Belgium / France

Battlefield Tours

4 mins 37 secs - June 1997

(MUSIC LAST POST)

(VOICE TRACK: DAVID TUCKER)

It's eight o'clock in Ypres. The last post is played. As it is every night. The haunting mournful notes speaking of sorrow and loss.. bridging 80 years.... honouring the men who gave their lives in the Fields of Flanders in the First World War.

SOT (in English)  Albert Verkooter, Fire brigade, Ypres: "The people of Ypres try to remember all the soldiers who died in the First War, well the Commonwealth not only English; Ypres said we must do something for them and started the last post committee in the summer of 1928 up to 1944 then it was stopped by the Germans and after the liberation of the Polish division in September 44 we started again, It never stopped."

(VOICE TRACK)

People from all over the world - young and old- come to see the battlefields of the 'Great War' . Come to try to see what the dying saw. To walk along trenches that are still like so many deep wounds.. a place where young men no longer inherited the earth.. but where the earth inherited them.

SOT (In English) Alex Bulloch, battlefield tour organiser "I have been coming here for 30 years and when I came at one time I could count the British cars and coaches were practically non-existent. And you waved to the British cars when you seen them. And now you see Dutch cars and German cars and British cars and Dutch busses and British busses. The interest in certainly coming much more than it was."

This group came by coach from Britain. Came to these torn fields.. to this place of questions.. and terrible answers. In a four day tour they will visit several of the 260 Commonwealth cemetaries scattered over the Flamish and French countryside.

Visit those cemetaries and try to come to terms with what happened here.

Try to get some "closure" as they say at the end of this blood-dimmed century of ours.

One way they'll do that will be to take part in the various commemorations which are held almost continously in the area.

Take part even if they haven't come here specifically to visit the grave of a family member or a relative.

SOt Muriel Nottall (in English) " I have always wanted to put on the grave on an unknown soldier because they get neglected. People come to family and friends and they unknown ones .. So I thougt I find one  that said an unknown soldier and put it on to remember"

(VOICE TRACK)

Here in the sucking mud of Flanders Field civilisation trekked into the abyss. Into the night circle of hell. The Germans attacked with chlorine gas. 60.000 Allied soldiers died- choked, drowned - as under a green sea.

Allied counterattacks claimed an equal number of German lives.

45.000 men are buried here. Row on row. Battalions and battalions. The unreturning army that was youth, the legions who suffered and are dust.

SOT (in English)  Tony Roberts " I came with my girlfriend parents because they wanted to come and during the three days I have been here I learned an awful lot. The enormity of what happened here is very difficult to grasp and to absorb.

SOT (in English) Tony Webb " I thought it was a good idea if my dad came and saw his dad's grave. He is 83 now he does not have many more opportunities so that is what we did."

SOT (In english) Allan Butler " I found out where the grave was and came over two years ago so I decided to make it a pilgrimage at least every two years".

(VOICE TRACK)

A little ceremony is held, just for the people who joined the tour. This time two commemorate those who were 'shot at dawn' . Two very young deserters.

(MUSIC - BAG PIPES))    

(VOICE TRACK)

They were led to Death .. blindfolded and alone. Eighty years on there are second thoughts about what was done to them.

SOT (in english)  Joe Street, Tour organiser " The people who were actually shot in a a lot of cases they were sufffering from shell shock. I think these people should be taken into consideraton for a pardon. But people who were shot for murder there can be no comeback on that.They must remain ' shot at dawn' and no incriminations on it. But these poor fellows I think somebody ought to look into it and think about it"

(VOICE TRACK)

The battlefield tour moves on to France. Another scene of barbaric fighting. Commemorations are held for the Canadians who joined the allied attack at the Somme. In the four and a half months that battle raged, 1 million 200 thousand lives were lost.

 [LOCATION: Newfoundland Park Memorial]

(CEREMONY -Exhortation)

"They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old;

Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn.

At the going down of the sun, and in the morning,

We will remember them"

SOT (In English) Piers Storie-Pugh (British legion spokesman) "Undoubtely there is a lot of interest in uncovering what your grandfather did and where he fought and as the years go on the names become more familiar, Fricourt, Battle of the Somme or whatever, and they mean so much more. So people will come to see their grandfather not only where he died but also fought. I think it is very important"

(VOICE TRACK)

This lady came all the way from Australia to attend the commemorations of the battle of the Somme. And to find an important name on the wall......

SOT (in English) Helen White " My late father Arthur Withbread. He was a member of the Duke of Wellington Regiment. He was killed on the Somme on the second of September 1916. I was just two years old.

(MUSIC - LAST POST)

(VOICE TRACK)

And so they come to the place that was the end of the world for a generation of young men.

To see for themselves, to remember, to pay tribute....

Hearing and honouring- across the years, the soldier's cry, "if ye break faith with us who die, We shall not sleep, though poppies grow in Flanders Fields.