Monday15 September:
A nice fine day, but being Monday almost everything in Belgium is closed. We drove west to the small town of Poperinge which features briefly in Dad's diary for 26 to 30 September 1917. This was an important R & R town for the WW1 troops, and sadly also a military jail where many of the executions of soldiers took place. Talbot House, was the social centre for the troops set up by Padre Talbot, which led to the foundation of the TocH programme. Unfortunately it to was closed for the day, but as we were looking at the door the warden, a Canadian lady appeared and did take us in and give us some brochures and told us a little of its wartime entertainment and services for the troops. One of Talbot's famous notices was "If you spit upon the floor at home please feel free to do so here".
after excellent coffee and cake we drove to Watou a small town which was mentioned in the diary for 3rd to 7th November 1917 as a behind the lines camping point and on to Boeschepe where the artillery was out of the line 25 November to 7th December 1917, and also from 22nd to 25th March 1918 when the great German attack of March 1918 took place. The Australian and New Zealand infantry were rushed south and simply marched towards the triumphant German breakthrough on the Somme. They met them head on as the British forces retreated in near panic and did great slaughter, but lost heavily also as they had no artillery back up. The diary reports the rush from Boeschepe to Caestre and entraining in the middle of the night with all the guns and ammunition. I decided to do the drive which took place over undulating country and must have put great strain on the gun teams and mules. They then spent some 36 hours on the train going about 120 km by tortuous routes and rushed up to support the infantry (more of this later). Caestre today is a rather sleepy town with no rail connection now. We lunched at a tiny CWGC cemetry which contained one NZer (in the Australian army). I also noted the grave of a 19 year old from Durham, who at the time of his death had reached the rank of sergeant and had been decorated with the DCM (Distinguished Conduct Medal - just beneath the VC) and the MM (Military Medal - also a significant bravery decoration). One wonders at what age he had joined the army to have such a history at such a young age. There was also a grave of a young married Australian which had a brief history attached to his gravestone (probably recently by relatives) - he was on his bunk in his billet when a shell came through the roof and killed him instantly. A few seconds before he had been speaking to his friend of how he was looking forward to leave in London in two days. Another sad war story.
A rather difficult journey home followed via Metteren, Baillieu, Loker and Dikkebus - none of the roads seem to go directly to anywhere else! After a brief rest we started to walk the wall of Ieper and met a couple from Matamata - like me he came originally from Gisborne. We followed this with an excellent dinner on the square of fish and chips and excellent Belgian beer.
Tuesday 16 September:
A fine morning and we set out early for the Somme. This put a heavy strain on Edna as navigator as we went from one road system to another. After a couple of hours of difficult driving we arrived at Le Quesnoy. We seemed to be lost and wondered if we were in the right place when suddenly up ahead we saw the NZ flag on large floral display, paired with the French flag and the medaille millitaire picked out in flowers. Immediately behind were the moat and the formidable walls which the NZers scaled with ladders in the last few days of the war. Having photographed the walls we walked back down the hill to the CWGC cemetery with its rows of white stones, almost all bearing the fernleaf and the date of the 4th November 1918. We are proud of how we save the town's population and the medieval walls, etc., but I could not help feeling we should simply have blasted it and taken it without such horrendous casualties. In the town the first building we noticed was the Cambridge Bar (the towns are "twinned"), and it was full of NZ memorabilia. We asked for coffee but after a pleasant talk with the owner were directed across the square to where we could in his opinion get much better service for coffee. We left promising to sengd him some more Cambridge memorabilia.
After coffee we walked by way of New Zealand /Aotearoa Street to another part of the walls where the actual scaling took place and we were able to view and photograph from across the moat a magnificent bas relief let into the wall showing the New Zealanders scaling the walls - a rather difficult and very touching memorial. Later in our trip we met a New Zealander whose grandfather was the fifth man up the ladder!
Leaving Le Quesnoy we drove again over very confusing roads to find the grave of George Whitfield MSM (Meritorious Service Medal - a rather rare decoration), who dad had met on the boat from Egypt to France. He came from Desmond Rd (off Gladstone Road near Gisborne High School). He and two other gunners were killed a month from the end of the war when the Germans were beaten and on the run. I imagine an unlucky shell had probably taken out the gun they were on. In the same cemetery were a line of eight graves of New Zealanders all died of wounds on 8 September 1918. I surmised that there must have been a dressing station nearby and that somewhere further east there would be another cemetery full of men killed in action on the same date.
We then sought out the small village of Montauban where Dad's diary recorded that they were shelled out of on 20 September 1916 and fell back on Fricourt a few miles further back during the first Somme offensive in 1916. It was a strange feeling to drive through this very remote and peaceful rolling countryside today and see small wartime cemeteries every mile of so. After Fri court we drove to Acheaux nearby where the amunition column went in March 1918 after their hurried rush south. This was where the diary inexplicably stopped with no further entries for the rest of the war. However, I remember him saying that he saw the troops coming away after the funeral of Dick Travis, so off we drove northwest to Couin CWGC cemetery where he is buried. His gravestone bears the outline of his VC. He was probably the greatest ever NZ soldier (and I am not forgetting Upham and his double VC in WW2). His decorations were VC, DCM, MM, Belgian Croix de Guerre, and twice Mentioned in Dispatches. On one occasion in Flanders he went out for 40 nights in a row to patrol and explore no mans land, plus countless other feats. As a boy in Gisborne I recall a friend of Dad's, Mr Slingsby, who had been with him in the Otago regiment and was not at all keen about going out with him. I wish now that I had questioned him more closely about it and memorised it more carefully. Travis was known as "the king of no mans land" and his death in action was said to have cast a pall over the whole New Zealand Division.
Much though I would like to have spent more time on the Somme by this time it was late and we faced a long drive back to Ieper which we reached after 7 o'clock - a day of over eleven hours of hard driving.
Saturday, September 27, 2008
Monday, September 22, 2008
after wa
Friday 12 Sept:
Raining, so bought a very expensive map of the battlefields and then into the local Ieper Museum. Some very good displays about the war in Flanders, but no mention of NZ, in fact, the only things I saw was one small 'Onwards' badge from WW1. After lunch in the hotel (in our room - the dining room was very expensive!), and a short rest we drove to the Messines area. The rain having cleared we searched for the famous mine craters which were blown on 7 June 1917 before the attack. We found the famous Spanbroekmolen crater, after a muddy walk through a farmer's tilled field, only to find we could have driven right there on a different road. This mine had a strange history - due to problems caused by the suspicious Germans it failed to blow on schedule, but was 19 seconds late. The poor Irish Rifles had been told that the mines might not go off so they were to attack on schedule - they were out of their trenches and moving forward and many died. They are all buried in the tiny Lone Tree Cemetery close to where they fell. The pool is now surrounded by lovely trees and deserves its title of Pool of Peace.
The mines were along a circle of about 6 km surrounding the town of Messines.
Looking from the pillbox blown up at the edge of the pool one can see why it was so important to the Germans to hold this high ground and how well our troops did to win it. Then we moved on to the twin Kruistraat craters in farmland a bout half a kilometre away. Interesting but not so picturesque today as they are not surrounded by trees, but green fields.
After that we drove to the Messines Ridge cemetery - full of NZers, mostly killed on 7 June. I found the grave of Archie Greves' friend, one of three shepherds from the station next to him in Hawkes Bay, all killed in the Messines attack. I also saw the grave of a man from Wellsford named Ramsay - his parents from there were called Ramsbottom - I guess he did not want the name to bedevil his army career!
Back home to a pasta dinner in the Square and on to a rather smaller Last Post ceremony.
Saturday 13 September:
A fine but cloudy morning so we drove back to Dochy Farm and did another walk through the old NZ battlefield with names such as Gallipoli and Pommern Castle.Through gently undulating country now largely in amidst fields of corn (which stopped our views) and pasture and unknown leafy crops. We went past a beautiful little memorial to Ivor Gurney, war poet and later a mental patient who died early. His poems on the memorial were really moving. We stopped at a farm entrance to admire and photograph a 'sculpture' made of odd bits and pieces in the form of a field gun. The owner came out and greeted us in excellent English. He first showed us his barn made of battlefield debris and used as a first house after the war. Then into his own wonderful house full of re-cycled timbers and wonderful sculptures he had made of re-cycled materials.He showed us some of his war memorabilia and had his wife give us very good coffee while he told us of the post-war experience. For years the land was a hopeless mess of poisoned soil from the gas and high explosive full of unexploded shells, and later the first successful crops were destroyed by millions of rats and mice, before the land could once again become fertile. Even today they are constantly digging up shells, bullets, hand grenades, etc., which they leave by the side of the road to be collected and blown up. The gas shells are a bigger problem now they no longer can dump them in the sea. Even recently there have been fatalities - often from new machinery disturbing the soil in a different way.
We could have had clips of .303 bullets, but they were still dangerous to take home by air, so he just gave us a handful of shrapnel lead balls (they could have come from shells supplied by Dad!). He also had an amazing collection of large format war photos of the battlefields, troops, dead soldiers, blown up tanks, etc. We finally left after about 2 hours - what a nice man!
Then up onto the Messines ridge where we wanted to do the Australian walk to Passchendaele recently completed. The first part led through a railway cutting (no longer in use) with photos of dead, wounded, and completely shell shocked Australians sheltering there during the attack. After about a kilometre we found the track deteriorated to a muddy ditch through dense nettles and blackberry with water which would have been over the tops of our boots, leaving us with no alternative but to turn back. Then we found with difficulty because of local car racing the Passchendaele Cemetery with 126 New Zealanders among the Australian and Canadian graves (the Canadians finally took the town after the Massacre of the second NZ attack which was sheer lunacy on the part of the senior generals who ordered it. With the battlefield deep in mud, the guns and ammunition unable to be brought up to cut the wire and no heavy guns to take out the concrete pill boxes (18 ounders merely bounced off them) they were ordered to attack in a position which no troops in the world could have taken. There were 60 percent casualties and it is said to have broken the spirit of the NZ Division for months. Dad's account of the horrendous time they had trying to get ammunition up to the guns is only part of the worst day in NZ history.
Back home we went to the Last Post |ceremony and were delighted to see a group of NZ Officers laying wreaths on behalf of the NZ army. Their 'lemon squeezer' hats reminded me of my own time spent wearing one in the army. Because of the special occasion I wore Dad's medals on the right and my own on the left and my gunner's badge on my cap. I was also able after the ceremony to present photos of the buglers when they performed at Hamilton last year. One of those present that night had been at Hamilton and was delighted to see himself on film there.
Sunday 14 September:
A superb morning. We drove to Zonnebeke where we caught a free bus to the back side of Polygon Wood where there was a considerable gathering for the unveiling of a plaque to honour Henry Nicholas VC, MM, won on the 3 December 1917, during the NZ attack on Polderhoek Chateau. He actual location of his action was few hundred metres away in the green paddock opposite the road. The NZ army contingent led by a Brigadier, with a NZ piper and Menengate buglers all formed up for the arrival of the NZ ambassador who unveiled the plaque. Afterwards we were taken for a walk through the forest by a local historian, during which I talked with the ambassador (we have a mutual friend - an ex-student who is now an ambassador in the Middle East), and his wife. Talking with a Belgian man who was very interested in the action he bent down along the muddy track, picked up an old army web belt buckle and presented it to me. The kindness we NZers receive there is amazing.
After walking through the wood and photographing a bunker built by NZ engineers we arrived at the Buttes New British Cemetery where there was another ceremony to honour the NZ troops who were known to have died locally but have no known grave. There was a powhiri, etc., and more laying of wreaths by the local mayor (whose sash of office replicates Waikato sporting colours!) and the Mayor of Le Quesnoy from the Somme (more on Le Quesnoy later), and the NZ ambassador. After the ceremony I photographed the name of George Sheat who died with 13 other Otagos on 'a day that nothing happened' and none of whom have known graves. George's nephew John Sheat has tramped with me for many years and it really added a lot of meaning to the ceremony for me. After they took us back to Zonnebeke again by bus we drove back to walk in Polygon Wood again and take photos, before going home to watch the end of Ieper Marathon.
Below is the report on the web for this day:
Published on September 15th 2008
A plaque to Sergeant Henry Nicholas VC, MM, was dedicated today on the brow of a sunlit hill in Flanders overlooking the Polderhoek Chateau valley and heights where the Canterbury and Otago regiments lost so many men in the devastatingly hard winter of 1917.
Raining, so bought a very expensive map of the battlefields and then into the local Ieper Museum. Some very good displays about the war in Flanders, but no mention of NZ, in fact, the only things I saw was one small 'Onwards' badge from WW1. After lunch in the hotel (in our room - the dining room was very expensive!), and a short rest we drove to the Messines area. The rain having cleared we searched for the famous mine craters which were blown on 7 June 1917 before the attack. We found the famous Spanbroekmolen crater, after a muddy walk through a farmer's tilled field, only to find we could have driven right there on a different road. This mine had a strange history - due to problems caused by the suspicious Germans it failed to blow on schedule, but was 19 seconds late. The poor Irish Rifles had been told that the mines might not go off so they were to attack on schedule - they were out of their trenches and moving forward and many died. They are all buried in the tiny Lone Tree Cemetery close to where they fell. The pool is now surrounded by lovely trees and deserves its title of Pool of Peace.
The mines were along a circle of about 6 km surrounding the town of Messines.
Looking from the pillbox blown up at the edge of the pool one can see why it was so important to the Germans to hold this high ground and how well our troops did to win it. Then we moved on to the twin Kruistraat craters in farmland a bout half a kilometre away. Interesting but not so picturesque today as they are not surrounded by trees, but green fields.
After that we drove to the Messines Ridge cemetery - full of NZers, mostly killed on 7 June. I found the grave of Archie Greves' friend, one of three shepherds from the station next to him in Hawkes Bay, all killed in the Messines attack. I also saw the grave of a man from Wellsford named Ramsay - his parents from there were called Ramsbottom - I guess he did not want the name to bedevil his army career!
Back home to a pasta dinner in the Square and on to a rather smaller Last Post ceremony.
Saturday 13 September:
A fine but cloudy morning so we drove back to Dochy Farm and did another walk through the old NZ battlefield with names such as Gallipoli and Pommern Castle.Through gently undulating country now largely in amidst fields of corn (which stopped our views) and pasture and unknown leafy crops. We went past a beautiful little memorial to Ivor Gurney, war poet and later a mental patient who died early. His poems on the memorial were really moving. We stopped at a farm entrance to admire and photograph a 'sculpture' made of odd bits and pieces in the form of a field gun. The owner came out and greeted us in excellent English. He first showed us his barn made of battlefield debris and used as a first house after the war. Then into his own wonderful house full of re-cycled timbers and wonderful sculptures he had made of re-cycled materials.He showed us some of his war memorabilia and had his wife give us very good coffee while he told us of the post-war experience. For years the land was a hopeless mess of poisoned soil from the gas and high explosive full of unexploded shells, and later the first successful crops were destroyed by millions of rats and mice, before the land could once again become fertile. Even today they are constantly digging up shells, bullets, hand grenades, etc., which they leave by the side of the road to be collected and blown up. The gas shells are a bigger problem now they no longer can dump them in the sea. Even recently there have been fatalities - often from new machinery disturbing the soil in a different way.
We could have had clips of .303 bullets, but they were still dangerous to take home by air, so he just gave us a handful of shrapnel lead balls (they could have come from shells supplied by Dad!). He also had an amazing collection of large format war photos of the battlefields, troops, dead soldiers, blown up tanks, etc. We finally left after about 2 hours - what a nice man!
Then up onto the Messines ridge where we wanted to do the Australian walk to Passchendaele recently completed. The first part led through a railway cutting (no longer in use) with photos of dead, wounded, and completely shell shocked Australians sheltering there during the attack. After about a kilometre we found the track deteriorated to a muddy ditch through dense nettles and blackberry with water which would have been over the tops of our boots, leaving us with no alternative but to turn back. Then we found with difficulty because of local car racing the Passchendaele Cemetery with 126 New Zealanders among the Australian and Canadian graves (the Canadians finally took the town after the Massacre of the second NZ attack which was sheer lunacy on the part of the senior generals who ordered it. With the battlefield deep in mud, the guns and ammunition unable to be brought up to cut the wire and no heavy guns to take out the concrete pill boxes (18 ounders merely bounced off them) they were ordered to attack in a position which no troops in the world could have taken. There were 60 percent casualties and it is said to have broken the spirit of the NZ Division for months. Dad's account of the horrendous time they had trying to get ammunition up to the guns is only part of the worst day in NZ history.
Back home we went to the Last Post |ceremony and were delighted to see a group of NZ Officers laying wreaths on behalf of the NZ army. Their 'lemon squeezer' hats reminded me of my own time spent wearing one in the army. Because of the special occasion I wore Dad's medals on the right and my own on the left and my gunner's badge on my cap. I was also able after the ceremony to present photos of the buglers when they performed at Hamilton last year. One of those present that night had been at Hamilton and was delighted to see himself on film there.
Sunday 14 September:
A superb morning. We drove to Zonnebeke where we caught a free bus to the back side of Polygon Wood where there was a considerable gathering for the unveiling of a plaque to honour Henry Nicholas VC, MM, won on the 3 December 1917, during the NZ attack on Polderhoek Chateau. He actual location of his action was few hundred metres away in the green paddock opposite the road. The NZ army contingent led by a Brigadier, with a NZ piper and Menengate buglers all formed up for the arrival of the NZ ambassador who unveiled the plaque. Afterwards we were taken for a walk through the forest by a local historian, during which I talked with the ambassador (we have a mutual friend - an ex-student who is now an ambassador in the Middle East), and his wife. Talking with a Belgian man who was very interested in the action he bent down along the muddy track, picked up an old army web belt buckle and presented it to me. The kindness we NZers receive there is amazing.
After walking through the wood and photographing a bunker built by NZ engineers we arrived at the Buttes New British Cemetery where there was another ceremony to honour the NZ troops who were known to have died locally but have no known grave. There was a powhiri, etc., and more laying of wreaths by the local mayor (whose sash of office replicates Waikato sporting colours!) and the Mayor of Le Quesnoy from the Somme (more on Le Quesnoy later), and the NZ ambassador. After the ceremony I photographed the name of George Sheat who died with 13 other Otagos on 'a day that nothing happened' and none of whom have known graves. George's nephew John Sheat has tramped with me for many years and it really added a lot of meaning to the ceremony for me. After they took us back to Zonnebeke again by bus we drove back to walk in Polygon Wood again and take photos, before going home to watch the end of Ieper Marathon.
Below is the report on the web for this day:
Nicholas VC Plaque Unveiled
Published on September 15th 2008A plaque to Sergeant Henry Nicholas VC, MM, was dedicated today on the brow of a sunlit hill in Flanders overlooking the Polderhoek Chateau valley and heights where the Canterbury and Otago regiments lost so many men in the devastatingly hard winter of 1917.
Some 350 people crowded onto a narrow country road in Belgium for the brief ceremony led by the New Zealand Defence Force, the New Zealand Embassy in Brussels, the Zonnebeke (Passchendaele) District Council and the Memorial Museum Passchendaele.
The ceremony was followed by a guided walk through Polygon Wood which included visits to dug-outs constructed by New Zealand engineers during a winter that remains one of the worst in European history.
There was then a service at the New Zealand Memorial to the Missing at Buttes New British Cemetery in the woods, a cemetery widely regarded as one of the most beautiful and peaceful of all those in Flanders. Around 500 people were present for the commemoration led by the Reverend Niki Francis, Minister of the Presbyterian Church of Aotearoa New Zealand.
The Belgian Army Guard was inspected by the New Zealand Ambassador Peter Kennedy and the Mayor of Zonnebeke Dirk Cardoen after the official party was welcomed by a karanga sung by a Ngati Ranana member.
In his address Mr Cardoen recalled that the New Zealanders had paid the highest price proportionately of all countries in the Passchendaele region, while Mr Kennedy noted that New Zealand normally honoured its dead at Messines and Tyne Cot. It was rare that there was a service to the missing at the Buttes memorial. The Ambassador's address was supported by Nadell Karatea-Kokiri and Rachel Filiata of Ngati Ranana.
Paul Turner, a New Zealander who was formerly a professional piper in Scotland and who performed in Flanders last year with the Wairarapa-based Celtic folk group Wild Geese, played the Lament for Murdo Mackenzie prior to the laying of wreaths. Paul had played twice at the Menin Gate, visited a school, taught young pipers and advised the Passchendaele Pipes and Drums during a week-long visit.
Wreaths were laid by the Ambassador, the Mayor and representatives of the New Zealand and Belgian Defence Forces, as well as the Mayoress of Beaudignies Mme Raymonde Dramez, and the First Alderman of Le Quesnoy, M Michel Guoyt. Sergeant Nicholas was killed in October 1918 close to Beaudignies, France, which in turn is close to Le Quesnoy, finally liberated by the New Zealanders towards the end of the First World War. A private wreath was laid by Mrs Holt, of Major and Mrs Holt's battlefield guides which have been published for Flanders since the 1970s.
Charlotte Whiting, a young New Zealander, read "Life in the Trenches", which was followed by prayers and The Last Post and Reveille sounded by buglers from the Menin Gate. Brigadier Warren Whiting recited The Ode and the national anthems were played by the Zonnebeke Harmony brass band.
In the afternoon, an additional 400-500 people toured the area of the Nicholas plaque, Polygon Wood, Buttes and the New Zealand winter frontline of 1917 with expert guides provided by the Memorial Museum Passchendaele.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
Posts
