Saturday, October 31, 2015

Belgium 2015 - Day 5 and 6 - Ypres - Around Town

Before and after the ceremony at the Menin Gate, and the next morning we wandered around the town of  (Leper) Ypres. Here are some shots from around the town.

This is the Ypres Cloth Hall on the market square in the centre of Ypres, Belgium. On the second floor is the In Flanders' Fields Museum. Unfortunately when I took this it was closed and we didn't have time the following morning to go in.








This is the square looking back towards town






Some Chocolate in the shop windows.


Chocolate tools and stuff

Interesting what you see in the shop windows


Some street shots


Looking up the street towards the Menin Gate


St Martin's Cathedral (Dutch: Sint-Maartenskathedraal), also called St Martin's Church (Dutch: Sint-Maartenskerk), is a church and former cathedral in the Belgian city of Ypres. It was a cathedral and the seat of the former diocese of Ypres from 1561 to 1801, and is still commonly referred to as such. At 102 metres (335 ft) tall, it is among the tallest buildings in Belgium (Wikipedia).




The Menin Gate from the outside of town




And that's the end of our World War I odyssey.  Now we're heading back to France for some other, non war related, stuff.

Thursday, October 29, 2015

Belgium 2015 - Day 6 - Tyne Cot

One last cemetery before we head back to France and onto the Tour De France. 

This one is Tyne Cot.



A view from outside the cemerty looking up the hill



'Tyne Cot' or 'Tyne Cottage' was the name given by the Northumberland Fusiliers to a barn which stood near the level crossing on the Passchendaele-Broodseinde road. The barn, which had become the centre of five or six German blockhouses, or pill-boxes, was captured by the 3rd Australian Division on 4 October 1917, in the advance on Passchendaele. 
One of these pill-boxes was unusually large and was used as an advanced dressing station after its capture. From 6 October to the end of March 1918, 343 graves were made, on two sides of it, by the 50th (Northumbrian) and 33rd Divisions, and by two Canadian units. The cemetery was in German hands again from 13 April to 28 September, when it was finally recaptured, with Passchendaele, by the Belgian Army.

TYNE COT CEMETERY was greatly enlarged after the Armistice when remains were brought in from the battlefields of Passchendaele and Langemarck, and from a other small burial grounds in the area.

It is now the largest Commonwealth war cemetery in the world in terms of burials. At the suggestion of King George V, who visited the cemetery in 1922, the Cross of Sacrifice was placed on the original large pill-box. (CWGC.org)



You can see the original concrete behind the Laurel. You may notice the division number has been altered. Originally the stone incorrectly stated the 2nd Australian Division captured the pill box. It was actually the 3rd Australian Division.




There are three other pill-boxes in the cemetery. You can see two of them in these photos.





There are now 11,956 Commonwealth servicemen of the First World War buried or commemorated in Tyne Cot Cemetery. 8,369 of the burials are unidentified but there are special memorials to more than 80 casualties known or believed to be buried among them. Other special memorials commemorate 20 casualties whose graves were destroyed by shell fire. (CWGC.org)

Pano of Cemetery from the Cross of Sacrifice looking down toward the main entrance. 




Some shots from the top of the Cross of Sacrifice looking down toward the main entrance. The Pill boxes can be seen under the trees in the photos.


 

The Tyne Cot Memorial forms the north-eastern boundary of Tyne Cot Cemetery and commemorates nearly 35,000 servicemen from the United Kingdom and New Zealand who died in the Ypres Salient after 16 August 1917 and whose graves are not known. The memorial stands close to the farthest point in Belgium reached by Commonwealth forces in the First World War until the final advance to victory. (CWGC.org)
Views of the Memorial from the Cross of Sacrifice .






Part of the memorial wall. Each of the light panels between the brown stone is full of names






The memorial has several "chambers" in which are more panels containing more names. The New Zealand memorial panels are within one of these chambers. This is a pano of panels on the wall 




This is a panel from the New Zealand chamber. The name I was interested in here was Tauranga farmer Walter Joseph Cunningham. He was a farmed on Cambridge road, which is very close to where I grew up. It's all residential now.

He was born in Australia on the 25 April 1882 and was killed in action in Belgium on 12 October 1917.



A view looking out of the NZ Memorial chamber. You can see Jo sitting on the Cross of Sacrifice 




Where the headstones are close together this means those three men are buried close together


There are 4 German burials in the cemetery, 3 being unidentified. Here are 2 with the Memorial to Missing in the background.



A large group of Australians.




A couple of Kiwis




Rows and rows....... 







A Kiwi and an Aussie side by side at the end of the front row on this image.






The sun made for some tough photographic conditions 

Tuesday, October 27, 2015

Belgium 2015 - Day 5 - The Menin Gate, Ypres

We headed into Ypres (in Dutch; Ieper)  to attend the daily  Last Post Ceremony.  The road running through the Menin Gate Memorial to the Missing is closed to traffic and at 8pm Buglers of the Last Post Association step out under the memorial to play Last Post as a daily ceremony of Remembrance.

The crowd gathering on the town side of the memorial.


How the Tradition Began
In 1928, a year after the inauguration of the Menin Gate Memorial, a number of prominent citizens in Ypres decided that some way should be found to express the gratitude of the Belgian nation towards those who had died for its freedom and independence. 
The idea of the daily sounding of the Last Post - the traditional salute to the fallen warrior - was that of the Superintendant of the Ypres Police, Mr P Vandenbraambussche. 
The Menin Gate Memorial on the east side of Ypres was thought to be the most appropriate location for the ceremony. Originally this was the location of the old city gate leading to the Ypres Salient battlefields and The Menin Road, through which so many British and Commonwealth troops had passed on their way to the Allied front line.
The privilege of playing Last Post was given to buglers of the local volunteer Fire Brigade. The first sounding of Last Post took place on 1 July 1928 and a daily ceremony was carried on for about four months. The ceremony was reinstated in the spring of 1929 and the Last Post Committee (now called the Last Post Association) was established. 
From 11 November 1929 the Last Post has been sounded at the Menin Gate Memorial every night and in all weathers. The only exception to this was during the four years of the German occupation of Ypres from 20 May 1940 to 6 September 1944. The daily ceremony was instead continued in England at Brookwood Military Cemetery, Surrey.
On the very evening that Polish forces liberated Ypres the ceremony was resumed at the Menin Gate, in spite of the heavy fighting still going on in other parts of the town. Bullet marks can still be seen on the memorial from that time.
When the Last Post returned to Ieper (Ypres) after the Second World War the Brookwood Last Post Association (under Colonel McKay) continued, until recent years, to sound the Last Post at Brookwood Military Cemetery on the first Sunday of the month. (http://www.greatwar.co.uk/)
The inside of the memorial before the ceremony.



The day we were there I'd estimate there were about 1000 people attending. We got there about 40 mins beforehand but decided not to go inside.


Here you can see the buglers preparing to pay the Last Post.





The wreaths after ceremony, these are removed once a week. The large green and yellow ones were laind by an group of Australians who were on an "Ashes" cricket supporters tour. There are names on all these walls and up the steps to the roof of memorial.

The Menin gate about 9pm after the ceremony, this is looking from outside the town.


The Menin Gate is one of four memorials to the missing in Belgian Flanders which cover the area known as the Ypres Salient. Broadly speaking, the Salient stretched from Langemarck in the north to the northern edge in Ploegsteert Wood in the south, but it varied in area and shape throughout the war. 
The Salient was formed during the First Battle of Ypres in October and November 1914, when a small British Expeditionary Force succeeded in securing the town before the onset of winter, pushing the German forces back to the Passchendaele Ridge. The Second Battle of Ypres began in April 1915 when the Germans released poison gas into the Allied lines north of Ypres. This was the first time gas had been used by either side and the violence of the attack forced an Allied withdrawal and a shortening of the line of defence. 
There was little more significant activity on this front until 1917, when in the Third Battle of Ypres an offensive was mounted by Commonwealth forces to divert German attention from a weakened French front further south. The initial attempt in June to dislodge the Germans from the Messines Ridge was a complete success, but the main assault north-eastward, which began at the end of July, quickly became a dogged struggle against determined opposition and the rapidly deteriorating weather. The campaign finally came to a close in November with the capture of Passchendaele. 
The German offensive of March 1918 met with some initial success, but was eventually checked and repulsed in a combined effort by the Allies in September. 
The battles of the Ypres Salient claimed many lives on both sides and it quickly became clear that the commemoration of members of the Commonwealth forces with no known grave would have to be divided between several different sites.
The site of the Menin Gate was chosen because of the hundreds of thousands of men who passed through it on their way to the battlefields.(CWGC.org)
Another view from outside town.


The words on the memorial



 It commemorates casualties from the forces of Australia, Canada, India, South Africa and United Kingdom who died in the Salient. In the case of United Kingdom casualties, only those prior 16 August 1917 (with some exceptions). United Kingdom and New Zealand servicemen who died after that date are named on the memorial at Tyne Cot, a site which marks the furthest point reached by Commonwealth forces in Belgium until nearly the end of the war. New Zealand casualties that died prior to 16 August 1917 are commemorated on memorials at Buttes New British Cemetery and Messines Ridge British Cemetery.(CWGC.org)
The New Zealand panel.



 The YPRES (MENIN GATE) MEMORIAL now bears the names of more than 54,000 officers and men whose graves are not known. The memorial, designed by Sir Reginald Blomfield with sculpture by Sir William Reid-Dick, was unveiled by Lord Plumer on 24 July 1927. (CWGC.org)
 The number of names can get a  bit overwhelming. Just about every spare space on the panel is filled with names of men whose remains were never found.


Some of the Australian Panels



The name Jo is pointing out is another man from Nowra, Private Septimus D Glanville. He was killed on 7 June 1917.


On this panel is a uncle of a workmate. Private William Ingle, killed on 19 Oct 1917.


A (poor) view inside the memorial after the ceremony.