A weekend on The Somme

[tarantonight]

I am fully aware that we have just passed November 11th for another year, but was looking at some recent Phots from a trip to the Somme. Got me thinking.

Feel I am a robust individual - don't we all - but can recall times in France and Belgium when I had sudden attacks of Hay Fever, welled up and everything.

I noticed on my last visit there were a lot of school trips from the UK and the British Youth of today clearly moved by the experience. These trips, I believe, should continue for the memories of the fallen to live forever, not just in November.

What do you think Pruners??

[cazatou]

For trips to the Somme - 1st July would be an appropriate date.

[A2QFI]

I was very moved, when touring in the area some years ago. Driving along some minor road one would find a small cemetery with the names of some young men of a particular regiment, recorded on the headstones. 5 miles East there would be another cemetery with the dates a few days later but the same regiment. It was possible to plot the WW2 advance thru France by these very moving and beautifully maintained plots of land. So many graves and so few very far out of their teens. Very humbling and emotional!

[Saintsman]

At home, our war memorials and graveyards are vandalised. In France they are well maintained.

If only more people appreciated the price of freedom.

[Tyres O'Flaherty]

Saintsman

It's always a new generation, don't be against them for what they don't know about, or isn't relevant to them.

I grew up with a lot of my relatives who'd either lived through the first, or the second, ( My Great grandmother, and her brothers, who didnt all survive the western front, & and both my grandfathers, who ''did'', bomber command aircrew, all the way through, and miraculousley survived).

Those familiy members are real to me, but why should they mean anything to someone like these new kids ?

[enginesuck]

Twenty years ago I visited the battlefields of Northern France as an eleven year old on a history field trip, I suppose at that time i was one of the "youth" who would not be aware of the significance of the place , being that i had no military connection nor much awareness of the first war. However on being confronted with the rows upon rows of white crosses i was immensly moved as were the majority of my classmates, It is a special place.

[Man-on-the-fence]

Post removed as I am not having my images used in a pi$$ing contest.

[50+Ray]

Thanks for those photos. I found that the hay fever travelled a long way when I looked at them.
R

[scarecrow450]

I visited the area with my school many years ago. As soon as we got to the graves we all shut up and just spent our time reading as many headstones as we could. We were all very sombre that evening, even the loudest of our kids were quiet.

Think it should be compulsary for all school kids(of a certain age) to visit.

[C130 Techie]

Excellent photos. I am looking forward to a trip to Ypres at the end of May (A 50th birthday present). The sunset ceremony at the Menin Gate is something I have wanted to experience for many years.

[Samuel]

No matter how much you read, or think you understand about WW1, it is only when you get up there amongst all those graves that you begin to grasp the enormity of the whole scene.

My wife's father's two older brothers are both buried in France; both having been killed within six months of joining up in New Zealand and arriving in France, a third family member, a cousin, is on a memorial, but was never found.

We drove up to visit those graves three years ago, one being in a cemetery near Armentieres, which isn't a tourist town, and being late in the day, and with no hotel booked, we took what we could find in accommodation. It turned out to be a wonderful family -run three-bedroomed 'hotel'. The owners, a couple in their late 50s I would guess, were very curious as to why we were there, so I showed them all the details I'd run off the War Graves site, the names of the cemeteries being in French, of course.

This gentleman ran the sheets through his fingers, looked away, looked at me, then I realised he was crying! "Mort pour la France" was all he said. Who says they don't remember?

[foldingwings]

If you go to Ypres, take a half hour and sit in Tyne Cot Cemetery at the end of the day when all the tourists have gone. You will not be alone but it is one of the most humbling experiences that I have ever undertaken - especially when I realised that I was the oldest person there!

Long may we remember them.

Foldie

[SilsoeSid]

Tyne Cot




Pommereuil British Cemetery
Taken after retracing Great Uncle 2Lt Marcus Webb Higgs steps, exactly 90 years after he fell, 01:30 23 October 1918.

[The PM]

It's been a few years since I was there, but are the stone lions at the entrance to the Australian War Memorial in Canberra from the Menin Gates? It seems to ring a bell for some reason?

[Icare9]

Mods:
Please review justapplhere's post and if you agree that it is totally irresponsible emotive and pejorative, feel free to delete or edit as applicable
I'm all for free speech, but not to denigrate those unable to defend themselves from this slander.
They answered the call, whether toffs or poor, ozzie or whatever.

justapplhere: Please edit your post, it is totally uncalled for to describe people that way.

[clunckdriver]

Icare9, you will hear much the same in Canada, in particular Newfoundland, sorry old chap but history is history.

[Samuel]

I didn't gain the impression the comments made were about fighting men, but the incompetents running the 'shows', and it is a fact of history that they were incompetent; some of the best British historians said so! When 60,000 caualties a day doesn't alter a mind-set, then the mind is flawed! It isn't slander if it's true!

There was a 'knock-on' effect after WW1 in that, in the case of New Zealand in the desert in WW2, commanders, General Freyberg being but one, had the right to refuse British orders if they considered them not to be in the national interest: read "cannon fodder".

[SASless]

While living in the UK I took a long holiday and toured the area mentioned by others here and was absolutely stunned by cemetery after cemetery...many on each corner of a road junction divided by nationality. The loss of life during WWI concentrated in such a limited area just defies belief.

Then add to that the monuments in every small village and town around the UK....bearing the names of all the young men lost in that war....really brought it home to me.

In the film "Saving Private Ryan", as hokey as the film was overall....the opening scene of the old Veteran walking amongst the head stones with his family behind him, clearly set forth the human cost of war. Each one of those head stones represent such a family lost for all time. Multiply that by the number of soldiers killed in war and it makes one wonder why we allow such things to happen.

[matkat]

My son visited the Somme last year when He was 15 (organised school trip from Scotland) as a typical teenager I can say it certainly affected him, the photo's of him and his mates at the Menim gate etc certainly showed me the respect that he held for those that had fallen, one of which was His great uncle.

[tezzer]

Xmas ? New year visit

Myself, Mrs. Tezzer and a group of friends are visiting on the 30th of December, mainly for a 50th birthday celebration of a goo friend who strangely enough now lives in Australia. He is bringing his son, now 16, who is in the Australian equivalent of the ATC, his father and I were on the same squadron here in the UK, back in the 70's. Although the primary reason is for a birthday celebration, I am sure that the visits to the graves around where we are staying will be a sobering experience, especially at that time of year.

His brother, an ex Royal Marine runs a business, in the area offering B&B and well informed tours of the key sites, such is the interest to this day in the history of the massive sacrifice of this dark times.