# War Sites



## 104173 (Apr 29, 2007)

With a very patient wife, more competent driver than me too, we've stopped at every war cemetery we have passed in our travels throughout Belgium and France. We've cycled many a country lane following trench lines and visiting craters and all the private and public museums in sight.
I've evacuated myself in Dunkirk and Boulogne and admired our armed forces stand at St. Valery. Spent an entire afternoon in Wormhout searching out a specific site and was lucky enough to find that location at the same time as the family members of one of the survivors.

Like many British we have had a relation or two, maybe three, who travelled throughout Europe but with a different purpose in mind. Having being brought up on stories that related to the prime years of certain family members it's very thought provoking to travel to places they would never see again and at least have a sense of some connection. Although they returned home to lilve a life therafter in obscurity I have no doubt that they were amongst the greatest of Europeans.

I am sure we have whizzed by many a site that would have been interesting had I known they were there. I recently noticed a number of members from here went to Eperlecques. I must have passed that location at least six times ! Now a return journey is calling.
It seems to me that there's an element of luck in searching out the war site that echoes that individual and personal past that a museum sometimes fails to convey.
Anyone out there know of must see out of the way locations ?

PS - I'm also an avid plaque reader.


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## mike800966 (May 1, 2005)

*Eperleques*

Highly recommend the site. To see the bent 1 " diameter reinforcement bars, bent like nails when the place was bombed and the concrete slabs were lifted by the force, gave me feeling of awe. 
At not only the intention to use it for what it was planned for which was to soften us up as a preliminary to the invasion of England, but the sheer power of explosives. 
Also a great feeling of sadness from the forced labour that built it. An evocative site in a now quiet location. Similar but not so strong feelings at "Le Coupela" near St Omer.

The bob craters are now quite rightly full of goldfish

MIke


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## Spacerunner (Mar 18, 2006)

mikyl said:


> PS - I'm also an avid plaque reader.


Then you must visit the National Memorial Arboretum at Alrewas Staffs.
A most humbling and thought provoking experience. They hold a remembrance service at 11:00 hrs every day of the year. Plenty of room to park a motorhome in the carpark and a good restaurant as well.


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## Mixy (Mar 28, 2007)

Have you been to Oradour-sur-Glane near Limoges?
Have a look at this website(one of many) about it.
http://www.oradour.info/

Mixy


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## 96583 (Oct 28, 2005)

Just outside Yper (leper) in the flanders is a village called zillebeke, there you will find hill 61 which is a fenced off piece of land that is full of craters from shelling - there is a small pill box at the top, it is very eery. Apparently both sides continually fought over the high ground abd after the war the sappers went in to clear the unexploded shells then it was fenced off.

Also at the far end of Canadalaan outside Yper is hill 62 which is one of the last original trench museum/cafes - fascinating and humbling.


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## Brock (Jun 14, 2005)

*War sites*

I took my young son on a tour of the sites around Ypres. He wanted to join the RAF and bomb people. I thought a visit to war graves would give him a different perspective. Not so. He argued with people in Flanders that the high death toll was inevitable because of the lack of adequate strategic planning and a failure to use technology to gain the upper hand. He showed no remorse over the losses.

I took him to Hill 62 on our last day. He was interested but it didn't change his view. I can say it is worth a visit. The cafe/museum has hundreds of photographs including one of a dead horse in a tree with no other vegetation in the vicinity. I found those pictures more harrowing than the museum in Ypres or the Menim Gate.

Months later I visited my mother. My son and I went for a walk in her town. We passed a memorial for the fallen. There was also a plaque to remember the heroism of 4 brothers from one street who fell together on the same day at Hill 62. My son looked at me and said "That was the hill we visited wasn't it". He stood silently for several minutes before walking away in silence.

Since then he has proudly carried the flag for his school's Cadet Corp on Remembrance Sunday and this year, acted as drill seregeant when the flag was presented. He still wants to join the RAF but he no longer wants to bomb people. He wants to avoid war and also save people -he'll probably end up on a Nimrod.

Visiting the sites in Europe is a must but as my son shows, sometimes you can experience the horror people felt by visiting the local monument.


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## Brock (Jun 14, 2005)

*War sites*

I took my young son on a tour of the sites around Ypres. He wanted to join the RAF and bomb people. I thought a visit to war graves would give him a different perspective. Not so. He argued with people in Flanders that the high death toll was inevitable because of the lack of adequate strategic planning and a failure to use technology to gain the upper hand. He showed no remorse over the losses.

I took him to Hill 62 on our last day. He was interested but it didn't change his view. I can say it is worth a visit. The cafe/museum has hundreds of photographs including one of a dead horse in a tree with no other vegetation in the vicinity. I found those pictures more harrowing than the museum in Ypres or the Menim Gate.

Months later I visited my mother. My son and I went for a walk in her town. We passed a memorial for the fallen. There was also a plaque to remember the heroism of 4 brothers from one street who fell together on the same day at Hill 62. My son looked at me and said "That was the hill we visited wasn't it". He stood silently for several minutes before walking away in silence.

Since then he has proudly carried the flag for his school's Cadet Corp on Remembrance Sunday and this year, acted as drill seregeant when the flag was presented. He still wants to join the RAF but he no longer wants to bomb people. He wants to avoid war and also save people -he'll probably end up on a Nimrod.

Visiting the sites in Europe is a must but as my son shows, sometimes you can experience the horror people felt by visiting the local monument.


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## StAubyns (Jun 4, 2006)

I have been to the Somme battlefields many times, and I always go to Delville Wood (Devils Wood) which is now the national South African Memorial. Go and read the story of the six days - 14th to 20th July 1916 - 3,000 men into the wood on the 14th, asked to be relieved on the 3rd day, told "hold your lines" and were relieved on the 6th day - 128 men came out of the wood. The others are still there.

Go to Serre, walk to the the Sheffield Memorial Park, and you walk from the german front line of the 1st July 1916 across a killing field that was no mans land to the trenches that the Pals battalions walked from at 7:30 on the morning of the 1st July 1916. The dead were still hanging on the german wire untill November 1917.

There are many more sites on both the Somme and the Salient where men lived and fought a war that defy belief

buy a poppy on Remembrance Day

Geoff


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## IrishHomer (May 30, 2006)

I find all this discussion on the war memorials strangely moving. When I have visited France, the kids and I have been interested in the war memorials in each village we passed through. Names of the fallen are also written in some churches in Ireland. As we are Irish, there has never been a tradition of commemorating the dead of the World Wars, as we were "neutral" in the WWII. Lately, however, there has developed a recognition of the 100,000 or so Irishmen who fell in both wars and a peace park has been developed in Belgium to this end. I am interetsed because my grandfather left Ireland to serve in France in WWI and served as a vet in the Army Veterinary Corps. Happily he returned safely.

We are travelling from Cherbourg down via Mont St Michel to the West of France this year. Is there a particular monument or memorial in this general area that would be worth visiting to give the kids some idea of the devastating effect of war?

IH


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## tincan (Jul 31, 2006)

IH,
as you travel south from Cherbourg you will pass St Mere Eglise, where there is a mannequin of an american soldier dangling by his parachute from the church steeple, if you saw the longest day this was featured, and the old guy lived until about 2 or 3 years ago. there is also a museum just off the square. Adequate MH parking by day but they are not keen on overnight stays. In Caen is probably the definitive WW2 museum and the area of the peninsula is littered with both allied and axis cemeteries and museums of D-day. If you take an extra day you can go slightly east and tour the 5 landing beaches and Arromanches where the mulberry harbour pontoons are still visible
Noel


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## Slow (May 17, 2005)

We headed back home to Ireland from Cherbourg last year and spent 2 nights at a pleasant little campsite in Ranville, the first village to be liberated in WWII.

It was moving to see so many graves of soldiers who died in a 6 week period. My 9 year old son and I cycled to the neighbouring villages to read the accounts of what happened in each one during that period of intense fighting.

I would highly recommend it as a way to end or start your holiday if this interests you.


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## blackbirdbiker (Mar 12, 2007)

Our grandson aged 8 was always playing games of wars with his friends,
they used to shoot and bomb each other, some played at being German others played being Brittish.
So to set his mind right, last May my wife and I took him to see the museums and graveyards in France and Belguim, we spent 3 days in different areas, after which we carried on to the Mossel and Rhine area visiting Cochem, Koblence and other towns.

This was just before the world cup in Germany, needless to say now his second favourite footbal team is Germany. I think that holiday was worth it in many ways, he has learned quite a lot.

Keith


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## bognormike (May 10, 2005)

I would say to the anti - EU fraternity, that they should look again at all the various cemeteries and memorials in mainland Europe to realise what absolute devastation was done to whole areas and their populations (on both sides) in both wars, and why the people wanted to put an end to all such conflicts in the future. One of the reasons why the EU was set up was to help towards this, and the more that people of all countries get out & see what happened, the more we can all understand each other.

Please don't take this as an invitation to argue the benefits or otherwise of EU membership, or how much control is wielded from Brussels / Strasbourg; (I'm sure we could fill up the server's hard disc with that!) I was just trying to make a point as to perhaps why there is perhaps more pride in being part of Europe in those countries.


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