The Last Post

In the small town of Ieper they understand Remembrance. 

Every night at 8:00 PM they have a ceremony they call the last post.  The “Last Post” is actually a bugle call.  A final homage to the fallen, as is tradition in the British Empire and it’s Allies.  In the town of Ieper, under the Menin Gate, which holds the names of 55,000+ missing and fallen soldiers, this ceremony is held every night.  It started in 1928, and has taken place over 30,000 consecutive days. 

In Canada we pay tribute on to the fallen once a year – November 11 – Remembrance Day.  But in Ieper they pay tribute every single day.  The public gathers.  The bugels play.  The soldiers march.  The music echoes throughout the gate.  And many hands take turns laying a wreath at the gate – to remember those who have given so much for those who were yet to come.

Sullivan Heights was honoured to be able to not only attend this ceremony, but to participate in it.  Two of our students, Shiraz and Justin, stood tall and proud as they marched under the gate to lay the wreath. 

This wasn’t my first time in Ieper.  I had attended this ceremony (twice) back in 2013.  And every night it is different.  But in some ways it is always the same.  Close your eyes.  Listen to the bugle.  Remember the fallen.  The more places I visit – the more battlefields I step on and memorial cemeteries I have seen, the more images that flash through my mind as I hear the notes ring out.  There is something about this ceremony – this tradition – that is more rich than words can adequately express.  I wish I could do it justice. 

So for now all I can leave you with is a couple of photos, and a short video of our students paying their respects.

Justin and Shiraz Lay the Wreath:

For a video of the last post (from a previous ceremony), see here: 

And for a video of the extended ceremony from the 30,000 anniversary of the Menin Gate Last post, see here:

Remnants of the Great War

Essex Farm was an awe inspiring site to be sure.  And only the beginning of a long tour focused on World War I and the Ypres Salient Battlefields.  However, all this is heavy and hard to absorb, and sometimes a break is required.  And when in Belgium, a break means a visit to Ledoux Chocolaterie – a small local operation specializing in making Belgian Chocolate!  Here the owner showed us how to make chocolate molds and pralines, and how to temper different types of chocolate.  We also learned the parts of a cocoa fruit (yes – chocolate comes from a FRUIT).  The cocoa powder only into dark chocolate, the cocoa butter into the white chocolate, and of course cocoa with some milk into the milk chocolate.  This led to a LARGE line up to purchase the fresh chocolates before getting back on the great bus.  Definitly not related to our World War I theme, but an excellent stop indeed.

After the chocolate break, the tone returned to somber as we went to Vancouver Corner – site of the St. Julien Memorial.  This memorial, called “The Brooding Soldier” marks the battlefield where 18,000 Canadians withstoof the first German Gas attaches in April 1915.  The Germans used Chlorine gas and the power of the wind to send a cloud across the battlefield to kill and injure soldiers.  This happened right next to the Canadian front in the Belgian battlefields.   Canadians showed great bravery by rising up an depending the section left empty by retreating gassed soldiers.  2000 Fell and lie buried near by this site.  The sculpture came second in the Canadian Battlefield Monument Commision in 1920.  The first place going to the momument built at Vimy Ridge.  This is one of eight memorials erected by Canadians, as granted by the Imperial war Graces Commission.  5 are in France (Vimy Ridge, Bourlon Wood, Courcelette, Dury and Le Quesnel) and 3 in Belgium (here, at Vancouver Corner, at Passchendaele and at Hill 62). The brooding soldier is a beautiful work to commemorate our country and the soldiers to fought to protect our freedoms and the freedoms of others.  Even the landscape tells a story – with shrubbery designed to mimic exploding shells, and gentle greens hovering over the ground to represent the gas. 

After a quick bite at Canadian owned “Family Pizza”, we continued our tour by heading to the Tyne Cot Memorial – home of those lost in the nearby Battle of Passchendaele.  This cemetery holds graces from the UK, Canada, Newfoundland, Australia, New Zealand and South Africa (also 1 French man and 4 Germans).  11,954 in total; all from 1917-1918.  OF these, 8367 of them are unnamed graves.  This cemetery changed hands a lot during the way – first captured by Australia, then turned graves for Canadians and British, then recaptured by Germany before liberated by Belgium.  It contains the “Cross of Sacrifice” in the center, which is built on top of a German pillbox.  The few original graves are in the middle, unmoved, but surrounded by the more organized graves that came to follow.  There is also a stone wall surrounding the cemetery, the “Tyne Cot Memorial to the Missing.”  Similar to Menin Gate in Ieper, this shows the names of those who were missing, and their grave location is unknown.  34,959 names in all.  It can be hard to take in that much loss.  Steve, our guide, spent a lot of time this day trying to explain all the rules that came into place for burying the dead and maintaining these cemeteries.  And even though it has been almost 100 years since the war ended, much time, effort and car is given into honouring those.  It is easy to forget that this generation of students do not fully know or understand war like the generation my grandparents grew up in.  But seeing these graves, and the attention and honour they were given by the caretakers, they were quickly coming to understand the cost.

We left Tyne Cot for Hooge Crater.  This crater is not a bond, but is surrounded by original trenches from the war.  Remnants of the war can be seen all over the property.  This was a change for our students to begin to walk in the paths of the soldiers that came before to start to try and understand what it would have been like.  This was built on in Vimy, and Beaumont-Hamel, and Juno Beach in the days to follow. 

So much was sacrificed. 

In Flanders Fields...

We have all heard it.  We grew up hearing it.  “In Flanders Fields, the poppies blow…”  But how many of us have seen it?

John McRae was a Canadian Doctor stationed in the Ypres area during World War I.  He worked at a medical station near a place we now call Essex Farm, in the Belgian province of Flanders.  And as was popular during the time of World War I, he wrote poetry.  Because dressing stations (or medical stations), often ended up with them being unable to treat many of the soldiers, they were next to cemeteries.  After the war the Commonwealth war graves commission came up with rules to govern how these cemeteries were run.  Which monuments were erected.  The colour of the headstones.  The rules for epitaphs.  And so here we stood.  In the footsteps of John McRae; looking out over the place that once was a battlefield, next to a cemetery of the fallen – some as young as 15 years old.  And right next to the bunker that was used as a medical station, and the field that is used to bury the dead, is a field.  With poppies.  And I don’t know if I’ve ever seen a flower that possesses such power and meaning.  A flower that can quickly stir the heart so deeply and so quickly.  For decades I have been pinning a plastic flower over my heart, in honour of those who died.  But here, in this cemetery, with these wild flowers, it suddenly took on a very different meaning. 

 So we began our day by honouring the dead, and hearing these words spoken out from the place they were written:

In Flanders Fields the poppies blow

Between the crosses, row on row,

That mark our place; and in the sky

The larks, still bravely singing, fly

Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the Dead.  Short days ago

We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,

Loved and were loved, and now we lie

In Flanders Fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe:

To you from falling hands we throw

The torch; be yours to hold it high.

If ye break faith with us who die

We shall not sleep, though poppies grow

In Flanders fields.

South of Holland to Belgium

As I mentioned last time, 1/3 of  Holland is technically under sea level.  As you can imagine, this is a problem for many of the countries inhabitants, and of course the majority of their farm land needed to support them. So in the 1800’s the Dutch started to develop systems to help manage the water.  Moving it, and keeping it at bay.  Kinderdijk is an example of this – using Windmills to control water levels, and to use it effectively in farming.  However, Holland is possesses a lot of the coast line, as it borders the Atlantic Ocean on its west and north sides.  Because of this, there is an entire system dedicated to Water Management along the coasts – called the Deltaworks.  The project has multiple goals.  One is protection.  There have been many great floods in Holland due to storms, leading to many deaths and damage to infrastructure.  So they have built storm surge barriers to protect the land.  We saw one of these barriers – the Maeslant Storm Surge Barrier.  It is 2 arms, stored on land, but moved out over the ocean using a ball bearing joint (like a shoulder joint), that then sink to the bottom of the canal and protect the river, and in turn the harbor), preventing flooding and protecting part of Southwest Holland (in the province of Zeeland).  Each arm is as wide as the Eiffel tower is high, and they join together with a flexible v-shaped fit in order to ensure that the pressure of the water doesn’t force them to break. 

 As well as the water management, the Deltaworks also use dams and wind turbines to generate clean energy off the coasts.  Water and Wind energy are used well in Holland, as well as solar and geothermal approaches to energy production.  Holland is an incredibly forward-thinking country when it comes to sustainable energy and protecting their environment.  I’m sure one of many reasons why it is so beautiful.

Given my Dutch heritage, it was hard for me to say goodbye to the Netherlands.  There is SO much to see (and eat), and I could easily have spent 2 weeks there showing the student so many more of my favourite places – but it was time to move on….to BELGIUM!

Belgium is another example of a country I wish I could have had more time for.  Upon entering I knew we only had < 48 hours to introduce the students to a little bit of Belgian life – and reflecting back, I’m pretty sure we accomplished that goal!  We only had one destination – Ieper.  Ieper is in the province of Flanders, and is known for being the area containing many battlefields from World War I (an area known as the Ypres Salient).  We were going to see many of these over the next 2 days, but first we needed to arrive and get to dinner!  The special of the region is Moules Frites (Mussels and Fries), and I was surprised how many kids went outside of their comfort zone to try it!  There was also a Flemish Beef Stew and Flemish Fish Stew that were savoured.  A great way to start our visit in Ieper!

After dinner some of the group headed back to the hotel to settle in.  Two brave souls went on a 5 km run with Mr. Becker (good work Pat and Ethan!), exploring the town wall and beautiful cobblestone streets.  And a small group came with Mr. Dewinetz and myself to visit the town square, the church, and of course, the Menin Gate, for the first time.

 The Menin Gate is the staple of the town, and home to the Last Post Ceremony.  I’ll talk more about this in a future post.  The Menin Gate is a monument that honours those from the commonwealth who died during the war, but their bodies were not buried.  The lost soldiers.  There are 55,000 names on the gate.  Men.  Boys.  Many Canadian.  Seeing these names and touching the wall is such a moving and touching experience.  Trying to wrap your mind around how many people had to die to protect, preserve and ensure our freedom.  Sometimes we talk about war and forget about the names and faces.  They just become numbers and statistics.  But they aren’t.  They are people’s children, brothers, friends, husbands.  And the loss was great. 

 Absorbing this small town, with all it’s history and charm, was hard to do.  I heard a fair number of kids refer to this as if it was a fairy tale town.  It was so pretty to be true.  The gate was too surreal to process.  And I know one thing – 2 days was not close to enough.