Beaumont-Hamel and Shrapnel Hunting

On day 5 of our trip we started our morning in Vimy Ridge (which I talked about here).  After Vimy and a lovely baguette lunch, we went to the second of two Canadian National Historic Sites located out side of our country - Beaumont-Hamel.

The Beaumont-Hamel Newfoundland Memorial is a memorial site located in the North of France, around 1 hour away from Vimy Ridge.  It is dedicated to the Dominion of Newfoundland forces members killed during World War I.  It is both a preserved battlefield (complete with trenches and rollings fields showing the blasts of the past), a memorials (see the Caribou monument), and a cemetery (Y Ravine Cemetery).  This is the location that the Newfoundland Regiment made an unsuccessful attack in 1916 - the first day of the Battle of the Somme.  This was the Newfoundland Regiments first major engagement (back before they were part of Canada), and it lasted all of 20 minutes before the regiment was wiped out.  The land was purchased by Newfoundland in 1921 to create this memorial, and some of the Somme battlefield has been conserved in this 74 acre park.  There are 814 names honoured here on the memorial, plus the cemetery located as well.

While standing in the battlefield, our guide, Steve, read us two war time poems, both of which really stuck with me.  Imagine looking out on to these fields, and hearing the following words:

Young Fellow My Lad, by Robert William Service

"Where are you going, Young Fellow My Lad,

On this glittering morn of May?"

"I'm going to join the Colours, Dad;

They're looking for men, they say."

"But you're only a boy, Young Fellow My Lad;

You aren't obliged to go."

"I'm seventeen and a quarter, Dad,

And ever so strong, you know."

"So you're off to France, Young Fellow My Lad,

And you're looking so fit and bright."

"I'm terribly sorry to leave you, Dad,

But I feel that I'm doing right."

"God bless you and keep you, Young Fellow My Lad,

You're all of my life, you know."

"Don't worry. I'll soon be back, dear Dad,

And I'm awfully proud to go."

"Why don't you write, Young Fellow My Lad?

I watch for the post each day;

And I miss you so, and I'm awfully sad,

And it's months since you went away.

And I've had the fire in the parlour lit,

And I'm keeping it burning bright

Till my boy comes home; and here I sit

Into the quiet night."

"What is the matter, Young Fellow My Lad?

No letter again to-day.

Why did the postman look so sad,

And sigh as he turned away?

I hear them tell that we've gained new ground,

But a terrible price we've paid:

God grant, my boy, that you're safe and sound;

But oh I'm afraid, afraid."

"They've told me the truth, Young Fellow My Lad:

You'll never come back again:

(OH GOD! THE DREAMS AND THE DREAMS I'VE HAD,

AND THE HOPES I'VE NURSED IN VAIN!)

For you passed in the night, Young Fellow My Lad,

And you proved in the cruel test

Of the screaming shell and the battle hell

That my boy was one of the best.

"So you'll live, you'll live, Young Fellow My Lad,

In the gleam of the evening star,

In the wood-note wild and the laugh of the child,

In all sweet things that are.

And you'll never die, my wonderful boy,

While life is noble and true;

For all our beauty and hope and joy

We will owe to our lads like you."

*Other Poem was called "The Wire," found here. 

From here we went to the ADANAC Cemetery (Adanac = Canada backwards).  It was in this cemetery that we saw the grave of Victoria Cross winner James Richardson, of Chilliwack, BC.  He was a 20 year old Scottish Canadian, and Piper.  In 1916, during the First World War (Battle of Ancre Heights) his company came under intense fire.  Richardson got permission to play his company over the top, and walked up and down the wire playing his pipes, inspiring his company until the position was captured.  James was support to take back a wounded comrade and some prisoners, but realized he left his bagpipes.  He went back to get them, but was never seen again. These bagpipes were lost it, until discovered in 2002 in Scotland at a high school.  They have since been identified and returned to Canada, and can be found in the BC legislature as a reminder of his valour.  

Next door to the Cemetery is a field.  And in this field, if you look hard enough, you can find remnants of World War I.  For most of us, it was tiny little metal balls called shrapnel.  A few of us found some pieces of little more unique.  Sonia was our shrapnel hunter extraordinaire - with her eagle eyes!  But most of the crew managed to find at least 1 souvenir of the war to bring home with them.  It's crazy that it's been 100 years, and yet evidence of the Great War is easily obtained in a farm field in Northern France.  Proof that the effects are war are not easily erased.  

That time we paid homage at Vimy Ridge

On Saturday August 29 we had to prepare to say goodbye to Belgium.  Our whirlwind time in Ieper was over.  We were sad to leave our little home at the Novotel.  The rooms were huge and the breakfast was outstanding.  Ieper was full of charm and had so many yet-to-be-explored corners.  But the time had come to head south - to France!  However, our first day was one with many somber tones, as we continued our quest to better understand Canada's role in World War I.

Our guide Steve, from our previous Ypres-Salient tour, joined us as we head ~1 hour south to Vimy Ridge.  The Battle of Vimy Ridge (April 9, 1917 - Easter Monday) was one of huge significance for Canadians.  In 1914 the Germans had taken he strategic position on the hill in Vimy.  As part of the "Race to the Sea" the French had tried (and failed) 3 times to claim it.  However, Canadians (4 divisions working together), with the use of the current trench system, as well as a strategic tunnel system, were able to claim it, and in turn, claim a victory (and source of pride) for Canada.  At this point it was the largest victory for the side of British Commonwealth.  However, it came at the cost of 3500 lives lost, and 7000 wounded.

When we arrived at Vimy Ridge we were able to start by touring the trenches and tunnels that were used during the war.  The conditions were bleak, and the thought of being a soldier during World War I did not appeal to our group.  Being 10 meters under the ground in a dark damp tunnel was less than ideal, but then again, the trenchfoot and danger of the trenches wasn't exactly appealing either.  You could split the difference and work in communications between the two -  but that lead to higher than average mortality.  Needless to stay, we finally had a better understand of the complexity of war (at least one very small part of it).  As in any scenario, walking in another persons shoes helps us to better understand them.  Well the same applies to learning about the war.  Walking the food prints of where it happened helps us to better understand what it was like, and how truly GREAT the sacrifices were to ensure our freedoms.

After our tour of the trenches and tunnels we were able to head up to the memorial itself.  As luck may have it, we arrived at a slow time, and had the memorial all to ourselves for a few moments.  Steve sat us back across from it and talked about the story of how this hill (hill 145) was so important, and how the battle went down.  The landscape is covered with craters of all sizes - from bombings and collapsed in caves alike.  Sitting among these craters to understand where they came from was eerie and humbling.  After we better understood the significance of what happened here, we  head towards the memorial itself.  This memorial isn't just here to honour those who fought or died at the Battle of Vimy Ridge, but to any Canadian soldier who was killed or presumed dead in France during World War I.  The missing are listed on the front of the monument.  Designed by Walter Seymour Allward, it took 11 years to build.  It won a contest (beat out the brooding soldier from Passchendale), and was constructed with special marble imported from Croatia.  It is one of two possible places to be a"National Historic Site of Canada" and yet reside outside off Canada.  The second is Beaumont-Hamel (which I will talk about another time).

We were lucky to have time to visit, contemplate, and pay respect to those who have fallen.

The true cost of war is just beginning to set in.  First Anne Frank.  Then Ypres.  The Menin Gate.  Vimy and the Somme.  Then on to World War II sites in Normandy.  And this is just a start.  Europe had so many remnants of war that we as Canadians from BC don't always understand.  We have experienced nothing like it in our province.  When we left Vimy Ridge this day we drove to lunch - past the most adorable little farm house.  With a front yard full of shells left from World War I.  We drove past a French cemetery (with white crosses as far as the eye can see) and a German cemetery (with black crosses).  It's been one hundred years - but the evidence is still everywhere.  I hope that if you are reading this, you too will consider a visit to this region.  It has been an unforgettable time for our crew (and we've only just begun).

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.