soldier on top of a tall pyramid,
looking east towards the village of Beaumont Haamel which men of the 51st Division took on 13th November 1916. Directly opposite is another memorial to the 51st Division, a tall and simple wooden cross.

And so our day's outing came to an end - we had seen so much - and there is so much more to see in this area - we really must come back some day!

First day - down the tunnel to Loos.

We stayed last night at the Gatwick Central Premier Inn, then were picked up by the tour coach. Guided Battlefield Tours is a company set up by a husband and wife team - Steve and Susan Cocks who are retired teachers. On a beautiful sunny but cold morning we travelled to the Channel Tunnel terminus at Folkestone. This was a new experience for Claire and me, so we were interested to see how the system works. Well, the coach drove onto a carriage joined to other carriages - effectively a giant train. Once under way we were free to leave the coach and walk around inside the carriages, but the scenery was nothing to write home about! We then descended into the depths of the earth beneath the English Channel and in a very short time were emerging into an equally sunny France. We travelled towards the towns of Lens and Loos (pronounced "Luss" rhyming with "Cuss") close to the Belgian border, stopping on the way for lunch. The 1915 Battle of Loos was a conflict leading to many deaths on both sides and the cemetery there has several thousand graves, many of them marked "A Soldier of the Great War known to God" as so many human remains were unidentifiable. It is known as "Dud Corner" as so many shells have been found there which were duds! The walls there are inscribed with over 20000 names of soldiers with no known grave including Jack Kipling of the Irish Guards, the son of Rudyard.




The name of the elder brother of the late Queen Mother, Fergus Bowes-Lyon, an officer in the Black Watch Regiment, is also there. (The names of both men are highlighted here - they don't appear like that on the memorial!) Both were killed in action at the Battle of Loos.




As we had some time to spare before going to our hotel, we called at the largest French military cemetery in the world at Ablain St. Nazaire (Notre Dame de Lorette).


A total of 40,057 casualties are buried here. Almost all of the remains are casualties of the First World War. Burials also include six French graves from the Second World War, an unknown soldier of the French-Indochina war of 1945-1954 and an unknown soldier of the French-North African conflict of 1952-1962. There are burials of the remains of 64 Russians, one Belgian and one Romanian. Unfortunately the cemetery was closed when we got there. We moved on to our very pleasant-looking hotel, the "Mercure" in the town of Arras. We enjoyed a very nice meal there after an interesting talk by Steve Cocks about the Battle of the Somme, during which he showed us a Lee-Enfield rifle and bayonet dating from 1918. You can see an abridged video of the demonstration here:



All in all, it was a very memorable first day!

Just over two weeks before departure!

On 22nd October my wife Claire and I will be departing to Northern France for a four day tour of some of the Word War 1 battlefields - it will be a first for us. This blog will act as our diary and will carry photographs and video.

We will be travelling with a company called Guided Battlefield Tours http://www.guidedbattlefieldtours.co.uk/ a family run business which takes its clients to key World War 1 battlefield sites in France and Belgium, focusing primarily on the Somme and Ypres. The World War 2 Normandy battlefields are covered in separate tours.