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.