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THE WESTERN FRONT: YPRES – VIMY – SOMME
ITINERARY with HISTORICAL BACKGROUND
FIRST DAY
12.15 p.m. DOVER-CALAIS P&O ferry.
Ypres: Chateau Wood, 1917
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To the largest cemetery in Flanders, LIJSSENHOEK, near POPERINGHE. This beautiful cemetery contains a large German plot, as well as British, Commonwealth, French and – uniquely & American graves. Men from a Chinese Labour Corps lie grouped together, all killed on the same day three months after the Armistice (presumably an explosion). Lt. Col. Beatty Pownell, the last officer to die in the Salient, is buried here. The great barn of Remi Farm, a casualty clearing station that abuts the cemetery, bears on its walls and beams the graffiti and names of Tommies and Poilus.
Ruins of the Cloth Hall, Ypres, 1919
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A short drive takes us to POPERINGHE (‘POP’) where so many British troops enjoyed R&R, the more spiritual of them going to the Rev. Tubby Clayton’s TOC H (Talbot House – TOC being the old phonetic ‘T’. The sanctuary had been proposed by Col. Reginald Talbot in May 1915 as a haven for all ranks, and was subsequently named after Lt. Gilbert Talbot, the Col.’s brother, who was killed at Hooge on July 30, 1915, and lies buried in Sanctuary Wood Cemetery).
3 kms. outside ‘POP’ stands BRANDHOEK New British Cemetery No. 3., where a double VC – Capt. N.G. Chavasse, VC and Bar, MC, RAMC lies (Plot 111 Grave B15). 2 kms. away, just south of VLAMERTINGHE in the New British Cemetery, rests another VC – CSM John Skinner, VC, DCM, KOSB (Plot XIII Grave H15). He won his VC at 3rd Ypres when, despite wounds, he knocked out three blockhouses in one continuous action in August.
To YPRES (‘WIPERS’), so strategically important, held by the British throughout the War, even during the trauma of the German Spring ’18 offensive. Visit to the Salient Museum (‘In Flanders Fields’ – a slightly preachy place) in the restored CLOTH HALL.
The Cloth Hall, Ypres, now
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Thence to the service (20.00) at the MENIN GATE MEMORIAL, the Monument to the Missing of the Salient, that bears the names of 54,896 British officers and men killed between 1914 and August 15, 1917). This inspiring arched Memorial was designed by Sir Reginald Blomfield and inaugurated by Field Marshall Plumer in 1927, in the presence of King Albert. The last post has been sounded under the arch, by two buglers from the Ypres Fire Brigade, ever since November 11, 1929, except for a break during the German Occupation. When the Germans left Ypres on the morning of September 6th 1944, the Call sounded out in the evening.
Stay at the Ariane Hotel in YPRES. Dine in restaurant in the Grand’ Place.
SECOND DAY
Passchendaele mud, 1917
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Through the MENIN GATE MEMORIAL to TYNE COT CEMETERY, the largest of all, named after nearby cottages that men from the 50th. Northumberland Division thought resembled those on the Tyne. The cemetery was designed by Sir Herbert Baker to look like a giant English churchyard, with the flint walls and gateway laid out with the precincts of Winchester College in mind. There are 11,908 graves in this beautiful place, and a Memorial arc to the Missing, listing 34,888 soldiers killed between August 16, 1917 to the end of the War. The Cemetery stands on ground once littered with bunkers and pillboxes, captured eventually by the 2nd. Australian Div. on October 4th. 1917. As the fighting raged, the largest of the blockhouse was used as a dressing station, the dead being buried around it. The Memorial Cross stands on the blockhouse. Two Australian VCs, Sgt. L. McGee and Capt. Jeffreys are buried where they fell, in the shadow of the Cross. The view – towards PASCHENDAELE and down to YPRES - emphasises the strategic importance of the Ridge.
Nicky Bird, Matthew Squires, Arras British Military Cemetery, 2004
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To HILL 60 (created by 19th C. railway excavations) south of the MENIN ROAD, fought over so many times and held, albeit briefly, with great valour at 2nd Ypres by the Dorsets. The Germans captured the Hill in Dec. ’14 and thus enjoyed excellent views over the British lines to YPRES. Tunnelling began almost immediately, culminating in April 1915 in the successful blowing of five chambers under the German fortifications. Gas counter-attacks eventually forced the British withdrawal and HILL 60 remained in German hands until June 7, 1917, when HILL 60 was taken – with the assistance of two enormous mines – during Plumer’s Battle of MESSINES RIDGE. Craters and bunkers can still be seen, although the blowing of so many mines completely altered the shape of the Hill.
Then drive south to ARRAS in the SOMME region. Check in for two nights at the Hotel Univers. Arras was briefly held by the Germans in 1914 but thereafter the British and French garrisons successfully resisted Von Below despite furious bombardment, particularly from the air, when the town was largely destroyed (since restored). The ‘boves’, or underground caves, became an underground city and haven, and can be visited.
To the ARRAS MEMORIAL and the BRITISH MILITARY CEMETERY on the Faubourg d’Amiens. The Memorial records 35,928 dead with no known graves, who died in the many battles here, including Arras and Vimy Ridge. Among the aviators engraved on the Air Services memorial is the great ace Major M. Mannock VC.
Nearby is the sombre place of pilgrimage, the Mur des Fusilés, where French patriots were executed during the last war. 200 plaques record their names and Resistance organisations. A concrete post stands where they were shot.
Vimy Ridge: the Canadian Memorial
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Thence, if time (otherwise to be visited the next day) to VIMY RIDGE, where the monumental Canadian Memorial stands witness to the battlefield finally taken by the Canadians in 1917, during the Battle of Arras. The battlefield – the entire Ridge – was given to Canada by France and is a Memorial Park, still bearing the scars of innumerable shell-holes, tunnels, trenches and bunkers…and in the undergrowth unexploded bombs, 5.9s and grenades. The Canadians built over six miles of tunnels, a subterranean and almost bomb-proof world of stores and offices, barracks and dressing stations, that included narrow gauge railways. A Canadian student will conduct you through the preserved tunnels (not for the claustrophobic). Above, the figure of Canada mourning for her 60,000 dead is the centrepiece of the Memorial.
Return to ARRAS and dinner at La Coupole d’Arras, 26 bd. Strasbourg.
THIRD DAY
Caribou Monument, Newfoundland Park, Beaumont Hamel
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To BEAUMONT HAMEL and the Newfoundland Memorial Park, via the ULSTER TOWER, an exact replica of a tower on the estate where the 36 (Ulster) Div. trained. Here, in these 40 acres, is the best preserved of all battlefields, the trenches still zig-zagging across the pock-marked fields. You can see wire and shell casings littered around, walk across No Man’s Land (without 60 lbs. on your back), and peer into the infamous Y-Ravine where German machine gunners destroyed — on July 1, 1916 — the Royal Newfoundland Regiment of 29th. Div. The great Caribou Monument to the Newfoundland dead and missing is the most impressive of all the monuments in the Park. The tiny Hunter’s Cemetery by Hawthorn Ridge, contains the graves of 46 Highlanders killed when the area was finally taken, towards the end of the Battle of the Somme, in Autumn, 1916.
Thiepval Monument by Lutyens, 2004
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1 km. away is Lutyens’ great MEMORIAL TO THE MISSING at THIEPVAL, recording the names of 73,412 men who died in 1916/17 and have no known graves. A cemetery behind contains the graves of an equal number of French and British unknown soldiers. The village, which was totally destroyed, was a German fortress above and below the ground, only captured after heavy fighting on Sept. 28, 1916, when the 51st. Highland Div. took the Ridge.
Men of the 4th Batt. Worcesters, cheerfully going up the line on June 28 1916
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Thence visits to several important sites and places – to the preserved, vast LOCHNAGER MINE CRATER at LA BOISSELLE outside ALBERT (with its famous leaning Madonna — now upright — atop the Basilica) blown at 07.28 on July 1, 1916, the start of the attritional Battle of the Somme…from this vantage point, the German front line on July 1, one can see the whole of the British sector of the battlefield stretching to Thiepval and Beaumont Hamel, and appreciate the importance of the high ground the Germans occupied and the slope the British volunteer citizen army had to surmount; plus a visit to the POZIÈRES tank memorial and neighbouring Australian memorial on the mound where a windmill stood, ground captured at tremendous cost by the Australians in 1916; and – if time – a visit to the Historial of the Great War at PÉRONNE, an informative museum of impressive design.
Return to ARRAS, hotel and dinner.
FOURTH DAY
12.30 p.m. CALAIS-DOVER P&O ferry.
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