Photos – near the end of this lot.
The visits to all these sites are great for Kemm and I and most of what I’ve written in the last day or so is so that we can keep track of what we’ve done but may seem a little over the top to some so apologies that our ‘holiday fun’ hasn’t wuote commenced yet for more interesting reading!…..
First stop today, Hill 60, just outside of Ypres – Not a natural hill but the site of numerous tunneling endeavors by the Australians. The Australians job was to protect the tunnels from being discovered by the Germans. The on-site memorial is dedicated to those tunnellers. It was bucketing down when we arrived there and we sat in the bus discussing the area to begin with then the rain stopped and brilliant sunshine came out so we wandered up the track to see the bomb craters and formations of the hill under which all the tunneling had taken place.
Traveling through the town of Messines and along Messines Ridge, we can see the 360 degree views around the area an how important the ridge was on holding the ridge line .
Toronto Avenue cemetery in Plugstreet Woods holds the only all Australian cemetery in Belgium within the woods.
Stopped off on our travels at yet another Commonwealth War Graves cemetery where one of our tour group found the gravesite of his great-uncle – (planned by our tour leader to visit). A small note of remembrance and reading of The Ode brought a tear to our eyes.
VC Corner with 410 Australians buried here – the only all Australian cemetery in France. This region was the scene of the Battle of Fromelles where 5,500 Australian’s lost their lives in one day in a battle that was initially devised to only be a diversion to the real battle areas, yet the order was given to go ahead anyway, just because the men and resources were available.
Pheasant Wood Cemetery in this Fromelles region, was built in 2010 to commemorate those 250 men who were exhumed from the mass graves uncovered at Pheasant Wood in 2010.
DNA matching is ongoing from this cemetery and as a new body is identified the ‘Unknown’ headstones are replaced with named headstones.
A visit to the Canadian Memorial at Vimy, gave us an insight into trench warfare as we strolled along the Canadian trenches then less than 100 metres away, into the German trenches. The area is littered with artillery crater holes as well and underground tunnels, about 11kms in all.
Ended up in Amiens for the evening – at the Mercure Hotel (that’s for you Marg). Haven’t started our progression to little French Village hotel life yet.
Photos – near the end of this lot.
