Well, we skype home
almost every day; it just depends upon net access. And limited access has meant no postings for a couple of days. This post focuses on the Western Front tour. We have spent some time discussing what we would write and in the end we decided to let the pictures speak for themselves, although they will be bracketed under four song references. But first, a few words on our experience.
Our guide, Andy Thompson, was absolutely fantastic. His knowledge was incredible. For someone who has taught WW1 history, there were so many things that I had never seen in the textbooks. In particular, the fact that the Allies dug mines underneath the German positions, filled them with explosives and then detonated them (there are pictures of a couple of craters below). The statistics were one thing, and anyone can google those, but Andy provided personal stories for the sites we visited. It made some distant piece of history really live. It was a very emotional experience.
It was a tough 2 days and there was a great deal of ground covered visiting various cemeteries and battle fields. There are war cemeteries dotted all over the country side and we had only enough time to stop at a few. Our first day concluded with the Last Post at Menin Gate in Ypres, Belgium, where we met a contingent of NSW school students (and one was from Campbelltown - there's a news story Deputy Editor) who were representing the Premier. We returned home around 10pm and then were up at 1:30am to get to the dawn service on time.
I found the Menin Gate service more moving than the dawn service, although it was a wonderful experience. It didn't rain, but the morning was bitterly cold and there was a biting wind - and this is spring! It provided a
very small window into how difficult it was for the soldiers. All these years on, you can argue about the reasons people enlisted and you can argue about the reasons the war started, but that doesn't really matter. What matters is that they were there and they were fighting for what they believed was right, and regardless of side, they put their lives on the line. The world changed as a result of those four years.
As the day wore on, the temperature continued to drop, the wind grew stronger and the rain came down. So by the time we boarded the bus for Lille in the early afternoon, we were wet, cold and tired, and we all appreciated a little more the sacrifices made by those men and their families almost 100 years ago.
Everyone who has been fortunate enough not to have experienced war should have to visit an area where war occurred and should have to hear the stories that make it personal. Maybe that way, we would not be so keen to take up arms.
VC Corner and Pheasant Wood
1st song reference: he ain't heavy, he's my brother
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| The Cross of Sacrifice |
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| Cobber's Memorial, "I knew you'd come" |
Hill 60, the craters and German cemetery
2nd song reference: no words to say, no words to convey
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| Crater - Fromelles |
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| Resistance fighters' grave |
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| German cemetery |
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| Crater - the Somme |
Polygon Wood, Tyne Cot Cemetery, Menin Gate and Villers-Bretonneux
3rd song reference: if you tolerate this, then your children will be next
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| One quarter of Tyne Cot |
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| Menin Gate |
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| the Campbelltown boy |
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| Villers-Bretonneux Primary School |
Villers Bretonneux, the Dawn Service
4th song reference: the darkest hour is just before dawn
Lest we forget
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