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Thank you DW.

I see Gunny posted something too.


I gotta be honest, I'm just getting started.


Check back in a couple hours, because I still don't have everything
uploaded to photobucket yet.

I'm trying to keep everything quick and easy, but still a lot to show
people who want to have a look.

   

Good!

   

When the competitions for memorials was done in the 1920's, this came second.

The Brooding Soldier.

This was selected, and one other, to be placed in Europe as memorials
to all the Canadian soldiers who fought in World War I.

And the 4 smaller stones, one of which we saw earlier.






When I visited, an Aussie was also there... he was floored by this monument.

So was I.

The camera just doesn't do it justice.

   

Quick sidebar.. this is a French cemetery, they also fought and died in the Ypres salient.

Big one, 4000+ men buried here.

   

A memorial to the PPCLI..






I dont know if you can read the inscription, but it says.

Here
8 May 1915
the originals of
Princess Patricia's Canadian Light Infantry
Commanded by their founder
Major A. Hamilton Gault D.S.C.
held firm and counted not the cost.

   

I look forward to this thread e3very year. Thanks Martin.

   

Thanks for looking



Last of part 1:

This is the Menin Gate in Ypres:





Inside the gate are panels, listing the missing of the First World War.

The numbers are astonishing.


There are almost 55,000 men listed on the panels on the gate,


United Kingdom: 40,244
Australia: 6,198
Canada: 6,983
British India: 4,217
South Africa: 564
British West Indies: 6


but the panels only list men up to August 15 1917.. and then they ran out of room

So the rest are listed elsewhere, but we'll get to that in a while.

This is inside, panels with lists of names..




We have our own panel on the inside, looks nice..
Men are listed according to regiment or battalion as the case may be.






On January 8th, 1915 Canada had our first battlefield deaths.

From the PPCLI, Norman Fry and HC Bellinger.

There doesn't seem to be consensus on who was first,

but Norman Fry is listed on the panel... took me 10 tries to get this,
he is way up and these panels are big.




OK, you say, great a panel with the missing....
















Until you see the panels go around the back of the main building..



and across and then up the stairs..



then back down the stairs and across the landing.....





Very sad to read these panels, and touch them, and remember.


Every night since 1928, ( except for the German occupation from may 1940 to July 1944 )
buglers from the fire department play the Last Post.

You can barely see the buglers bottom right, my camera is complete crap at night.


I went on night 28 thousand and something.



Part 1 finished, now I have to upload part 2....

   

Part 2.. road trip.

I am happy I can travel around this part of the world.

I have been fortunate, I have been here...






















Vimy is huge.. see those dark things at the bottom of the memorial:
Those are people.





The first statues are the mourning parents:






And there are more panels of the missing.. another 11000 Canadians with no known grave.





more pics






Spirit of Sacrifice




This is Mother Canada, mourning her dead.



The dead who are in the stone sarcophagus.

   

The area around the Memorial are off limits, the lines have not been cleared
of bombs, mines, shells.





A short distance from the Memorial is a Visitors Centre, where they have restored
some of the original trenches and tunnels.











It is somehow fitting, at this time of the year, with the leaves falling,
that the trenches are filling with maple leaves....

   

I took a trip through the tunnels as well, but the only good shot I got
was this, carved in the chalk a very long time ago...




The tunnels we went through are the same as the PPCLI and the Canadian
Black Watch used to assault the Ridge in 1917.

   

After Vimy, a short road trip around the area.


Monument to the Canadian 3rd Division, buried in the forest..








And the Canadian Corps Artillery.




Canadian 1st Division.

   

Just got back from the ceremony on a cold miserable day in Esquimalt.

The lows

Turnout wasn't as good as previous years and some dirty filthy greasy POS had to show up so he could make faces at the wreath layers. Took off before the MPs could have a word.

The High

As the Flowers of the Forest finished, five Yaks did a low fly past of the cenotaph. A tear jerking moment.

Now out for brunch with the family and maybe a story of two about my grandpa who fought in Holland with the RCR.

   

Another stone's throw, and it is called Bois Carre British Cemetery, but it should
be renamed as a Canadian Cemetery..










One Unknown gets a poppy for all.





Someone has paid tribute to the 31st Battalion from Calgary...

   

Good stuff, I might be done by the time you get back.

   

Next stop, a place in the forest, a Memorial to the British 29th Division.

   

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