Finally G has got her act together (better late than never…
12 months to the day later…) so here is the final blog for G & Caz’s 2013 European
adventure – ANZAC Day 2013
G's post for ANZAC Day 2013 (posted on ANZAC Day 2014)
Firstly, I don't expect everyone will have an
interest in this post, so please only continue reading if you wish to....
A little bit of background......
ANZAC Day to me has always been an important day, one which
I often shared with my late Grandfather Alva Parham, attending the Dawn service and
ANZAC Day march in Adelaide, watching him march with his mates & then see
him head off with the other servicemen to enjoy a day of catching up.
My Poppa didn't discuss very often his time of service
in the Air Force in Darwin during WWII but his four grandchildren were always very proud of
the fact that he served his country. The conversations which I did have with Poppa have led me to have an interest in Australian War history,
particularly WWI and WWII and Australia's involvement as part of the Allies. My
Auntie Judy (Poppa's daughter & my mum's sister) also has an interest in this along with
our family history - so it's something I enjoy sharing with her. Remembering the fallen is very important to
me, so wherever I am in the world on April 25th I make sure that I can attend a
memorial/dawn service.
In 2009 Carolyn and I were travelling through France and
attended the Dawn service at Villers Bretonneux which commemorates the Battle of the Somme.
When we started to plan this trip we decided to attend the ANZAC Day
ceremony in Ypres, Belgium as this was
another significant battle area for the Allies during WWI. I discovered (through my Aunt) that I have a
distant relative (my Grandfather’s 2nd cousin – Edgar William
Parham) who lost his life there during the Battle of the Fromelles in 1916.
Anzac Day 2013
April 24th
2013
We arrived in Ypres and I spent the afternoon
at the In Flanders Fields Museum.
The museum displays the history of the Ypres/Flanders region during WWI and
pays homage to the men & women from all countries that came to fight the
Great War. It is located in the renovated Cloth Halls of Ypres. There is a
permanent exhibition which allows you to be educated on the invasion of Belgium
and the story of the First World War in the Western Front region. The Battle of Fromelles
was a British Military operation which was designed to exploit any weakening in
the German forces…..but the power of the German defence was significantly underestimated – as the
Allies were outnumbered 2:1 and the troops involved in the attack lacked
experience in trench warfare.
I was surprised at how well the museum captures the events
of the Western Front
as you are able to immerse yourself into a number of different mediums to
obtain a real understanding of the battles of the Western Front. There are thousands of artefacts on display
including the officer’s kit from each of the 5 continents, photos depicting
significant areas of the time in a then and now comparison, an interactive
experience which allows you to become a person in the War and go through a
timeline as to where they fought, how they were feeling, what happened to their
battalion and a bit of their family history.
There are a number of other multimedia installations that also allow you
to gain a better understanding of what conditions were like and the importance
of the town of Ypres and the enormity of lost lives on the Western Front. Over 600,000 men from all countries lost
their lives here and for Australia, Fromelles was one of the largest loss of
life (just over 7,000 men fighting for the Allied forces – including over 5,500
Australian men were killed), with two battalions being completely destroyed –
meaning they had to be rebuilt.
You can also go up the Belfry (which I did) to get a
magnificent view of the city of Ypres and the surrounding battlefields. I could have spent more than the 3 hours that
I did in the museum, it was a truly wonderful experience and certainly for me a
highlight of our trip to Europe.
Later in the evening we attended the Last Post Ceremony at
the Menin Gate, what an
overwhelming experience. I get emotional
on ANZAC Day but being ANZAC Day Eve there were many Australians, New
Zealanders and Canadians about and once the Bugler starts you can’t help but
feel the emotion of being at such a significant place in Australia’s War
History. If you can only spend a day at Ypres I would definitely recommend
coming the night before, making sure you arrive in time to witness the Last
Post Ceremony. The ceremony has been
held (& continues to be) every night at 8pm since 11th November
1929 in Ypres by the local Last Post Association to express the gratitude of the Belgian nation towards those
who had died for its freedom and independence.
April 25th
2013
I had arranged for Carolyn, Caron & I to be
taken out to the ANZAC Day Dawn Service at Buttes
New British Cemetery at Polygon Wood.
The service was very moving and there were probably about 400 people in
attendance. The service was quite beautiful and another moving experience for
me as we remembered those who had fought and especially those never to return
home. As the dawn broke there was a light haze in the air….it was a very
stirring moment as we remembered those who made the ultimate sacrifice.
The public were invited to place a small
timber poppy cross on the grave of a fallen ANZAC. The crosses had been
prepared by volunteers and had messages from Australian school children – the
students had written these messages during their visits to the Australian
War Memorial in Canberra.
Breakfast
was over and we headed onto Tyne Cot Commonwealth War Cemetery
at Passchendaele
for another official ANZAC Day service.
Tyne Cot is the largest Commonwealth War Cemetery in the world. In the
surrounding countryside one of the most horrific battles of WWI was fought -
this was known as the Third Battle of Ypres.
The objective of the 1917 Flanders offensive was
to overrun the German position and move forward to occupy the Belgium
coast. Men fought in quagmires of mud
and rain, making little or no advance on the German lines. In one month alone
(October, 1917) the AIF lost over 6,600 men.
After the service we had some time to wander
through the cemetery. 11,953 tombstones
stand in front of you and to read the inscriptions on the headstones for
example: “only a son”, “a mother’s only son”, “in memory of my only child”, “died aged 17 years”, “died aged 47 years” etc the loss of life
buried here is just truly astonishing. I found Tyne Cot to be quite an
overwhelming experience and put simply, it’s hard not to get emotional. It’s
important to also note that there are 34,863 British Soldiers honoured on the
walls behind the headstone for those with no known grave; and a NZ memorial
which remembers the 663 NZ men who died supporting the Australian divisions as
they battled through the mud in October, 1917.
Carolyn & Caron returned to Ypres for the
afternoon at the end of the Tyne Cot Cemetery visit and I went on with a
smaller group for the rest of the day.
Our day continued firstly with a visit to Hill 60. “Hill 60” was the name given to the WWI
battle area by the British on their military maps because of the contoured
height of the ground – 60m above sea level. As the Germans had made the area
appear to be pretty impossible for the Allies to gain any advantage from above
– the British created tunnels beneath the hill and stocked explosives to set
off as mines.
This sight is significant
for Australians as the 1st Australian Tunneling Division were
responsible for the mines set under “Hill 60”. Next to the entrance gate to the Hill 60
Memorial Site there is a memorial (picture below) to the 1st
Australian Tunneling Company. Hill 60 is a rare example of a preserved
battlefield which has been left as a memorial to the many soldiers who still
lie beneath the Hill.
From Hill 60 we went onto Toronto
Avenue Cemetery which is located in Ploegsteert
Wood. The cemetery remembers the
Australian 3rd Division soldiers who fought in the Battle of Messines, coming under gas shell attack in Ploegsteert Wood.
Next we
visited the Chums Cross, site of one of the
unofficial 1914 Christmas Truces. The Christmas truce was a series of widespread,
unofficial ceasefires that took place along the Western
Front around Christmas 1914, during World War I. On Christmas Eve and Christmas Day many
soldiers ventured into “no man’s land” exchanging food & souvenirs and
played in games of football.
After a
short break for lunch in one of the local villages we made our way over the
border and to the Australian
VC Corner Cemetery & Memorial in Fromelles, France. VC Corner is
the only uniquely Australian cemetery on the Western Front. The cemetery is on
land which was referred to as “no man’s land” in the Battle of Fromelles. This
was the part of the tour I was looking forward to the most as I would see the
name of a distant relative Pt. Edgar William Parham** who to date has no known
grave but is remembered here.
**To read
more about Pt. Edgar William Parham – please follow this link to a summary composed by my brother-in-law – Rod who has
also visited Fromelles etc. Thanks Rod – I couldn’t have written it better
myself.
There are
no headstones at VC Corner; two large concrete crosses mark where 410 soldiers
are buried who lost their lives during the Battle of Fromelles in
July 1916. The memorial walls in the cemetery list the names of the 1,299
Australian Soldiers who were killed and who have no known grave.
When I
first located Edgar’s name I was quite overwhelmed with emotion – I’d finally
made the journey to his resting place and felt a sense of closeness to a
relative who’d fought for his country in one of the most horrid battles in War
History. Once my emotions were under
control I was proud to be able to pay my respects to Edgar. I wandered through VC Corner and reflected on
what has been reported as the worst 24 hours in Australia’s history – the
Battle of Fromelles.
When
the troops of the 5th Australian and 61st British Divisions attacked at 6 pm on
19 July 1916, they suffered heavily at the hands of German machine-gunners.
By
8am on 20 July 1916, the battle was over. Over 5,500 men from the 5th
Australian Division and over 1,500 men from the 61st British
Division were killed, wounded or taken prisoner. No tactical advantages
resulted from the action; the progress of the Somme offensive was a complete
failure. The battle continued through to November, costing thousands of lives
to both sides for little gain of mileage along the Front line. The 19th
July 1916 remains the worst day in Australian military history.
To put this into perspective, (with no
disrespect to those Australians who lost their lives in other Wars) the figure of lives lost is equivalent to
Australia's combined casualties in the Boer, Korean and Vietnam wars. This year (2014) on the 19th July will mark the
98th anniversary of the Battle of Fromelles; I plan to return to France in 2016
for the 100th Anniversary events.
Close by to VC Corner (about 200m down the road) is the Australian
Memorial Park. The Cobber’s statue (located on top of a German Bunker)
is a tribute to an event which occurred during the Battle of Fromelles where
soldiers left the safety of their trenches to recover their wounded ‘brothers’
lying out in the mud of “no man’s land”. It’s reported that during one trip a
solider called out “Don’t forget me
Cobber”. To me the statue symbolises the true mateship and loyalty shared
by the Australian soldiers.
Our last stop on the day tour was to the newly built (c.2010) Fromelles
(Pheasant Wood) Cemetery. In recent years a mass burial site at
Pheasant Wood has been discovered. The
Germans had buried fallen Allied soldiers following the battle of Fromelles on
19 and 20 July 1916. The cemetery currently contains 250 Australian (whose
names appear on the memorial at VC Corner) and British soldiers who have been
identified through DNA sampling are now re-interred individually at the
cemetery.
At the end of our tour we
returned to Ypres in the late afternoon. That evening Carolyn & I attended
the ANZAC Day Last
Post ceremony at the Menin Gate. We started and ended the day with an
emotional service – a truly wonderful day in many ways and one which I will
never forget.
Below are a couple of short videos I took of the Last Post Ceremony on ANZAC Day
If you have an interest in
Australia’s War History and would like to experience an ANZAC Day overseas – I
would suggest that Ypres, Belgium and the surrounding areas of Belgium and
France (Fromelles & the Somme) be on the top of your list.
The Department
of Veterans Affairs has a great website to assist you if you are planning to
visit the area - http://www.ww1westernfront.gov.au/. The company I used for the Dawn Service and also the smaller tour was Salient Tours who are based in Ypres, Belgium. We had Steve as our guide - he's great, very knowledgeable about the area and happy to prepare a tour specific to your needs if requested etc.
For those of you who have
been waiting for this final blog post from our European 2013 blog – thank you for
your patience….and to Carolyn and Rod thank you both for your continued
encouragement to get this post finished.
To the Men & Women who
were wounded and/or lost their lives during service to our wonderful
country…………
Lest We Forget
In
Flanders fields
In Flanders fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place: and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.
Between the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place: and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.
We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders fields.
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders fields.
Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.
John McCrae (1872–1918)