Good-bye-ee

Monday 6th May 2013

Monday morning. A bank holiday in the UK but not here in Albert. According to the young lady on reception not much would be open in the morning so parking should not be a problem. On hearing we would be going to the Somme 1916 Museum in Albert she nipped off and came back with a couple of vouchers that would give us €2 off the entry price. A good start.

Checked-out and car loaded we headed into the centre of Albert.

We had punched in the address of the museum and hoped parking would be obvious and it turned out not too bad. We drove past the museum and found a space on the side of the road a couple of streets away. Unsure of what the parking sign meant we accosted the first person we saw to seek guidance. Luckily for us (and perhaps him!) the chap we accosted spoke fluent English having lived in England for a period of time. He was a little confused by the Belgian number plate but assured us that we were fine to park there.

Somme 1916 Museum

We entered the museum and navigated paying for the entry with pointing of fingers, waving of euros and extremely bad French.

Then we descended…




The museum is set in the tunnels under the city. These are old tunnels used as shelters during the war.
At the bottom we head left where a continuous 10 minute video plays alternately in English and French.

We learn what happened in the region during the war, about the tunnel complex and the museum itself. The video over, we head off along the tunnel into the museum proper.

The walls are lined with exhibits. Artefacts and mocked-up war scenes of soldiers performing various activities, each with detailed descriptions, putting it all into context. There are an impressive number of these exhibits and it takes us some time to take it all in, whilst also generating much debate between me and my father.

Someone here has helpfully put some pictures – I was too busy absorbing it all to take pictures.

There was a lot to see, a lot to take in. We spent much longer in the museum than we had anticipated. When we finally left the last display we went through a door behind which we could hear lots of gunfire noises. This was the final bit of tunnel before the exit, the noise and lights give you a brief glimpse of what it would have been like to live through the noise of the fighting. It sounded very realistic.

Up the stairs and out into the gift shop. An ice cream? Why not.

Sitting outside on the bench we eat our ice-creams and enjoy another beautiful day, looking out over the park outside the museum.

This is where I put my phone down on the bench.

We wander slowly back to the car. Well, we think we are. Having travelled underground for a considerable distance we are not entirely sure where we are.

We seek guidance from the heavens…

The Basilica of Notre-Dame de Brebières can be seen clearly from everywhere in the city. Mary and the infant Jesus sit brightly aloft.

We found our way back to the car eventually and entered the next destination in the SatNav.

The Lochnagar Crater

Just a five minute drive out of Albert and we arrived at the side of the crater. A sign warned us that we were entering at our own risk. “I must get a picture of this” I thought as I reached into my pocket for my phone. No phone. I patted one pocket after another, still no phone. The memories came flooding back. The memory of putting my phone down on the park bench but no memory of picking it up again! “Oh gosh, silly me” I exclaimed (or words to that effect).

A failed attempt at calling the museum is followed by a manic drive back into Albert. Amazing how confident your wrong side of the road driving gets when your phone is sitting on a park bench. Badly parking in a space near the Basilica, I leg it down the street to the park, down the steps and there, beautifully camouflaged on the bench, is my phone. I slowly walk back to the car catching my breath, waves of relief flooding over me.

We sedately drive back to the crater.

The Lochnagar Crater – Take 2

We pull up at the side of the crater experiencing a sense of déjà vu, except this time when I reach into my pocket I come out with my phone.

 

The Lochnagar Crater used to be the Lochnagar Mine. It was created by the Royal Engineers, packed with explosives and then detonated on the first day of the Battle of the Somme in 1916. This is of course not an isolated thing, it was done at various times and places throughout the conflict with varying degrees of success. This hole I believe did not in fact do as much as they hoped. In comparison the mine explosion at Messines was responsible for killing approximately 10,000 German soldiers.

It did however create a rather impressive hole in the ground.



Pictures cannot do this hole justice, you have to be standing here. In the picture above, to show scale, you can see my father on the other side of the crater. It is hard to imagine the the explosion that was big enough to create this hole.

This crater is now a memorial, and a service is held at the crater on July 1st every year, the anniversary of the detonation.

We should remember 1 July 1916 was the first day on the Somme, a single day on which there were nearly 58000 casualties.




I leave the crater frustrated at not being able to capture the essence of what I have seen here on camera, phone or video. Perhaps that is for the best.

Lunch again at Ocean Villas awaits us but first we have a couple of more places to visit.

Delville Wood

This was a miscalculation on our part, we should have done this on the previous day. We drive from the crater the few kilometres only to find that the visitor centre here is closed.

All is not lost. We park up and are still able to visit the stunning Delville Wood South African National Memorial built by South Africa to remember the soldiers who were part of the South African Overseas Expeditionary Force who died during World War One.

We walk along the long tree lined route to the memorial.




Up to the main entrance.




Through the arch and up to the building inside.




Sadly this was not open so we wandered around the back into the wood itself.

This is Delville Wood. The scene of a devastating action which saw just over 3000 South African soldiers at the beginning of the attack and just over 2500 casualties by the time relief came.

Today only a single tree of the original wood survives.





The wood now looks calm and idyllic. Standing there looking out over such beauty it is difficult to imagine the horrors that took place here.




We head back to the car stopping only to pay our respects at the cemetery opposite the memorial.




One last stop before lunch.

Guillemont

Just outside Guillemont, like in Langemarck, is a memorial to the 20th Light Division, the one my grandfather served in. This one sits on the edge of a field silently marking one of their objectives in 1916. Looking around we have an unbroken view over the flat landscape.

Ocean Villas….again.

We arrive at Ocean Villas. The sun is shining and we sit outside. I mix it up a bit and have lasagne and chips whilst my father, after much negotiation, decides on sausage, egg and chips.

Two other groups of people were also lunching and the chickens were providing light entertainment and gratuitously posing. Me being allergic to cats of course meant the cat made a beeline for me as soon as we sat down.




Finishing lunch we nip around the back to see the trenches.




During the war the houses in the village were commandeered, all the cellars used for various purposes and a trench built connecting all of them. A full description and much more information can be found at the Ocean Villas website (follow the menu links).




Avril keeps sheep as well as running the tea rooms and the museum.

How could we refuse when invited to see the newly born lambs.



Fully stoked we get in the car, set the SatNav for Brussels Airport and start off on the road home.

 

Leaving on a Jet Plane

I must say, the quality of the motorways leaving France and entering Belgium is awful. If I didn’t know better I would say some of the holes in the road were left over from the two world wars.

We left ourselves around 3 hours to get back to Brussels and this was more than ample. The journey was uneventful except for a little blip trying to find the petrol station, but we overcame. We ended up using about three quarters of a tank for the whole weekend and we did about 600km.

Drop the car off, check-in, buy the wife some perfume then sit in Starbucks with a cup of tea and an overpriced sandwich reflecting on the last four days. There was much to reflect on.

The plane is on time and we are homeward bound back to good old Blighty!


The End.

It's a Long Way to Tipperary

Sunday 5th May 2013

The area we were visiting was pretty small. No place was more than about 15km from another and most were much less.

Setting the SatNav for the Thiepval Memorial we set off from Ocean Villas. The memorial stands out on the landscape so it would not be hard to find, but better to play it safe…my navigational skills are infamous!

On the way, and very hard to miss, we stopped at the Ulster Tower. An impressive but strange sight in the middle of all the fields. This had been highlighted during our planning as somewhere that had a café and, although we had just finished lunch, it was such a nice day that sitting outside in the sunshine with a proper mug of tea, and some chocolate chip flapjack, seemed the right thing to do.



We had company. A couple of bikers who had come over from Northern Ireland were chilling too, along with some “locals” (their accents led me to believe they were not French), and we got chatting to the lady running the place.

Just off to the side of the cafe was a small “museum” giving the history of the Irish regiments and their role in World War One. It made very interesting reading and a change from some of the more general information that we had seen before.

A great imposing, yet unimposing, place to stop and look around.

But, onwards. Thiepval awaited and we were but a stone’s throw away.

The Thiepval Memorial

Car parked, we entered the visitor centre.

This by far contained the richest information of any of the visitor centres we had visited. The story of the war, and specifically the Somme area, was told in over twenty parts on displays as you walked around. We did.

There was a small room showing various old documentaries and films about the area. We sat down in the darkness and watched transfixed as we learned about the history of the memorial and about the local conflict.

Finally we exit the building into the bright sunshine and head for the memorial itself.



This large and impressive memorial was designed by Edwin Lutyens, the same person who designed The Cenotaph in London.

It is another of the memorials to the missing and has the names of over 72000 missing allied soldiers carved on the walls.

The plaque on the wall of the memorial does a much better job of explaining than I ever could:




Inside the memorial the various battlefields are remembered. These are a couple of the ones my grandfather had mentioned.



The sun is still shining brightly and the sky is blue with wisps of cloud.

We walk out of the back of the memorial into the cemetery.

This is split into two parts:

The French…




…and the British Commonwealth.

At the end is a memorial with the now familiar sword and cross.

We spend some time here. It is quiet, peaceful, the day is beautiful and we have nowhere else to be.

Finally we leave.

Lost in France

Up until now I have been extolling the virtues of the SatNav. It had guided us without fail to all the destinations we had asked.

Today it let us down.

I have found that the built-in POIs are usually pretty good, so when I searched for and found the Albert Ibis under the Hotels Near Me, I naturally assumed we would be directed to the Ibis Hotel in Albert.

Wrong. Fast forward about thirty minutes and we are sitting in the driveway of a farm.

My fault entirely. I trusted the SatNav when we had seen the McDonald’s (another story) a few kilometres back.

Needless to say, we found the hotel and managed to make ourselves understood (without having to raise our voices and speak slowly).

The next day we would be having more adventures before finally heading home.

To be continued….

The Sunshine of Your Smile

Sunday 5th May 2013

We wake to another fabulous morning. The sun is shining, the sky is clear and blue.

Our itinerary suggested a trip to Poperinge. This was one of the places my grandfather had mentioned as somewhere they went for a break or to be patched up. We decided, in the end, that it was probably best that we started our journey into France to make the most of the day.

Unable to park outside the hotel the night before, we left our trusty chariot in the square near the Cloth Hall.



Our initial destination would be a small village called Englebelmer. Here in an annexe to the village cemetery is a Commonwealth War Grave Cemetery containing the gravestone of my father’s uncle Jack.

More confident with driving now and with our destination punched into the SatNav (yes, one of the downloaded POIs) we set off.

The Road to Nowhere

At some point along the road we realised we were in France. We must have missed the unobtrusive sign that declared “Welcome to France”.  All the cars with French number plates were a big giveaway.

Soon we jumped on a motorway and, expertly guided by her ladyship, sailed effortlessly toward our destination only troubled when I embarrassed myself at the toll booth fumbling for change.

We had exited the motorway at Baupame and were now making our way across country, but it was not long before we pulled off the main road and turned onto the country lanes.

Driving through the countryside, not seeing a soul for miles, it certainly seemed like we had landed in the middle of nowhere.

Englebelmer

We believe my father’s uncle Jack died from his wounds in a medical facility in the area and his body was buried here at this small Commonwealth War Grave Cemetery.

My father had been before with his cousins some years ago, and as we pulled into the village he recognised the entrance to the cemetery.




Beyond the gates are the graves of the people from the village but an annexe houses the war graves.



Once again the place was impeccably well kept, stunningly so. The grass, the flowers, and the trees standing there like honour guards.

This visit was of course personal. I remember a photograph hung on the wall of my great aunt’s house of a solider in uniform. I remember being told that he had died in the war, but this was a long time ago. As we walk into the cemetery and up to the gravestone all these memories come flooding back connecting the past and present.



The day is beautiful, as is the countryside, and the only sounds we hear are the birds. It is very relaxing, and we stop for a few minutes to take in our surroundings and reflect on the moment.

Ocean Villas

It had been a good few hours since breakfast and we were feeling a bit peckish. Luckily the next item on the days itinerary was lunch at Ocean Villas. With practiced ease the destination was set.

Of course, the name of the village is Auchonvillers but was referred to by the British servicemen as Ocean Villas. Today it is home to a place run by a lady named Avril Williams where you can get a lovely cup of tea along with delicacies like ham, egg and chips. It would have been rude not to!



Our appetites sated we got back on the road to travel the few kilometres to Beaumont-Hamel, to what would be one of the most memorable places of our journey for me.

Beaumont-Hamel Newfoundland Memorial

This is a memorial to the members of the Newfoundland Regiment killed during World War One.
The site is the preserved battlefield where the regiment was all but wiped out in one of the first battles of the Somme in 1916.

We park up and are greeted by one of the Canadian students who come over to work at the memorial. He tells us that all the guided tours are booked up but we can go on a self-guided tour. He then rushes off and returns with a comprehensive leaflet with a map and numbered points to follow, along with full descriptions.

We head off into the woods.



The tour directs us along the path through the trees and to our first sight of the trenches. They are now covered in grass but there is no mistaking what they are even though they are a little shallower now.

That path curves round and we are directed to the Caribou Memorial, a very impressive sight.




A walkway gently circles this memorial until you get to the top and can see out across much of the battlefield.

From here we head to the trenches.




Much of the site is enclosed with electric fencing but this stretch of the trenches has been opened as a walkway. You can see it snaking into the distance. The guide tells us that this trench would have been about two feet deeper.

We walk along and eventually rise back up to ground level where we join a path roughly bisecting the field. From here we get a view of many more trenches and what we assume are shell holes.



Walking along the path into a dip, and then rising up again, we see a cemetery, one of several on the site. A school party precedes us and we casually listen to the teacher explaining things. We are left on our own and I pay my respects before moving on to the next stop in our tour.

This memorial site has been largely preserved in its original state. Electric fences enclose much of the land.

The sign below gives a stark reminder of how well preserved the site may be.




The Germans were positioned in this ravine. This afforded them a lot of cover and protection.




We pass more monuments and another cemetery, each one looked after with the care and attention that we have come to expect for these memorials.




Finally we walk back through the avenue of trees, planted as part of the memorial.




One last tour of the trenches before finishing up back at the Caribou Memorial. The crowds had gone so I went up one more time to take a last look over the site.



The visitor centre was our final destination. Small but very good. It tells the story of the people from Newfoundland and their experience fighting during the First World War. The final piece that makes the visit complete.

A few pictures and some words really do not do this memorial justice; we spent nearly two hours walking around the site.

This memorial provided a clear picture to me. It told a story, leaving nothing to the imagination. That is the real battlefield, those are the real trenches, and those are the real gravestones.

It does not so much make you not forget, it encourages you to remember.


We walk back to the car and head off to the site that we have been seeing in the distance since we turned off the main road earlier in the day – The Thiepval Memorial.

To be continued…

Keep the Home Fires Burning

Saturday 4th May 2013

The names of the dead ring out.

Walking towards the relatively new visitor centre at the Tyne Cot Cemetery the names of the dead can be heard spoken out loud as you walk along the path to the entrance. Once inside the visitor centre the names continue at a respectful pace, an eerie reminder of where you are.

We absorbed the information the visitor centre had to offer, things to read, videos to watch. Some familiar, some new, but all relevant.

When visiting a cemetery that is the resting place for nearly 12000 soldiers and a memorial to an additional 34000 soldiers, I feel you can not truly appreciate it without knowing about all the events that led to them to be there.

Stepping out of the visitor centre we followed the path down the side of the cemetery and headed to the main entrance. Our first sight of the cemetery, the sideways view of rows and rows of gravestones.




Finally we reach the entrance.




Excuse me for stating the obvious but there are a lot of grave stones at Tyne Cot. As we enter the cemetery this becomes very obvious. The grave stones all stand together in seemingly perfect geometrical alignment, playing tricks on the eyes like an optical illusion, but this is no illusion. Each stone and each name inscribed on the walls represents a soul who lost their life in a conflict I find harder and harder to understand.





Several German bunkers sit here, relics of the conflict, guarded by trees.




We take a closer look at the grave stones. Many graves identify people by name, others do not.

Some of the graves have no name.	Some of the graves have a regiment but still no name.

The graves are maintained with such care. The grass is cut, the edges trimmed. Flowers are planted. Grave stones that are old and worn are repaired. The Commonwealth War Graves Commission does an incredible job.

The stones not only name the soldiers and regiments, they also include the emblem of the regiments.

These are some of the emblems we saw:



We approach what I now know is called the Cross of Sacrifice and turn around to once more survey the full extent of the cemetery. It is a lot to take in.





The Memorial to Missing lies beyond. A wall made up of panels inscribed with the names of missing soldiers, an imposing sight curving around the back of the cemetery.

 

We walk up the length of the wall and pay our respects. It is the least we can do, before finally departing.

The next stop is the 20^th Light Division memorial in Langemark, another place my grandfather had been.

To be continued...