The Canadian Memorial, St. Julien, Belgium.

The Canadian Memorial stands in Saint Julien Wood, a section of forested land in Belgium, near Langemark at the north east of the Ypres Salient. During World War I, the location was known as 'Vancouver Corner'. Kitchener's Wood is close by.

The memorial stands 11 metres tall and is visable for miles around. It rises from a flagstoned terrace, carved to form the bowed head and shoulders of a Canadian soldier, his hands resting on his reversed rifle. It is surrounded by tall cedars trimmed into cones to complement the granite shaft.




On 22nd & 23rd April 1915, the 5th, 8th, 10th and 15th Battalions of the 2nd Brigade of the Canadian Expeditionary Force, became the first units of the British Army to experience a German chlorine gas attack, at the beginning of the Second Battle of Ypres.




Out of the 816 Canadian soldiers from 10th Battalion C.E.F, who were to the right of the British forces, 623 of them lay dead by the end of 23rd April. They were buried where they fell.

The Franco-Belgian Cross, Steenstraat, Belgium.

The Franco-Belgian Cross near Steenstrat remembers the first poison gas attack on 22nd April 1915.

This 15 metre high aluminium cross is a replacement for the original memorial showing soldiers being asphyxiated by the gas. This was destroyed by the Germans during the Second World War.

The cross was made by the architects Paul Tournon and Pierre Devillers in 1961.

The inscription around the base of the monument gives the Regiments involved in the fighting in the area by both French and Belgian Forces, and in particular those who were subjected to the first gas attack on 22nd April 1915.

19th (Western) Division Memorial, Wytschaete, Belgium.

The 19th (Western) “Butterfly” Division memorial is located nearby Wytschaete. It shows the butterfly emblem of the Division at the top of the cross and commemorates the division's greatest achievement of the First World War.



On 7th June 1917 the Battle of Messines opened and the 19th Division was among the first to advance in the wake of the explosion of 19 mines which signified the start of the attack at 3.10am.


The Divisional memorial is sited at the crossroads which the division successfully reached within five hours of the start of the attack, which included the taking of the village of Oosttaverne nearby.


During the attack 19th Division lost 51 officers and some 1,358 other ranks. In their turn they captured 1,253 German prisoners.


The same site saw further action by 19th Division in April 1918 during the Battle of Lys.

The 19th Division Memorial has an identical memorial in design at la Boiselle on the Somme.

Villers Bretonneux, The Australian National Memorial - Part IV

Photographs of the Australian National Memorial.

The Entrance

The Memorial in the distance.




Towards the Cross of Sacrifice.



The Cross of Sacrifice.



The Australian National Memorial





The Inscription reads :

"To the Glory of God and in memory of the Australian Imperial Force in France and Flanders 1916-1918
And of eleven thousand who fell in France and have no know grave. "




Inside the Memorial, with a map of the Austrialian Divisional Memorials.




Looking down from the Top of the Memorial.

The side of the Memorial.

A Bronze Plaque explaining the Australian involvement in France and Flanders.


It reads:

"Australia erected its national war memorial here to commemorate the nations feat of arms in France and Belgium during the war. The memorial also records and honours 10,982 Australian dead who have no known grave and died in France (other than at Fromelles). The national memorial with its 32 metre tower. Overlooks many of the battlefields in which Australians fought including those to the north around Dernancourt and south beyond Villers Bretonneux.

The memorial is located on a hill from which the Australians and British repulsed German advances on Villers Bretonneux on 24 April 1918.The memorial was built by the commonwealth war graves commission and unveiled in 1938 by King George VI - during 1940 French forces briefly held the advancing Germans in this area, signs of the damage done by German artillery can still be seen today. Separate from the memorial is the cemetery, which was made after the 1918 armistice. Graves from other burial sites and the battlefield were concentrated here. Men from many nations lie here in peace.

Their sacrifice is not forgotten."

Villers Bretonneux, The Australian National Memorial - Part III

This report in the British Nursing Journal in August 1938 page 199, recalls the King and Queen unveiling the Australian War Memorial.

The Queen placing a Flanders poppy from her bouquet on the Australian Memorial after it had been unveiled by the King.

"THE KING’S TRIBUTE TO AUSTRALIAN GALLANTRY.

On July 22nd, the King stood with the Queen and President Lebrun, beside him, when on hallowed ground at Villers-Bretonneux he unveiled the Australian War Memorial-ground hallowed for all time by the heroism of Australia’s soldiers. The ceremony was deeply impressive. At the close of the religious service the King laid a wreath of Flanders poppies at the foot of the memorial. The Queen stepped forward alone and placed a single poppy on the wreath of the King.
After touching ceremonies, from high in the topmost platform of the tower came the mournful wail of bugles -in lamentation for Australia’s dead - the “ Last Post ” and then ‘‘ Reveille ” rang out."

For more information on the Memorial and the unveiling go to: Australians on the Western Front.

Villers Bretonneux, The Australian National Memorial - Part II

Views of the surrounding countryside from the Australian National Memorial covering the ground fought over in 1918.

The view looking north towards Fouilloy & Corbie

The view looking east towards Le Hamel & Sailly-le-Sac and ultimately many miles away in the distance Pozieres.

The view from the National Memorial looking south towards Villers-Bretonneux.

To finish off the view over the cemetery west towards Amiens

Photos: Roger Stoakley at: rjstoakley@btopenworld.com

Villers Bretonneux, The Australian National Memorial - Part 1

The Australian National Memorial at Villers Bretonneux erected to commemorate all Australian soldiers who fought in France and Belgium during the First World War, to their dead, and especially to those of the dead whose graves are not known.

The 10,700 Australian servicemen actually named on the memorial died in the battlefields of the Somme, Arras, the German advance of 1918 and the Advance to Victory.

The memorial was unveiled by King George VI in July 1938.

Villers Bretonneux became famous in 1918, when the German advance on Amiens ended in the capture of the village by their tanks and infantry on 23 April. On the following day, the 4th and 5th Australian Divisions, with units of the 8th and 18th Divisions, recaptured the whole of the village and on 8 August 1918, the 2nd and 5th Australian Divisions advanced from its eastern outskirts in the Battle of Amiens.

Villers Bretonneux Military Cemetery was made after the Armistice when graves were brought in from other burial grounds in the area and from the battlefields. Plots I to XX were completed by 1920 and contain mostly Australian graves, almost all from the period March to August 1918. Plots IIIA, VIA, XIIIA and XVIA, and Rows in other Plots lettered AA, were completed by 1925, and contain a much larger proportion of unidentified graves brought from a wider area. Later still, 444 graves were brought in from Dury Hospital Military Cemetery.

Photos: Roger Stoakley at: rjstoakley@btopenworld.com

51st Division Memorial, Beaumont-Hamel, France.

The 51st Division memorial is in the Beaumont-Hamel Park. It takes the form of rough blocks of Rubislaw granite which were produced by Garden & Co. in Aberdeen, and are assembled in a pyramid form. On the top stands a statue of a kilted Highland soldier, looking east towards the village of Beaumont Hamel which men of the 51st Division took on 13th November 1916. The three panels on the pyramid bear inscriptions in Gaelic, English and French.

The Gaelic words can be translated as 'Friends are good on the day of battle.’

The monument was initially unveiled, following a procession from Beaumont Hamel village to the site, by Marshal Foch in September 1924. He concluded his speech with the words "Sons of Scotland, sleep in peace".

The memorial was originally dedicated by the Reverend Sinclair, who had been a chaplain with the Division. Pipers played, and the school-children of the area were among the crowds

Directly opposite, and in front of Y ravine, is another memorial to the 51st Division, a simple wooden cross. This originally stood at High Wood, and the inscription reads "In memory of the 51st Highland Division Officers, NCOs and men who fell at High Wood July 1916". The Division was in action there on the 23rd of July, when the 4th Gordon’s and 9th Royal Scots between them suffered 450 casualties, and also on the 29th of July (4th Seaforth’s).

The Lochnagar Mine Crater, La Boisselle, France

The Lochnagar mine crater is one of several which remain visible on the Western Front today. In the Somme area, others may be seen at Hawthorn Ridge near Beaumont Hamel and on the edge of High Wood

It is the largest British mine crater on the Western Front, this was one of several mines exploded under the German front line positions on the Somme on 1st July 1916. A charge of 60,000 lbs (26.8 tons) of Ammonal explosive was blown at 7.28am resulting in a crater 90 feet deep and 300 feet across.

Lochnagar Crater, named after the trench from where the main tunnel was started, is now owned by Englishman Richard Dunning. He saved it from being filled in 1978, and now each year on the 1st July a ceremony is held here to remember men of all sides who fell on the Somme in 1916.

Units of the 34th Division attacked the area and the nearby village of La Boisselle on 1st July. This formation contained two whole brigades of ‘Pals’ battalions – the Tyneside Irish and the Tyneside Scottish. They suffered many casualties that day – five battalions losing over 500 men each. Indeed the whole division lost 6,380 that day.

The Dairy of Lieutenant William Pitt of the 8th Battalion, on being relieved after the 1st Australian Division had captured the town of Pozieres and had endured horrendous shelling.

"Thursday July 27th 1916.

We had heard rumours of being relieved today but did not think it was right. However we were agreeably confused when at 2 o/c the 24th battalion (a company) came in to relieve us and we moved out. Thankfully it was very dark and a good night for a relief and we went straight down to the battalion cookers and got a drink of hot tea, the first for some time. We then marched to the place where we first camped. Turned in and had a good sleep and then woke up to find a good meal awaiting us. The battalion has suffered very heavily there only being about 381 of us left after collecting all stragglers. We have had a very trying time and will want a good rest to reorganize before we are fit to fight again. Our CO is nowhere to be seen, I have not seen him since we went into the line. We got our overcoats on the way here last night. We are camped just close to the original Hun line and practically alongside the huge La Boiselle crater. It is 57 feet deep and was blown by 70 tons of ammonal. Perfectly marvellous. Things must have been very lively about here the 1st week in July. We left here about 6 o/c and picked up the rest of the brigade from then on. Arrived at our bivouac about 11 o/c. On the way I met Major Dexter. Issued with blankets and I slept like a log."

Cecil Lewis, then an officer in the Royal Flying Corps, witnessed the explosion of the mine on 1st July from his aircraft high above La Boisselle:

“The whole earth heaved and flared, a tremendous and magnificent column rose up into the sky. There was an ear-splitting roar, drowning all the guns, flinging the machine sideways in the repercussing air. The earth column rose higher and higher to almost 4,000 feet."

The site is now maintained by the Friends of Lochnagar. Their website is found at:
http://www.friendsoflochnagar.co.uk/


Photos: Roger Stoakley at: rjstoakley@btopenworld.com

The Unnamed II- Additional Pictures from the Somme

In a previous post 'The Unnamed' i published some photographes taken by my friend Roger Stoakley.

Here are a few more taken on the Somme battlefield (click on the photo for a larger image).

Roger can be contacted at: rjstoakley@btopenworld.com

Messines Ridge Military Cemetery

Messines Ridge Military Cemetery is located on the road leading west from Messines towards Wulvergehem, on the ridge which dominates the lower lying land below. Before the battle of Messines, in early 1917 this spot was approximately where the German lines ran, and the cemetery does not in fact date from the War itself, but was created after the Armistice.

The cemetery also contains a memorial to the officers and men of New Zealand who fell in or near Messines in 1917 and 1918. Looking west from the cemetery, the spire of Wulvergehem church can be seen. The picture above shows the entrance to the cemetery; the New Zealand memorial is surmounted by the Cross of Sacrifice and is in the form of panels around the circular base on which the cross is set. These panels are arranged by regiment, including panels for Maori, Auckland, Canterbury and Wellington Regiments. This is one of several such memorials to those from New Zealand with no known grave; after the war, the New Zealanders decided not to have the names of their soldiers whose bodies had never been recovered or identified commemorated on the Menin Gate. Instead, there are seven New Zealand memorials to the missing in France and Belgium, and these have been placed in cemeteries which were appropriate to the fighting in which those listed on each died (such as here at Messines).

The memorial commemorates more than 800 New Zealand soldiers, and the Cemetery beyond has over 1500 graves, approximately two thirds of which are unidentified, reflecting this cemeteries nature - it was created by recovery of many bodies from the Messines battlefields after the war.

There are also special memorials to soldiers buried elsewhere but whose graves were later destroyed by shell-fire. On the left hand side of the Cemetery stands a large impressive pavilion like building, and looking from this the domination of the position is clear. Looking south, the spires of Armentieres are visible. In fact, Messines is nearer to Armentieres than to Ypres.

The Unnamed - Pictures from the Somme

A friend of mine, Roger Stoakley has just returned from visiting the Somme battlefields in France. He took some excellent, sweeping photographs of some of the cemetries.

His pictures really capture the sense of loss and they powerfully portray the feeling of vastness of the sacrifice. They are a sweeping statement to a lost generation.

Roger can be contacted at: rjstoakley@btopenworld.com

Additional Photo's on 'The Unnamed II'