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Ypres Salient

bobsummers

bobsummers

Gone but not forgotten. R.I.P.
View attachment 57696View attachment 57695View attachment 57694View attachment 57693View attachment 576924 ex Brummies including myself visited the area for a week at the beginning of September. It was a very knowledgeable and humbling experience for us all. Many Brummies died in this area in the "Trenches" which must have taken a large amount of young men out of the Birmingham area 1914-18. I new nothing about this terrible war, as we had no history tuition on either of the world wars at my time at school.
We visited both German and Allied trenches in the area of Belgium and northern France.
We went to all the Big craters caused by bombs mined under the German trenches, both allied and German cemeteries. Also visited the field where both sides played a football match over the Xmas period and guess what the Germans won 3-2. I would like to share some photos with you all as a tribute to our fore fathers that died to keep us free of tyranny.
 
Some of the Craters that where created by miners digging under the German trenches, some are 70 feet deep. 19 exploded out of 21 mines dug at virtually the same time in 1916 under "The Wyteschaete-Messines Ridge" just outside Ypres (called whippers by our troops) . The last explosion was five minuets late, and some of the Scottish troops charged up to the German trenches just before the late explosion, they where buried alive by all the fall out of earth after the detonation. Also see photo of rare German cemetery at Steernwaerk, not kept as clean and tidy as the Allied cemetery's. Yes that is the field where we played Football and swapped presants with the Gerries, across and footballs marks the spot and momment in time.
 
Great photos Bob it must be very humbling at that cemetery the allied one


Mossy
 
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German and Allied trenches of the war. Soldiers suffered with "Trench Foot", Lice, Rats and Mice infestation, and of coarse Death. When the boys went over the top some of the bodies lay between the lines decomposed for over a year before they could be retrieved. Other soldiers where vaporised by explosions and only there metal tags where retrieved. The Minin Gate War memorial in Ypres was built in white British stone as a tribute to these brave British and Brumigum Soldiers that fell in the Salient area, never to be found or seen again, RIP.
Adolf Hitler was a young soldier in the German wood lined trenches as seen here, before being injured, sent back behind the lines and treated for his wounds by a Jewish doctor.
 
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