A Day In The Area Close to Ypres

Brandhoek Cemetery is the place where Captain Noel Chavasse was laid to rest. Captain Chavasse is one of just three men to have been granted Britain's top medal for bravery, the Victoria Cross. In addition, he was also accorded the Military Cross. I'm presently reading a book entitled "In Foreign Fields" by Dan Collins and it is about troops who have been granted medals in Afghanistan and Iraq. When you realise exactly what a soldier needed to achieve in order to be accorded an MC, it truly makes you comprehend what a bold man Capt Chavasse was especially as he was a member of the Royal Medical Corps and never fired a shot during the war.

My next stop was close to the village of Passchendaele at the largest sized British Military Cemetery at Tynecot. Upwards of 12,000 troops are buried here. From Tynecot, you'll be able to see for several miles everywhere over fields and it seems tough to think of the carnage that was there 90 years ago. The visitors centre provides a background of the area as the names of several of the dead and missing are put out calmly over speakers.

Leaving Tynecot, I started to return towards Ypres stopping at Hill 61 (Sanctuary Wood) along the way. There's a little museum and some preserved trenches . All through my trip, the weather conditions was not great and even though it had been nothing like as lousy as conditions might have been for the duration of World War I, the bottom of the trenches really looked pretty awful. It cost a few Euros to get in and this was the first place I really started to notice the effects of the well known mud.

My next intended stop was the Hooge Crater. As previously in the day, I had a hard time trying to locate it although I did find a modest independent museum known as the Hooge Crater Museum which in fact had an intriguing assortment of artefacts such as a British Ambulance and a Victoria Cross. My sightseeing for the day was not complete as I still wanted to check out the popular Cloth Hall that was just about ruined (since totally reconstructed) and the Last Post ceremony which is carried out at 8pm every evening at the Menin Gate. I always find the Last Post extremely haunting and moving to hear. After it was finished, 2 wreaths were placed by young British soldiers and was followed by a recital from Laurence Binyon's "For The Fallen"

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.