Day Twelve: 12 November 2010, Part Three

Time to continue Part Three: more on Vimy Ridge, and then back to Belgium.

Kate and I walked along the edges of the mine-craters at Vimy Ridge (photo left), and took in the depth and width of these massive holes.   There are asphalt trails along these edges, which make it easier to walk close--but not too close.  If a visitor fell into one of these craters, it would take more than a couple of people to pull them out!   We also walked through some of the reconstructed trenches, which are now faced with stones, with concrete bricks in the walkways.

The wind and cold made us decide to stop in at the nearby "Welcome Centre" in the Vimy Ridge park.   It was a small building, which contained a display on Canada's contributions in the First World War.   The display was called "Vimy: The Great War and the Canadian Way" (photo right, below).   

After the Battle of Vimy Ridge, the British began to use the Canadian Corps as 'shock troops': men who could be counted on to get the job done, in seemingly impossible circumstances.   The Canadians were sent to some of the most difficult battles on the Western Front, and proved the British commanders right: they could get the job done.

But these victories came at a steep price: over 600,000 Canadians died in the First World War; a sizable number given their total national population at that time.

In the Welcome Centre, Kate and I met up again with Erica and Gaetan, our two young 'tunnel guides'.  They both hailed from Ottawa, Canada's capital, and were working as volunteer interns at the park.   We chatted with them for a few minutes.   Kate and I also signed the Centre Guest-Book, and I bought a book on the Vimy Memorial for a good friend in Canada, and also picked up some Canadian maple leaf/poppy pins and a free brochure on the Memorial.

It was now past mid-afternoon, and time to head back to Ypres.   Reluctanly, Kate and I bid our farewells to Erica and Gaetan, and went back to the van.   Our intrepid guide Steve was taking a well-deserved snooze in the driver's seat!   But he woke up in time to allow Kate and I to get back in the van, and be on our way.

I was sad to leave Vimy Ridge.   But I hope to come back again soon.

By the time we got back on the French expressway, it was raining steadily.   Steve turned the radio on to the BBC News, and Kate dozed off.   I sat and watched the French landscape go by the windows, and we crossed the border back into Belgium; soon we reached our final stops: Tyne Cot Cemetery, and the Canadian Memorial at Saint-Jullien.

Tyne Cot (so called because members of the Northumberland Fusiliers thought German pillboxes built here resembled "Tyneside Cottages") is located near the town of Passchendaele, scene of one of the worst campaigns of the First World War (entrance photo left).   The ground in this part of West Flanders has a high water table; today, there is a good drainage system in place to sluice off excess water.   But during the war, there was so much shelling and fighting going on, the system was destroyed, and the water had nowhere to go.  To compound the problem, it rained incessantly during the campaign, and all the troop movements on both sides turned the ground into boot-sucking, thick mud.   It was so deep that vehicles and artillery pieces would be completely mired, and both wounded men and animals would literally drown in this stuff.   It explains why so many men who fought and died here simply disappeared.

Ground was gained in feet--not miles.   And only God knows how many men went missing here.  It is no wonder that British war poet Siegfried Sassoon wrote in his poem Memorial Tablet: "I died in Hell....they called it 'Passchendaele'".    The name itself has become a symbol for wasted life in war.

We approached Tyne Cot Cemetery along a narrow road adjacent to a farm.  As I climbed out of the van, I could see the squishy ground in the farm field, with holes filled with water.   And it really brought home to me some of the horror the men buried in this cemetery must have experienced.   Very sobering.

Tyne Cot Cemetery is the largest British-Commonwealth war cemetery in the world--not just in Europe. It holds 11,954 graves, of which 8,367 are unnamed.   This area was captured by the 3rd Australian Division and the New Zealand Division on 4 October 1917.  Two days later, a cemetery for British and Canadian war dead was begun here.   The Germans captured the cemetery in April 1918 during their final attempt to defeat the Allies in the West, but it was finally retaken by Belgian forces on 28 September 1918.   Originally, it contained only 343 graves.   But after the Armistice in November 1918, it was massively enlarged. bringing in the dead from the surrounding battlefields and smaller cemeteries. Work on the cemetery was completed in 1922.

Tyne Cot's Cross of Sacrifice rests on one of the German pill boxes still in place; it was specifically placed there at the suggestion of King George V, who visited the cemetery in 1922, as it neared completion.   The inscription on the base (second photo below) of the Cross of Sacrifice reads: "This was the Tyne Cot Blockhouse captured by the 3rd Australian Division, 4 October 1917".

The countries whose soldiers lie in Tyne Cot are Great Britain, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, British West Indies, Newfoundland ( which was a Dominion during the First World War; Newfoundland was not an 'official' Canadian province until 1949), and France.   The ground in which they lie was given in perpetuity by the Belgian people, in recognition of the sacrifice made for Belgium's liberation.   Ironically, there are also four German soldiers buried in Tyne Cot.

I found quite a few 'unknown' graves in Tyne Cot:

An 'Unknown London Regiment Soldier":
known unto God.

An "Unknown" New Zealand Soldier.

An 'Unknown" Australian Soldier.

But there were also 'known' graves in Tyne Cot too:

Grave of I. Whitfield,
New Zealand Auckland Regiment,
Killed 4 October 1917.

Here is the grave of a Jewish New Zealander, covered with small stones:

Grave of Lance Corporal S.W. Harris,
20th Battalion, Australian Infantry,
Killed 9 September 1917.

The numbers of gravestones in Tyne Cot Cemetery are absolutely staggering.   And we're not even talking about the numbers of those who have no known grave. 

 Behind me, as I took the above photo of the Stone of Remembrance, is a massive circular wall: the Tyne Cot "Memorial to the Missing".  When the Menin Gate Memorial in Ypres was completed in 1927, it was discovered there was not enough room to list all the names of the Missing as originally planned.   The cut-off date for the Menin Gate Memorial names was put at 15 August 1917.   

Meanwhile, New Zealand's contingent in the Commonwealth War Graves Commission declined to have any of their Missing engraved on the Gate at all; instead, it chose to put memorials to their Missing near the battlefields where they fought, and Tyne Cot was one of those locations.   It is integrated within the Tyne Cot Memorial, in an apse in the wall itself.

The Memorial Wall was dedicated on 20 June 1927.

The inscription reads: "Here are recorded the names of officers and men of New Zealand, who fell in the battles of Broodseinde and the First Battle of Passchendaele, October 1917, and whose graves are known only to God".   There are 11,176 New Zealanders, plus 33,783 members of UK forces in total on this wall (photo left).   And none of them have any known grave.  Absolutely horrifying....!   

By the time we left Tyne Cot Cemetery, it was quite dark, and the rain was picking up.   And there were still busloads of Belgian students getting off huge tour buses in the car park!   How they could see in the gathering gloom, only they, and their teachers, knew..

But as for Steve, Kate, and me, we were headed to our final stop of the day: the Saint-Julien Memorial: also known as "The Brooding Soldier".

The Saint-Jullien Memorial (below) commemorates the Canadian First Division's participation in the Second Battle of Ypres, in April 1915, and the Canadians' defense against the first use of poison gas by the Germans on the Western Front.   It stands 11 meters high, and can be seen for miles.   The ground on which it stands was known during the war by the Canadians as "Vancouver Corner". 

After the First World War, the Imperial War Graves Commission (the precursor to the present-day Commonwealth War Graves Commission) granted Canada eight sites - three in France, and five in Belgium - on which to erect memorials.   Each of these sites represented a significant Canadian engagement in the war, and it was originally decided that each battlefield would be treated equally and have the same kind of memorials erected.  

The Canadian Battlefields Memorial Commission was formed in November 1920, in order to discuss the means to hold a competition for each European site.   The eventual sculptor, chosen in 1922, for Saint-Jullien was one Frederick Chapman Clemensha; he finished second to Walter Seymour Allward, who designed the Canadian National Vimy Memorial.   Clemensha's design was supposed to also be placed on the remaining six sites.   But it was only used at Saint-Jullien.   

The name Canada can be seen inscribed on the monument's base.   There is also a tablet with this inscription:

"This column marks the battlefield where 18,000 Canadians on the British left withstood the first German gas attacks the 22nd-24th of April 1915: 2000 fell and lie buried nearby".

The Memorial was unveiled on 8 July 1923 by Prince Arthur, Duke of Connaught (third son of Queen Victoria and Prince Albert the Prince Consort).   The tribute speech was given by France's Marshal Ferdinand Foch, the former Supreme Commander of Allied Forces on the Western Front.  

I did get a look at the soldier's face, even while dashing through the raindrops to get photos.   He looks unbearably sad, and definitely brooding; his head is bowed, and his hands rest on a reversed rifle.   It is an outstanding Memorial, to honor the Canadians who fought and died in and around Saint-Julien.  

 I wish we could have spent more time here, but it was now pitch-dark, and the rain made visibility even worse.  I threw a quick kiss to "The Brooding Soldier", and told him he wasn't forgotten--and then joined Kate and Steve back in the van for the final leg to Ypres.

Along the way, Steve pointed out various First World War sites like "Kitchener's Wood" and "Mousetrap Farm"; we took his word for it, as the rain made it hard seeing in the dark.

When we finally arrived back at Steve's bookshop, Kate was going to look around for a bit before she caught a train back to Brussels, so she would miss that night's "Last Post" ceremony at the Menin Gate.  I needed to get back to Erna's, to write about the eventful day, and pack up for my return trip to the UK the following day.   So I bid safe journey to Kate, and Steve brought me safely back to Erna's.  He would pick me up in the morning and take me to the Ypres train station, to begin my journey to Lille, and subsequently back to Britain.

It was certainly another day to remember, on a trip to remember!