Memories of World War One

We have come to Ypres to learn something about World War One when the town was at the centre of intense fighting between British, French, Canadian, New Zealand and Australian soldiers defending the town and the Germans attacking it.

There is much to see and we begin with the excellent In Flanders Field Museum. Click on the Man Culture War icon for a brief description of the very interesting exhibition on the over 50 nationalities that fought here (Chinese, West Indian, Chinese, Inuit etc.) and the Museum link for more info about the permanent museum exhibits.

In the afternoon, we headed out on a cycle round Ypres to visit some historical sites of the Flanders section of the Western Front such as Hill 60 and the village of Passendale (another excellent Museum on the Battle of Passchendaele or Third Ypres that we didn't have time to visit. 

We visit Polygon Wood Cemetery where the recently discovered body of a Scottish soldier, John Thomson of the 2nd Gordon Highlanders, was finally laid to rest on 21 October 2004, having been posted missing in action.

Polygon Wood Cemetery is an example of a small battlefield cemetery with the graves left as they were dug during the War. As a result, the graves are arranged in an irregular pattern reflecting the chaos of retrieving and burying the dead in the midst of battle.

We finished our outward cycle at the Tyne Cot cemetery, the largest Commonwealth Cemetery in the world.

We head back to Ypres at 7.30pm as we want to see the ceremony of the Last Post but stop briefly at the recently erected Scottish Monument which was erected in 2006.

We arrive back in Ypres to witness the ceremony of the Last Post. Every evening since the end of the war (apart from the years of German occupation in WWII), the local Fire Brigade have played the Last Post at the Menin Gate which has inscribed on it the names of the 54,896 soldiers of the British Commonwealth who were reported missing between the beginning of the war and the 16 August 1916. These soldiers therefore have no known grave. The names of a  further 34,957 soldiers missing between 17 August 1916 and the end of the War are inscribed on a wall at Tyne Cot Cemetery.

Cycled 37.44 km (but not counting towards sponsorship)

Busking earnings 0

No punctures