Saturday 10 April - Ypres

A Monument to the Canadian Corps on  Mont Sorrel

The inscription reads "Here on Mount Sorrel and on the line from Hooge to St Eloi the Canadian Corps fought in the defence of Ypres. April - August 1916"

A view of Ypres from Mount Sorrel. A very pastoral view today, but it would have been far different in 1916. The city is now known by its modern Flemish name of Ieper.

The city of Ieper, Belgium.

The town square, very open and very clean.

We had a delicious lunch of baguettes and cheese with liberal quantities of beer and wine - coco-cola for Louise and the kids.

A view of the Cloth Hall in the city centre.

Other views around the city centre.

The Menin Gate viewed from the city centre.

A photo from Archives Canada showing Canadian Troops marching through Ypres, passing the original Cloth Hall.

The Lille Gate dating from 1395 was one of two entrances into the ancient small settlement on the Iepere River. It managed to survive the battle for Ypres and rooms leading off from the gate were once used as HQ for the Canadian Tunneling Companies.

There are many cemeteries located around the city.

This small one was just to one side of the gate.

The cemetery contains the graves of 198 Commonwealth soldiers killed in the First World War. All but ten have been identified.

A closer view of the Menin Gate

On the walls of the monument to those who died in the battle of Ypres are 88,880 names of Commonwealth soldiers whose remains have never been found.
A relative?

The honour guard assembles. This ceremony has taken place every day since 02 July 1928; 1927 was the year the monument was opened. The citizens of Belgium have undertaken to sound the Last Post as a lasting memorial to those who gave their lives.
The ceremony was was moved from the Menin Gate to Brookwood Military Cemetery in Surrey England during the German occupation.

Every night at 2000hrs the road passing under the gate is closed and buglers from the local fire brigade sound the Last Post.

Unfortunately we were at the wrong end. to view the buglers.

Of all the monuments we visited and the ceremony we attended at Vimy, this was the most moving evening for me, surrounded by walls that contained so many names of men who have no known resting place.

Saturday 10 April - Paschendale

Saturday saw us on the way to the village of Paschendale. The photo above is from Archives Canada and shows the battlefield of Paschendale.

And here is the village of Paschendale today.

 

The entrance arch to the Memorial Museum of Paschendale (still getting use to the new camera.)

Quite a contrast to how it looked in 1917

A former residence that was donated to the village to house the museum. I was so interested in the displays that I forgot to take any photos.

After about an hour in the museum we made our way to Tyne Cot Cemetery, the largest Commonwealth cemetery in the world. There are 11,954 graves of men killed in the First World War, 8367 of these are the graves of unidentified British and Commonwealth soldiers. Those graves are marked simply with the words Known Unto God.
 Several smaller cemeteries were closed and the remains brought to Tyne Cot.

Maeghan the panda is signing the Cemetery Register; a register is found at each cemetery and according to Jeff the pages are archived in Ottawa.

The cross of Sacrifice, of which there is one at each cemetery. In driving around visiting different sites, it was easy to spot small cemeteries scattered around the countryside.
 

Jeff and Maeghan lay a flag and poppy at the grave of Pte Robertson, a recipient of the Victory Cross.

Below is a description of his heroism from Veterans Affairs

Private James Peter Robertson who died on November 6, 1917 

Service Number: 552665

Age: 34

Force: Army

Unit: Canadian Infantry (Manitoba Regiment)

Division: 27th Battalion

Citation: An extract from "The London Gazette" No. 30471, dated 8th Jan., 1918, records the following:-"For most conspicuous bravery and outstanding devotion to duty in attack. When his platoon was held up by uncut wire and a machine gun causing many casualties, Pte. Robertson dashed to an opening on the flank, rushed the machine gun and, after a desperate struggle with the crew, killed four and then turned the gun on the remainder, who, overcome by the fierceness of his onslaught, were running towards their own lines. His gallant work enabled the platoon to advance. He inflicted many more casualties among the enemy, and then carrying the captured machine gun, he led his platoon to the final objective. He there selected an excellent position and got the gun into action, firing on the retreating enemy who by this time were quite demoralised by the fire brought to bear on them. During the consolidation Pte. Robertson's most determined use of the machine gun kept down the fire of the enemy snipers; his courage and his coolness cheered his comrades and inspired them to the finest efforts. Later, when two of our snipers were badly wounded in front of our trench, he went out and carried one of them in under very severe fire. He was killed just as he returned with the second man.

Pte Robertson's headstone.

I don't know why some of the headstones are severely weathered and others still quite legible. i guess it is possible that headstones are periodically replaces as they become illegible.

A very sobering visit.

Friday 09 April - Vimy

The car is packed and we set off for Dover and the ferry.

A view of Dover Castle from the petrol station where we fill up before proceeding to France. Somewhat the same as travelling to Quebec. What is it with the French and their expensive gas/petrol.

We just missed the ferry so we get in line and settle down for lunch. Someone planned well for the journey and the chance we would miss the ferry.

Our intrepid driver chillin' before entering Europe.

And in comes the ferry, right on time. We were travelling on the Norfolk Ferry Line, which operates ferries all over England and Scotland

Along with a whole bunch of other ferries.

The ramps are up and we are off.

It was thrilling to finally see this view in person!!

And now we wait for 2 hours.

My first sight of Europe, the approach to Dunkirk.

The port of Dunkirk. So much history.

The visitors center at Vimy. I believe the flag that is seen at right is the Flag of Canada circa 1914.

I hope this plaque is legible. It remembers Lt Col Michael Watkins, a British demolition expert who died on 11 August 1989 while removing munitions left from the Great War.

Much of the area has been left untouched since the battle for fear of detonating buried munitions. After the battle this was all mud, there was no sign of live vegetation. How the trees got there, I don't know; they seem to be all of the same species.

Louise in the trenches. The 'sand bags' are actually concrete replacements.

Maeghan and Alexander making their way through the observation trenches.

A forward observation post. The enemy lines were just twenty-five meters away at this point.

The lawn care crew. The sheep are light enough so as not to set off any buried munitions; and if they do - dinner.

 

Maeghan and Alexander in the German trenches. Both would have been early casualties as there are taller than the average soldier during the First World War

The German trenches just 25 meters from the Canadian trenches - just beyond the range of hand thrown grenades.

We were fortunate to be at Vimy on the day of the ceremony to remember John Babcock, the last Canadian Veteran of the First World War. The ceremony was to begin at 6:00pm so we cut short our tour of the battlefield and made our way to the Vimy Memorial.
Below are Alexander, Jim Harkness (Jeff's step-father), Maeghan and Jeff.  

I was not prepared for the first sight of the monument. I had seen numerous pictures of it, but to view the monument on the battlefield, and understand why it was there was overwhelming. The monument brings about a sense of profound sadness; the names of 11,285 Canadian are inscribed on the base of the monument because their final resting places are unknown. I know there is a sense of pride in Canada for what Canadian soldiers were able accomplish at the battle of Vimy, but I could not find that within me, just sadness at the cost.

All of the statues evoke a sense of profound sadness and loss.

This is the front view of the statue pictured above. I had to replace my camera just a week ago and have not learned how to control the exposure. On this side of the monument we were facing west into the sun.

I think this gave young Alexander Hague something to contemplate.

The Canadian colour party marching to the monument.

The French Honour Guard

Representatives of the French veterans.

Representatives of the Canadian veterans and the Canadian ambassador addressing the crowd.

The land we were standing on was, for all intents and purposes, Canadian soil. We were attending a Canadian ceremony for a Canadian veteran. Why then was 85% of the ceremony in French. I am proud to live in a country that is bilingual; unfortunately I do not have the gift of learning other languages. I have no problem with Canadian ceremonies being in both our official languages, but when most of the dignitaries are introduce only in French and the majority of the speeches are in French I have problems following the service.

So we left and did not see them release the two baskets of pigeons they had tucked behind the wall. I noticed that in the ceremony at Ottawa they released white doves, we had run of the mill pigeons.
Our leaving prompted a few more people, probably English speaking Canadians, to also leave.

Are we in Egypt? Off in the distance we could see what looked like pyramids. I am still searching to find out what they were.