2011 Year 9 Battlefields Trip – Ypres Belgium – Ellie Young
We set off at about five o’clock in the morning. An early start, but well worth it. Having collected our guide, Peter Crook, we headed for the channel tunnel to catch the train across to France. From there the coach continued on to Belgium where our tour begun.
Our first stop was the ‘Caterpillar Crater’ near Hill 60, just outside Ypres. It was blown up by the British on the 7th of June 1917 and still exists today as a massive hole filled with water. It was impressive to see and made you realize what a devastating impact it must have had.
Once we had all got back on the coach we headed off for some lunch. We sat in front of a church and later headed off to the Chocolate shop – one of the highlights of the day. Having explained all the deals on offer it was a case of every man and woman for themselves as we scrambled for the best chocolate.
Bags filled, we walked on to the Menin Gate where the names of 60,000 soldiers are recorded as being missing from the Great War. It was quite a site, particularly when you consider this was only a small proportion of those killed in action.
Loaded back onto the coach we then set off to see the trenches at Sanctuary Wood. We clambered through the reserve line trenches and although they were not as high as they would have been in World War One it certainly gave us an idea of what it must have been like – in particular very wet and muddy. We also saw some shell craters that were dotted around the site.
Our next stop was back in Ypres, where we visited the War museum, In Flanders Fields. Here we listened to an audio guide of Flanders Fields, looked at some of the artifacts of World War One and worked with computers to research the lives of some of the soldiers. Each of us was given a different person to find out about on our entry ticket and discover what happened to them at the end of the war.
The final part of the journey involved a trip to three War cemetery’s. At Tyne Cott, the largest British War Cemetery in the region, we laid a memorial wreath to the Berkshire Regiment. Again this was an amazing site to see, with row upon row of white gravestones laid out. We then moved on to see a German cemetery Langemark and then finally Essex Farm cemetery where we saw the grave of Valentine Strudwick, who was 15 when he died at the front line.
After this we head home, giving us time to reflect on a part of the world which has such significance to our lives today. Having experienced the battlefields first hand, it really did give us a more meaningful understanding on what life was like ‘in the trenchces.’
Thank you very much to Mr Metson, Miss Pedley, Mr Wells and Mrs Witting for helping with the trip.
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