Simpson Prize Tour 2018: Days 4-6
Days 4–6: Ypres
From London the group travelled on the Eurostar to Lille, where we met Koenraad Dumoulin, our local guide, and our bus driver, Mohamed. From Lille we journeyed to Messines, our base for the next few days, and on to the historic city of Ypres. Rachel Leeson, from Queensland, wrote about this leg of the trip:
The morning of our fifth day on the Simpson Prize Tour was dedicated to travel, as we left behind the bustling streets of London for a more commemorative experience on the Western Front. Upon our arrival in Lille we were greeted by Koenraad, our Belgian guide, who would provide us with a wealth of local knowledge and become a much loved member of the Simpson Prize family over the next week.
Our first main event of the day was a visit to the In Flanders Fields Museum in Ypres. A climb to the roof of the centuries-old cloth hall that now contains the museum provided a breathtaking view of the Belgian landscape, from which many significant First World War sites can be seen. One display within the museum that stood out to me was an example of an A-frame used in the First World War. This was a structure invented by the allied soldiers to help keep their feet dry while in the trenches, thus reducing their susceptibility to gangrene. This invention, later adopted by the Germans for use in their own trenches, shows the resourcefulness of the soldiers in improving living conditions amid the danger and chaos of their daily life in the trenches. Another important aspect addressed in the museum was the impact of facial disfigurements on soldiers who returned home, as many felt alienated within society by their gruesome wounds. The display, which showed images of horrifically disfigured veterans, also highlighted the importance of plastic surgery developments in helping such men cope with life after the war.
Later in the afternoon we also had the privilege of attending the daily Last Post Ceremony at the Menin Gate. It was incredibly moving to gather with people from all over the world to commemorate the thousands of soldiers who made the ultimate sacrifice, and whose remains still lie undiscovered in the battlefields of Belgium. It was also interesting to learn that this tradition inspired the Last Post Ceremony held daily at the Australian War Memorial in Canberra.
Also moved by the visit to the In Flanders Fields Museum and Menin Gate ceremony was Sara Hinton:
A highlight of our tour around town was the stop at the In Flanders’s Field Museum. The architecture of this place was breathtaking, a recreation of the building which once stood hundreds of years ago, in medieval times, before it was torn apart by the First World War. In the museum, we walked a hundred or so stairs, up a windy staircase to the peak balcony of the building. From here we got a view of the land surrounding Ypres, and the old battlefields. Personally, it was so hard to comprehend that the beautiful green grass which surrounded Ypres today was a battle zone with bombs and guns going off left, right, and centre.
At half-seven in the evening the Simpson Prize group attended the Menin Gate Last Post Ceremony. This ceremony was an opportunity to pay my respects to the missing soldiers of the British Empire who made the ultimate sacrifice during the Great War. I was one out of many Australians who were also privileged enough to lay a wreath at the ceremony.
Samantha Trafford, from the ACT, reflected upon this part of the trip:
The In Flanders Field Museum was especially interesting, as it was located in a rebuilt version of the Ypres Cloth Hall, originally completed in 1304 but destroyed in the First World War. The exhibitions were primarily focused on the personal experiences of the soldiers, and we got to hear about the ongoing process of identifying soldiers, even now, so long after the war; a vastly important task.
After a quick dinner we got to experience the Last Post Ceremony at the Menin Gate, the inspiration for the Last Post service held at the Australian War Memorial every day. A few members of our group were able to lay a wreath during the ceremony … it was incredible to see the constant effort put into remembering those who fought and died at Menin Gate. Afterwards we got to hear one of the members of our group share the story of just one soldier whose name resides on the gate. Visiting the gate was the first of many confrontations of the sheer number of deaths that took place during the First World War. When being taught about the war, as well as during research, you do hear about these ridiculous numbers, but actually getting to see the individual names covering almost every part of the huge structure and remember that the names we see are just a fraction of the total death count is something else entirely, and nearly incomprehensible.
Day 5 included a stop at Polygon Wood, a trip to the Memorial Museum Passchendaele 1917 in Zonnebeke, and retracing the footsteps of the 40th Battalion during the battle of Broodseinde to the site of the cemetery at Tyne Cot. Samantha Trafford reflects:
Cheers were heard all around the group as we woke up and it was finally cold enough to get to wear our jackets, a welcome change from the much too warm weather we experienced in London. The morning started with a visit to Polygon Wood, the group’s first visit of the trip to a First World War cemetery. There we heard about the fighting that took place, and were able to reflect on the many lives that were lost right where we stood. We also took a short walk to see an old bunker located further into the woods, able to see for ourselves the bullet holes in the cement, and how the remnants of a war seemingly so long ago never truly disappear.
We then drove to the Memorial Museum Passchendaele 1917, a museum dedicated to the battle of Passchendaele. There was definitely a much larger focus on the more material aspects of the war, with empty shell casings, old helmets, and uniforms all on display. British and German trenches had also been reconstructed, and being able to explore them gave me a lot more insight into the claustrophobic and, to put it mildly, unpleasant trench experience.
For the remainder of the day we were privileged enough to participate in the “Day as a Digger” program … The entire experience allowed for me to have a much greater appreciation for the daily lives and struggles of the soldiers. Granted, we definitely still had an easier time both physically and mentally, only walking a minor fraction of the distance that would have been covered daily, and doing the activities with the knowledge that whatever troubles we faced would be over in a couple hours, a luxury that no one in the war would have had. We also often stopped to discuss the significance of various points on our walk, as well as to listen to just some of the stories of the soldiers who so bravely fought on the land where we were standing just over 100 years later.
Before concluding for the day, we visited Tyne Cot cemetery, the largest cemetery for British and Dominion forces in the world. The grounds seemed to stretch on, filled with countless rows of pristine white headstones. It was heartening to see how, regardless of nationality or religion, all of the soldiers were buried next to each other in seemingly no particular order, simply as a united force.
Charlotte Pickering, from the Northern Territory, wrote:
Our day began at the Memorial Museum Passchendaele 1917, where we learned much about the conditions in this place where so many men died or were wounded. In the museum we were able to explore and appreciate the dimensions of the dug-outs that would have been used, as well as the contributions made by the different nations …
Our trekking journey retraced three kilometres in the footsteps of our adopted 40th Battalion, from Zonnebeke to the Passchendaele battlefield … ending at Tyne Cot cemetery, the largest British and Dominion war cemetery in the world. Of the 11,954 bodies buried in Tyne Cot cemetery, 8,367 are unidentified British or Dominion servicemen. This is about 70 per cent of the total graves in the cemetery, which are simply engraved with “Known unto God”.
On Day 6 the group visited the battlefield of Fromelles, and the cemetery at Pheasant Wood, as well as exploring the battlefields around Messines. Charlotte Pickering wrote:
We visited a large number of military cemeteries and battlefields that hold the remains of both allied and German soldiers, including some where members of our group had family members buried. We visited the Outtersteene Communal Cemetery at Bailleul, where my great-great-uncle, Angus Pickering, is interred, and we were all grateful for the assistance of Dr Grant in finding out the details of the fates of our various family members. The number of crosses across the battlefields is overwhelming, as are the statistics displayed in the various museums; but it was the personal stories that helped to make the history of the war real and relatable. The letters that Angus Pickering’s mother wrote to the war office showed us the reality of sacrifice: she writes that he was 37 years old, and still lived at home on the family farm before enlisting. He was killed in action only a few months later at Hazebrouk, near Lille. In the days before plane travel, his parents did not have the closure of a funeral, and never saw his grave. His mother wrote:
I would like to have a photo of his grave also to know that his grave was taken care of. He never left home before till he enlisted, his youngest brother had gone so he said he thought it was his duty to go and do his bit … like a lot of Australian mothers I still miss my boy.
The harsh reality of this was brought back to us on Anzac Day during the sound-and-light show at Villers-Bretonneux; one of the highlighted stories was about the role of the postman, and how much people hated his arrival because of the possibility of a telegram announcing death. Sometimes there was not even the certainty that a loved one was actually dead – the telegram might simply state that someone was “missing – presumed dead”.