Tyne Cot to Passchendaele

We started with a visit to the largest British cemetery on the western front - Tyne Cot. The American Cemetery at Omaha Beach had over 9000 graves Tyne Cot has nearly 12,000 with about 70% being unknown.

Up until 16 August 1917 they used to put names of the missing up on Menin Gate but they found they were fast running out of space so they started listing them at Tyne Cot - there are 35,000 names listed at Tyne Cot with no known grave. All missing Australians are listed on Menin Gate. On average about 50% of all casualties have a marked grave.

Tyne Cot was originally dressing station so some of the graves are in a haphazard layout as they were not exhumed after the war and reburied, this is called a battlefield cemetery. There are three German bunkers in Tyne Cot these were last line of defence for the Germans with the front lines set out in front of the bunkers.

There are two Australians here who won VCs and one Canadian. Lewis McGee won his VC on 4 October 1917 when he attacked a strong point called Hamburg Redoubt. This was at the start of the Third Battle of Ypres which would eventually lead to the slaughter at Passchendaele. At first the attack went well but then the weather turned and nothing could be brought up to support the attack. Objectives that were meant to be taken in 72 hours took four months and over 250000 were casualties. Still the attack was seen as a success.

Much of the Broodseinde Ridge battlefield is now a cauliflower farm. Like I said yesterday hard to reconcile the horror of then with the peace and tranquility of now.

After Tyne Cot we went back into Ypres to the Flanders Field Museum which is in the Cloth Hall. Of course all of Ypres was destroyed and has since been rebuilt so all the buildings only date from the 1900s.

This museum was really interesting and well done, being in Belgium as well as focussing on the historical aspect it outlined what the Belgiums did in WW1 which is not something you hear a lot about. The other aspect of the Cloth Hall was that you could climb up to the top of the clock tower for some great views over Ypres and surrounds.

Next stop was Polygon Wood. This battle happened in June 1917. It was captured by the Australian 5th division under Pompey Elliott only to be lost again in the German Spring offensive in 1918. The battle in 1917 was where all aspects started to work together - aircraft, artillery, machine guns, and infantry to achieve the objectives. It took a while for everyone to work out how to fight effectively. The Australians took all their objectives but at a heavy cost.

We stopped at one of the most touching memorials on the western front. In 2006 while digging to lay a gas pipeline they found a number of bodies. One was identified as Private John Hunter who had died in his younger brother Jim’s arms in September 1917. His brother buried him and promised to return and bring him back to Australia after the war but the grave was lost and when Jim returned he couldn’t find the grave causing much distress. The discovery of the body in 2006 closed the loop but also inspired the creation of the Brothers in Arms Memorial at Polygon Wood.

On the way back to town we stopped at the Canadian Memorial which is where the Germans first used chlorine gas. Other gases were used in the war including phosgene and mustard gas but by far the most common one used was tear gas.

Last stop was at Essex Farm Cemetery which is next door to a bunker which was used as an aid post. Here they commemorate John McCrae’s poem In Flanders Fields.

In the evening we walked up to the Menin Gate to attend the Last Post Ceremony which happens every day at 8pm and commemorates the fallen. There were a lot of people there including lots of school kids. A male choir sang ‘On the road to Passchendaele’ and the buglers played the last post - all very touching and emotional.Lue lisää