Some of you on here will have seen some of the introductory posts within the thread, for that I apologise and urge you to move onto the third posting, for those who haven't .. enjoy. Well, here we are folks, a write up of the recently completed trip around some of the WW1 battlefields of Europe, ie Belgium and France. This trip could never be described as Great fun, it was never intended to be, it can however, be described as very enjoyable, moving, somber and above all emotional. So, we began on Saturday morning, into the car down to Prestwick airport, dropped Anne and her clan off, they were off to sunny Espania - OLE! Back to mine and got changed then jumped astride the bike then off to Jeff's house. (The reason I mentioned the airport was because that was a 110 mile round trip before I even looked at the bike!) Huckled Jeff out of his wife's arms and the pair of us set of to Edinburgh, 85 miles later we were at Pauls house. Coerced some bacon and eggs out of Paul, then 20 mins later back on the road.. next stop Newcastle another 120 mile trip - God Bless Saddlemen and thier lovely after market seats! So at Newcastle jumped aboard the ferry for an all u can eat dinner and a few beers, next stop Ijmuiden (Amsterdam, Holland). Paul checking out the lifeboats ..... you never know.... Then about 30 miles out from Ijmuiden, a most amazing sight a seaborne windfarm, really don't know why people complain about these things, i think they are full of grace and beauty. Next morning we docked in Ijmuiden then jumped back on the bikes for a 200 mile hop to Lille for the first night's stopover. Jeff's Tomtom got us to "somewhere near to the hotel" and then when we stopped to ask for directions Paul's Hayabusa started playing silly games and he couldn't disable the alarm or get it started... Bugger! We were stuck there for a couple of hours trying different things.... Stranded...
We decided to leave the bike for an hour or so, to give the fob battery some rest (we couldn't get a new battery as it was Sunday and everywhere was shut and at this point we deduced it could only be the fob battery). So we went back to the bike and the restaurantuer asked us to move it as he was opening up. We did, and hey presto the bike started playing again and has done ever since, we think that perhaps it was subject to some form of radio interference. Happy days. Next morning we set off for the war grave in St Omer, (one of Jeff's relatives lies there), hmm, I said "the war grave" I meant "a war grave" as the entire contryside is peppered with gravesites - hundreds of thousands of poor souls.. Anyway St Omer.. You may have noticed that the British military grave at St. Omer is joined on to the community graveyard, not that uncommon, apparently. It also contained a few souls from WW2... Jeff's relative.
Well, after a very wet trip to Abbeville, we actually got drenched and we left wet gloves on the hotel room heater, then went out to eat. We came back about 2 hours later and the room was like a sauna, I am not exaggerating, the room was completely full of steam..... and it stunk! Anyway next morning was to Albert, a wee bit of a disappointment because the museum we wanted to visit was closed for lunch.. and being as we were against the clock for everything we had to skip it, however, the lady at reception allowed us to wander around the well presented reception area. We must bear in mind that we are now in a predominantly WW1 region and as such, there is very little evidence left to see with the exception of the museums. Some of the more notable attractions were a little out of reach for us, this was mainly due to the fact that we only had one day per region. So a lot of what I have for you now on is museum exhibits. On we go..... The village of Albert, just outside Amiens, which was a real tough action zone during the Great war
This is the entrance to the museum, it is an entrance to an underground tunnel system which was used as a bunker in WW1 and an air raid shelter in WW2. This is a picture of the church in the centre of the village this was decimated during WW1 and was completely restored between the wars, in WW2 it suffered no further damage as the occupying forces had no battles here.
We then followed part of the "Circuit of remebrance" which took us through some of the sites of the fiercest of the Somme battlefields. I kid you not everytime you turned your head, and sometimes when you didn't you were confronted with sights like this..... Closer.... The entire countryside is peppered with commonwealth war graves..... On to Poziers, the scene of a particularly bloody battle...
Particularly poignant... Brothers in arms.... Further down the "Circuit" to Thiepval, once again the scene of atrocious fighting, after the war to mark this spot it was decided to erect a monument to recognise those whose bodies were never discovered or identified, carved all around the monument are the names of these poor souls. Incredibly breathtaking....
Unknown Frenchmen... Unknown Brits... As I walking away from the main monument at Thiepval, I looked over to my left and spotted a smaller memorial stone and look in the background.....
The last destination for today was the village of Rancour, it is the only village in the region that has a cemetary from each of the combative nations, Britain, France and Germany. On the way there we passed this fellow at one of the crossroads, representing the Scottish Highland regiments, who were the prevalent British forces in that area. Then on to the French cemetary at Rancour. Directly across the road was the British cemetary, this also has 3 Airmen from WW2
Then we visited the German cemetary.. Each of the German stones represents four souls.. The German Remembrance plaques...
Closer.... This shot was taken to show the german cemetary in the foreground and the British and French sites in the background. (The French graves are in the churchyard).
The following day, we went to Passchendaele - now renamed Passendale. The village was wiped from the face of the map during hostilities, after the war and the inhabitants returned to a blood soaked mud bath, which was once their home, they decided to rebuild and rename. To our Canadian cousins... And just over to the the east of the Canadian memorial stone.....
Next, Tyne cot cemetary, well the intro plaque tells it better than me.. One of the German bunkers, there are five of these within the walls of the cemetary, they decided to make the burial place, where most of the troops fell.
The final part of the trip took us to the Passchendaele museum in Zonnebeke Outside the museum there are two pillboxes, excavated from the fields and dropped outside the museum, obviously the two turkeys haven't always been there!
During WW1 the Germans were still employing armour to protect their men, something I didn't know until this trip... and the armoured troops would be manning one of these.. Models of bunkers which have been excavated but deemed to hazardous to maintain.
Stormtroopers, a concept developed by the German army during WW1, highly trained, lightly equipped and very manouverable troops, with a specific target for each mission, rather than the previous, 'Blanket' point & shoot. a sense of what the trench would have been like
