Daniel Jackson, Sam Nicolson, James Baggaley, Mikhail Dillon : Fri Feb 23 21:00:34 2001
On tour with Skylark Battlefield Tours: It's been brilliant, very interesting and fun. These are our comments about what we have seen and done today since leaving Spalding.

James Baggaley : Fri Feb 23 21:02:42 2001

On the site of the German trenches on the Messine Ridge that were taken in June, 1917. This commemorates the New Zealand Division which captured this part of the German trenches.

Sam Nicolson : Fri Feb 23 21:10:59 2001

Although they received little recognition for their brave service, a separate battalion was made up of Maoris. Their brave efforts should be remembered for fighting and dying so far from home.

James Baggaley : Fri Feb 23 21:14:13 2001

This German war grave was one of three found opposite the Hyde Park memorial. The inscription reads:
"Unknown Warrior, Fallen for Germany, 15/09/17" The allied soldiers afforded the enemy the same respect in death as they afforded their own soldiers.

Gareth Millward : Fri Feb 23 21:17:33 2001

Thousands of names from every soldier without a grave in Britain and the Commonwealth are inscribed in stone on the memorial. The things that really hits home is the fact that so many men were killed whose bodies were never found. Even today, there are messages and poppies from members of the mens' families who never returned home. There are 11,447 names listed here.

Thomas Busfield : Fri Feb 23 21:21:22 2001

Before heading to the hostel for the night, we were due to visit one last site, thee line of German trenches in 1917. Although these particular trenches were preserved until the 1960s, they are essentially the same as they would have been at the time of the German occupation. They, therefore, gave an extremely good live and visual idea of the wartime conditions which both sides were forced to bear.

Jonathan Earth : Fri Feb 23 21:24:44 2001

This is a depiction of a British man who is out on the field in the trenches. He is in all of the equipment ready on the front line. He has got the stumps of the trees which were like that as the shells destroyed everything around. I look at this and can hear the sound of shells dropping around me.

Mikhail Dillon : Fri Feb 23 21:26:47 2001

This grave is different from the others because it shows the Star of David, which was allocated to Jewish soldiers instead of the Christian cross. What also makes it stick out is the fact that it is an Australian soldier.

Jonathan Logie : Sat Feb 24 21:39:21 2001

The cemetery at Tyne Cot provokes a feeling of speechlessness. When walking between graves, your sense of emotion is sent into a tumbling spiral. Should I feel sad? Should I feel angry? Should I feel anything? This is complemented with a sheer disbelief in how such a slaughter could ever happen; how people near my own age could die with such futility. Tyne Cot represents so many things and evokes so many feelings. Knowing and seeing that so many died for what is so little makes Tyne Cot a truly humbling experience.

Daniel Jackson : Sat Feb 24 21:42:34 2001

We made a special to Poelkappelle Military Cemetery to pay our respects to a 13 year-old boy, J. Condon, who died for his country at such a young age. It was at this moment I realised that that boy could have been me.

Adam Davey : Sat Feb 24 21:47:48 2001

The group's visit to Langemark, a German cemetery, showed the difference between these and Allied graves as seen at Tyne Cot. There are fewer German cemeteries on the Western Front because the German army tended to bury their dead in mass graves. The cemetery contains 43,097 Germans with one mass grave holding over 24,000 fallen soldiers. Further plaques are situated in the ground around the cemetery marking other graves. A statue of four figures, grieving soldiers, shows solemn mourners.

Lee Vasey : Sat Feb 24 21:53:37 2001

If Talbot House was to have a modern equivalent, it would no doubt be called a Drop-In centre. It was set up by a young priest named "Tubby" Clayton who quickly established the house as a religious haven for all Allied troops. The house soon became known as "Toc H" to its visitors and became renowned for the little piece of home it offered soldiers. "Tubby" had several rules, one of which was all rank should be abandoned upon entering the house. The part that struck me the most was the quaint chapel in the loft of the house. As I climbed the stairs my mind was filled with images of those who had climbed these stairs before me, and I felt them there with me. It was a fantastic experience that I will never forget.

Lea Chapman : Sat Feb 24 21:58:48 2001

The site of this extremely brave man's grave, hidden among masses of other graves, provoked a feeling of equality. Noel Chavasse received two Victoria Crosses and the Military Cross so he must have been very courageous. These words from a letter to his father sum up his achievements, "It is a great pleasure to think that your son in laying down his life, laid it down on behalf of his fellow countrymen, and it is recognised...by the King and Country as a whole."

David George : Sat Feb 24 22:07:34 2001

The ceremony at the Menin Gate was a very bizarre experience for me. It began with the playing of "The Last Post" on bugles that gave a military atmosphere because it normally signifies soldiers' retiring. In this case it represented the dead soldiers without graves. In Gareth Millward's exhortation he said "They shall not grow old..." I found these words particularly moving because earlier in the day we had visited the grave of a thirteen year old soldier, someone who had not had the chance to grow up. It was bizarre but I'm glad I went.
On reflection there were about 250 people at the ceremony, and after the wreath laying most of them went to read the memorial card attached to the wreath that we left dedicated to the memories of the staff and pupils of Spalding Grammar School who died in the Great War.

David George (continued) : Sat Feb 24 22:08:47 2001

Christopher Pratt : Sun Feb 25 20:17:01 2001

The Sheffield Pals were a close-knit community from Sheffield. At the start of the war, this battalion was formed from 100% pure Sheffield blood, but their numbers dwindled after a failed attack on the German trenches. Many men were lost and this devastated the neighbourhoods in Sheffield from which these men came. Some of the men are buried at the Railway Hollow Cemetery near where they died. The British army stopped forming Pals battalions to avoid such neighbourhood disasters. By the end of the end of the war there were only a few Yorkshiremen in the Sheffield "Pals".

Azim Shah : Sun Feb 25 20:22:13 2001

This is an example of a different race fighting in the Great War. What makes these graves stand out from the rest is their shape, as these Islamic gravestones in a French cemetery show. They are not cross shaped as all the other French headstones are. Normally it is thought that there were only the major powers (England, France), but because of their empires they brought soldiers from all over the world. This is why there is a Muslim grave in the French cemetery.

Staff editor : Sun Feb 25 20:27:04 2001

Oops! Wrong picture. Here is the correct one.

James Baggaley : Sun Feb 25 20:32:05 2001

This is the headstone of James Knighton and E. Hudson of the York and Lancaster Pals Battalion. Both privates were 24 years old when they fell on the 1st July, 1916 in an attempt to capture the village of Serre during the Somme offensive. The personalised epitaph for James Knighton reads: Still lives
Still loves
Still ours.
We'll meet again. Ma and Dad

Adam Horsfield : Sun Feb 25 20:35:41 2001

The topography (lay of the land) meant that the Germans had a very safe place for their small howitzers and trench mortars here at the Y revine. It was relatively safe as it was behind their front line and out of sight of the Allied troops so it would be pot luck to hit it. Tunnels were dug into the chalk for the soldiers to take cover from falling shells.

Chris Matthews : Sun Feb 25 20:39:41 2001

This is an original trench touched only by nature. Grass has covered in the trenches. In this trench used to be duckboards at the bottom to stop all the mud getting mashed up. Also the sandbags from the top are missing. The trench meanders; this is because if the trench is infiltrated by the enemy they couldn't just shoot down the line and kill anyone.

Daniel Jackson : Sun Feb 25 20:45:16 2001

This is an eight inch British shell. I have knelt down beside it to give you some idea of its size. Debris such as shells, shrapnel, barbed wire and pickets are common finds when walking across any battlefield site. Our tourguide, Andrew Spooner of Skylark Battlefield Tours, told us that when the British officers went over the top they commented on how many unexploded British shells were just lying on the ground. We were told this was due to faults in the fuses because of poor manufacturing at home.

Jonathan Logie : Sun Feb 25 20:51:07 2001

This monument stands to represent those unfortunate souls who were never found after the Battle of the Somme. This was a rather special, stirring monument as I, myself, had a great great uncle who unfortunately graces the sobering walls. My relation, James Blood, like many, perished on the rolling, now peaceful, fields of the Somme. I never knew this man, but I cannot help feeling there is a part of him in me. I will always remember him deep in my heart. We should never forget them.

Jon-Paul Chilvers : Sun Feb 25 20:57:47 2001

The Arras Memorial has 35,942 names listed. The Memorial has marvelous architecture with arches supported by huge pillars. In the middle is a stone pillar with a globe on top which is the RFC (Royal Flying Corps) Memorial to all those airmen who died on the Western Front whose bodies were never found. In this Memorial is a name that is more significant to me than the others; it is G. Harrison, the name of my greatgranddad, who perished on the Western Front. Seeing his name has shown me my roots. It has shown me the identity of someone I have never seen in my life. Seeing this really touched me inside, and I hope that other people will find their relatives who were lost in World War I, so they can find their roots also.

Gareth Millward : Tue Feb 27 10:44:58 2001 : Thu Mar 1 16:23:58 2001

This was the final resting place of my great great Grandfather, and I laid my wreath on his grave. I felt a whole mixture of emotions - sadness for his loss, pride for his memory and a sense of being really lucky that I had the opportunity to visit him, somrthing millions cannot do.

James Officer : Tue Feb 27 10:50:46 200 : Thu Mar 1 16:26:19 2001

The site where tanks were first used, in the First World War, at Fleures in 1916, was awe-inspiring. It represented the new development in C20th warfare and became a technological advance that would change the world for ever.
These tanks gave the British soldiers a great morale boost and gave them a psychological advantage over the Germans, who were not so open to the idea of tanks and only made about 20 of them but used captured British tanks. This advance though gave new ideas for future warfare. It represents however more than just a great technological advance, it inspired the soldiers and ultimately helped win the war.

Andrew Clements : Tue Feb 27 10:59:19 2001 : Thu Mar 1 16:28:12 2001

William Noel Hodgson, one of the most famous war poets, wrote poetry of life and his feelings through his time serving in the war. His most famous piece of poetry was 'Before Action.' He wrote this two days before his death on the 1st of July 1916. The last verse was a premonition of his own death.
....Must say goodbye to all this;
By all delights that I shall miss,
Help me to die, O Lord.

Matt Reedman : Tue Feb 27 11:01:39 2001 : Thu Mar 1 16:29:50 2001

At Mansel Copse we went on a short walk on the battlefield and ended up at Mansel Wood where the Devonshire Regiment advanced. You could see the view the German machine gunners had and how easily they could stop the advance.

Douglas Jefferson : Tue Feb 27 11:04:53 2001 : Thu Mar 1 16:31:42 2001

Just outside La Boiselle, the Lochnagar Crater was mined and then blown by the British in preparation for the attack on the Somme. To protect the British flanks from the sweeping machine gun fire of the Germans based in La Boiselle. Buried 52ft below the surface it contained a total charge of about 27 tons of explosives.

Peter Bailes : Tue Feb 27 11:08:29 2001 : Thu Mar 1 16:33:48 2001

Even after 80 years the effects of the damage of the Great War still show.
I think the most moving example is Lochnagar Crater where a mine was blown in 1916. In 1998 a previously undiscovered body was found in the soil and is commemorated by this memorial next to the crater. It really hits you that people are still buried in the top soil with an unmarked grave. But at the end of the day, when he was found, he received a proper burial in a cemetary where he can rest in peace with his other comrades.

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