The Somme Battlefields-Flanders Fields

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Trip Start Aug 20, 2011 Previous
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  Hazebrouck, Nord-Pas-de-Calais, France
Friday, September 9, 2011

We picked up our new Peugeot without much fuss but then the fun began! Setting up our own Tom Tom we had brought took quite some time because it needed to charge; meanwhile we couldn't get out of the car park and drove round and round the centre of Lille – huge stress with the steering wheel on the wrong side as well as driving on the other side of the road. Finally found the Europe hotel but couldn't find an entrance and on the second lap paused for a moment at the far end of the bus lane only to look in the rear vision mirror to see a parking attendant writing our number on a ticket! Finally the Tom Tom kicked in and we decided we had seen enough of Lille and headed out of the city towards Villers Bretonneux (Forfeiting our prepaid hotel in Lille in the process). In the first few minutes of driving, we were beeped, flashed, glared at and waved at. This combined with running into the kerb, sideswiping a mirror and a few excursions in the wrong lane, including driving over a traffic island to get to the right side of thee road, gave new meaning to the phrase, "You're not in Kansas now Toto".

Soon we began to drive through the battlefields of the Somme and we passed many small military cemeteries before reaching the Australian Memorial Cemetery at Villers Bretonneux. Here on the 25^th of April 1918, the Australians halted the German Army and on Anzac Day every year a commemoration ceremony is held. This place is proof of the strength of the links and mutual recognition between Australia and France.

What a beautiful but sad place, so many lives lost for what? Row after row of Australian soldiers gleaming white headstones along with many more from Commonwealth countries stood proudly among the immaculately manicured lawns and gardens. The main memorial at the top of the hill towered silently over this silent reminder of the madness of war. We walked up row after row looking at the ages of these young men who never got a chance to live their lives and paused at the 'Known only to God’ headstones wondering who they were and who they left behind. From the top of the monument tower you could see the vast fields and valleys where many of the bloody battles took place, and as we scanned the thousands of names on the memorial wall we gave thanks for our freedom. 

We also visited the Borre British War Cemetery near Hazebrouck where we were fulfilling a promise to a good friend to find his Great Uncle’s grave. We placed some red roses and a small tribute in front of the headstone and quietly reflected what had happened in the past all those years ago in the now peaceful countryside. At Ypres across the Belgian border we found an information centre who gave us details about Tyne Cot Commonwealth Military Cemetery at Passendale, the largest Commonwealth cemetery in Europe.

The cemetery grew up around a German bunker captured in October 1917 and almost 12,000 soldiers are buried here all killed in the surrounding battlefields. The wall at the back commemorates a further 40,000 missing soldiers who died after August 1917. All the headstones are made of white Portland stone and the central Cross of Sacrifice was constructed above the original bunker. We spent some time here and again it made a huge impression on us both thinking about what these soldiers had done for our country.

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Lest we forget

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