Day of Memorials
Trip Start
Dec 28, 2004
1
12
28
Trip End
Jan 24, 2005
Ieper, Belgium
Saturday, January 8, 2005
The rest of the day was spent looking at the numberous war memorials around the area such as Tyne Cot, which is the burial place of 30,000 Allied troops. It was a spectacular cemetary......a huge contrast to the German memorials that we came across. They were dark and had no tombstones, just black plaques. Although relations between the nations have been smoothed over time, there are still reminders such as this of the huge divide that once existed.
Tonight we visited the most moving place I have ever been to, Menin Gate. The last post has been played here every night since 1928 as a memorial to the dead of WWI. Above the monument are recorded the words "Here are recorded names of officers and men who fell in Ypres salient but to whom the fortune of war denied the known and honoured burial given to their comrades in death". The most striking thing was the number of Australian soldiers named in the memorial. More than 10,000 young men, whose bodies were never recovered from the battlefield.
