Somme

Regina Trench Cemetery, many Canadians who fought in the Battle of Courcelette are buried here, Regina Trench was very difficult to take and cost many lives, the Canadians suffered 24,000 casualties on the Somme, ~8,000 of those were killed.

Australian National Memorial, very beautiful space and well done. The names of 10,797 Australian soldiers who have no known grave are engraved on the walls.

Grave in the Australian National Memorial Cemetery

On the First day of the Somme, the battle opened with the detonation of large mines, this crater, The Lochnagar Crater is huge, the pic does not depict how big it is.

This is a road to two cemeteries where we almost got stuck, it was a sunken road during the war. The tiny cemetery in the pic is the 2nd Canadian Cemetery, Sunken Road. Most tiny cemeteries with fewer than 50 burials were merged into larger cemeteries after the war, this one was not, all buriels are from the 2nd Battalion Canadian Infrantry. If this was Sask we would never have attempted the road, the chalk under the soil provides great drainage, we were shocked to see tractors working on the land when it looked soaked like this. The road to Regina Trench Cemetery was the same, a mud hole.

This is Ulster Tower, a memorial to the Ulstermen of Northern Ireland. An Irish man named Teddy gives a great tour of a wooded area across the road complete with trenches, dugouts, trench mortor etc. We were with a bus load of British school kids who were excellent, Teddy dressed a kid in an original uniform complete with pack, gas mask bag and rifle, not long into the tour the kid could not handle the load and had to hand off both the pack and gas mask bag to other students, he would be about 15, the same age as some soldiers in WWI. We had the best tea in France at the cafe here, the Irish make great tea and sandwiches and OMG, they are nice people. The tours are popular and you have to book ahead.

Another heartwrenching grave stone in Y Ravine Cemetery in Newfoundland Memorial Park.

The caribou braying for her young in Newfoundland Memorial Park, the caribou faces the battlefield where the Newfoundland Regiment was slaughtered by German machine gun fire and artillery, 798 Newfoundlanders attacked and only 68 answered roll call the next day; however, according to the student guides, 114 in total were not harmed in the battle. This was part of the disastrous First Day on the Somme. The Newfoundlanders were not Canadians at the time and did not want to join the CEF so fought with the 29th British Division. A British guy asked us if it was an elk, he was an artist dude who is publishing a book about memorial sculpture in England.

The battlefield on Beaumont Hamel, Newfoundland Memorial Park, the Newfoundlanders lasted a half hour, the land slopes downhill, the soldiers were silhouetted against the hill behind them and were easy targets for German machine gun fire raining down on them from the ridges. Thier casualty rate was second highest that bloody day. The Newfoundland site is very serene, the remains of many soldiers are still in the battlefield.

Amiens Cathedral, we were late getting to Amiens and it was almost dark by the time we got there so only took a few pics, it is a Gothic Cathedral that is huge. Construction began in 1220.

We are in Belgium tonight in Iepers (Ypres) where there are many Canadian memorials. We hope to ride bikes tomorrow to tour the area, our host is very informative and very friendly, there is an Australian and a few Brits here as well.