On Wednesday 29th June we left Arras for a full day's tour into Belgium. In the morning we visited the Irish Tower at Messines, the 16th (Irish) Division Memorial at Wyteschaete, Spanbroekmolen Mine Crater, and Lone Tree Cemetery. We had lunch in Ypres and in the afternoon visited Tyne Cot Cemetery, Memorial and Visitor's Centre, Sanctuary Wood and Hill 60.
Tyne Cot Commonwealth War Graves Cemetery and Memorial to the Missing is a Commonwealth War Graves Commission (CWGC) burial ground for the dead of World War I in the Ypres Salient on the Western Front. It is the largest cemetery for Commonwealth forces in the world, for any war, with 11,953 burials.This includes those believed to be buried in the cemetery, or whose graves had been destroyed. This would have occurred because the cemetery was started in October 1917, after the taking of the nearby village of Passchendaele, but fighting continued in the region and the Germans retook the ground and held it between 13th April to 28th September 1918.
The cemetery and its surrounding memorial are located outside of Passchendaele, near Zonnebeke in Belgium.The cemetery grounds were assigned to the United Kingdom in perpetuity by King Albert I of Belgium in recognition of the sacrifices made by the British Empire in the defence and liberation of Belgium during the war. The name “Tyne Cot” is said to come from the Northumberland Fusiliers seeing a resemblance between the German concrete pill boxes, which still stand in the middle of the cemetery, and typical Tyneside workers' cottages – Tyne Cots.
We then returned to Ypres for dinner and the Last Post Ceremony at the Menin Gate at 20.00 hours
On Thursday 30th June , we departed our hotel for the Arras area. Visits included the Canadian Memorial at Vimy Ridge, the French National Memorial at Notre Dame de Lorette and the largest German cemetery in France at Neuville-St Vaast. In the afternoon we had lunch in the Ulster Memorial Tower followed by a guide tour of Thiepval Wood.. We then visited the Pozieres Cemetary and Memorial, the South African Memorial at Delville Wood and the Lochnagar Mine Crater at La Boisselle.
Notre Dame de Lorette is the name of a ridge, basilica, and French National cemetrery northwest of Arras at the village of Ablain-Saint-Nazaire. The high point of the hump-backed ridge stands 165 metres high and, with Vimy Ridge, utterly dominates the otherwise flat Douai plain and the town of Arras. The ground was strategically important during the First World War and was bitterly contested in a series of long and bloody engagements, known as the First, Second and Third Battles of Artois between the oppposing French and German Armies.
These battles were as costly in French lives as the better-known Battle of Verdun. As with other sites across France, Notre Dame de Lorette became a national necropolis, sacred ground containing the graves of French, Polish and Colonial fallen as well as an ossuary in a magnificent Watchtower, containing the bones of those whose names were not marked. In total the cemetery and ossuary contain the remains of more than 40,000 soldiers as well as the ashes of many concentration camp victims.
Neuville-Saint Vaast is the largest German War Cemetery in France. It was established first by the French Military Authorities between 1919 and 1923, and served as a collection site for German war casualties from the regions north and east of Arras. It may originally been known as Maison Blanc. The German War Graves Commission, the Volksbund Deutcher Kriegsgraberfursorge(VDK) redesigned and reorganised the cemetery between 1975 and 1983. It was reopened to the public on 13th November 1983, and there are now approximately 44,830 burials there.
As you walk up the path leading into it, you can appreciate the vast scale of this cemetery. Crosses stretch under the trees into the far distance, and there are interspersed Jewish memorial stones with their Stars of David. As with several other Geman war cemeteries, it has a solemn atmosphere even on a bright day, so you cannot fail to be moved by it.
To be continued