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With the skylight windows of our room open, we were woken a bit earlier this morning by the sound of the traffic. It was just as well as we needed to get an earlier start for our trip to the WW1 memorial at Vimy Ridge.
After a quick breakfast at the trains station McDonalds (I feel guilty - we should have been eating more croissants !) we walked across the street to the car rental company and picked up our car. Having not driven in Europe before and it being a while since I drove standard, it was a bit of a challenge to navigate our way out of Lille in the morning traffic.
We had thought there wouldn't be much traffic as we were timing our trip for mid-morning, but the highway was packed with trucks for most of the trip. After about 40 minutes on the highway, we turned off and were quickly passing through a small town. Shortly after that we were in countryside with clumps of poppies growing by the side of the road. Looking across the fields with the morning fog lifting, we could see the Vimy Ridge memorial standing out on a ridge
of land in the distance. It was a fitting introduction to the site.
Arriving at the memorial, we were greeted by a very familiar looking Parks Canada woman where the same uniform that they wear at home. She informed us that the memorial was here but the recreation of the trenches and tour was down the road a short ways, so we got back in the car and headed over.
At this second sight there was a modern looking main centre where we picked up ticket for the tour that was to start in a few minutes. There was fenced in woods nearby, with signs warning of unexploded artillery shells. Despite this, there were sheep grazing in the area.
The group that we met by the flag pole for the tour were mostly older and coming from British Columbia and Ontario as well as a few from England.
The tour guide explained a bit about the history of this part of the front. The French had established the line at the start of the war, British miners had dug the tunnel and trench system, and then Canadian divisions from four parts of the country had
taken over the position. The battle at Vimy Ridge and the subsequent taking of the ridge was the first time that all four Canadian divisions had fought together.
We toured the windy trenches closest to the interpretation center first. The sandbags, which would have lined the side of the trenches, have been replaces with concrete replicas to prevent the trenches from eroding away. The trenches snake back and forth to provide a barrier in case a shell enters the area and also to make a face to face attack harder.
We walked to the furthest forward point and looked through the steel plate from the most forward observation point over to the German trenches which were a mere 5 to 10 meters away. Our guide explained that this was an observation trench, so that it would not be that common for the side to try and attack each other from this spot.
Leaving the Canadian trenches, out guide showed us the small no mans land in between the two fronts. Nearly 100 years after this war, this area is still full of deep craters and odd chunks of land as a result of the bombs and mortars
that exploded there.
The Canadian attack was successful in part due to the technique of “Rolling Barrage” that they used. This consisted having their large guns clear a section 100 yards ahead of them, then moving forward the 100 yards, and then repeating the process. It involved very precise co-ordination of the artillery and the infantry.
We then moved to the German trenches that were a incredibly short distance across no mans land. Again, this was a observation position, and they had a small pillbox with its view aimed to look across the front, rather than towards the Canadian trenches.
After viewing the trenches, we headed down into the tunnels where the headquarters for this division would have been. The tunnels were dug though soft chalk which is is very easy to dig. Space being at a premium, the rooms are very small and would have been quite tight. Only the field commander and the message runners would have slept down here, though hundreds of soldiers would have amassed here before going over the top in the battle.
One of the few surviving piece of original graffiti in this particular trench system is a Canadian maple
leaf carved into the wall.
After having our lunch near the trenches, we drove back to see the Vimy memorial. The memorial, carved of brilliant stone, is very powerful and conveys a strange sense of loss and hope at the same time. One of the sculptures near the entrance in particular caught my attention. It showed a man with his head down in sadness, but with both hands clenched as if in anger. It seemed to sum up the feelings conveyed by the monument.
The monument is high on the ridge and at a windy spot, looking out over the entire plane. Beyond marking the ridge itself, the wind swept sight is a powerful location for such a tribute.
After the memorial, we drove over to the Cemeteries. The graveyard is had identical rounded headstones, not the “crosses row on row”. There was a mix of Canadian graves and others of British soldiers. One phase that kept catching my attention were the unknown graves where the words “Known unto God” were written in place of a name.
As we wandered the though the graves, I hoped Benjamin and Joshua were noting the age of these fallen
soldiers, some as young as 16 years old. We wandered through a second, smaller graveyard before heading back to the car.
After Vimy, we drove back to Lille and returned the car and then spent the rest of the afternoon doing school work. We figured out where we need to be tomorrow for our bus to London and also emailed my cousin Chris in London about coming for dinner on Thursday night.
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Jeff Oves
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Wonderful photos
I am re-reading Piere Bertone's book Vimy. Your pictures are a wonderful addition to the images in mind conjured up by the book. It must have been very emotional to visit such a place of loss. I'm happy you had a chance to take your kids. What an experience.