Day 3

Up and at 'em for another day of battlefields and cemeteries. I am realizing by this point how little I actually know. The guilt of perhaps leaving my students unserved for so many years is only to get worse as the tour continues.

Our first stop today was to talk about the 2nd Battle of Ypres--perhaps most famously known to Canadians for the Germans' use of gas here.

We are learning that some of the things that have been traditionally held to be true by Canadians aren't necessarily so.

The 2nd Battle of Ypres would be the first battle in the Great War where Canadians saw action. It's frightening to stand there and look over the countryside and imagine a green cloud of death coming towards you. People blame the French for running. They didn't run. They had been gassed. They were looking for help. It would take some of them 72 hours to die--drowned in their own mucus. This would have been an awful place to be.

I kept hearing things and seeing things about this "Ypres Salient". I finally figured out what it meant--basically a bulge in a line into the other side's territory. Why they couldn't call it a bulge, I don't know--but Salient it is.

Shortly after our time in the farmer's field talking about Ypres, we went to a little tiny place called Saint Juliaan (or St. Julien). It was just a little corner but here was a monument to the Canadians and their efforts at the Second Battle of Ypres. There were a number of things that heppened here to warrant acknowledgement. The monument here is known as the "Brooding Soldier". I actually quite like it. Apparently there was quite a decision-making process in the Canadian government about where monuments were to be located and what they would look like. The brooding soldier may have been intended for more than one site but for some reason, only one was ever put up. There was also considerable discussion about this being the location for the memorial that is now at Vimy. Based on what happened here and near here, it is certainly a valid location for significant remembrances.

Later on we went to Essex Farm--the location of Colonel John McCrae's field hospital. It was on the far side of a river/canal which gave it some degree of protection but not from guns. There were guns behind it that fired over top of it onto the battlefield. You can still see the bunkers where the medical staff did their work. Originally there were just earthen dugouts. After some time, they were reinforced with concrete and became like small rooms. But, I cannot imagine trying to put a bandaid on someone in there, let alone perform major surgery and keep people alive. It's astonishing that anyone survived at all. This is where he wrote "In Flanders' Fields". It's still the only poem to which I know all the words. Is that pathetic or not? There is also a cemetery here with casualties from the field hospital.

After this , we were off to Mount Sorrel--one of those places that Canadians should know about but it has been overshadowed by more "significant" locations. One of the things that we were asked to do was to examine why some places are more recognized than others. Mount Sorrel is marked with the standard Canadian cube monument--which is what is at most of the Canadian sites near Ypres.

We then went to one of our first cemeteries--La Laiterie Military Cemetery. It was really quite small in comparison to what we would see later. But, you begin to see where the "between the crosses, row on row..." comes from.

We didn't have any more official business out in the field this day so we headed back to Ypres. We did have some responsibilities at Menin Gate this evening. We had to go out, get something to eat and get dressed for the ceremony. I think I stopped in a chocolate shop to get some treats for the wonderful humanitarians who were looking after Pixi and Henry for me.

People got all changed and dressed appropriately and we headed over to for the Menin Gate Ceremony. This is one of the gates of Ypres that has been established as one of two memorials for soldiers who perished in the war but for whom no remains have been found. Soldiers from British and Commonwealth armies are included here. The monument is here because most of the soldiers who fought around Ieper would leave the safety of the town through this gate to use the Menin road to get to the front. Thousands of them would never return. There are almost 55 000 names on the Menin Gate and another 30 000 British are inscribed at Tyne Cot. There are also separate locations for New Zealanders and Newfoundlanders.

Anyhow, I have digressed. Every night at 8:00 p.m. every day in every kind of weather, the last post is played in a ceremony for the fallen. Groups can come and lay wreaths there if they give some advance notice so every day someone or some group is providing a clear indication of remembrance. Mike, Paul, Lane, Nathan and Tammy were to lay the wreath for our group. There were a few ahead of us. At the ceremony we saw, a young boy played the bagpipes and the buglers played the traditional taps. Everything near the gate stops for the ceremony. No traffic, no people can get through until it's over. Every day at 8:00 p.m. almost 90 years after the war, the town and the visitors remember. And express their gratitude or whatever it is you have to say to the guys on the walls.

I had Paul and Tammy's cameras so I was across the way and did some picture taking. I don't think they were of any great quality. It was really stressful using other people's cameras--I shoulda just stuck with mine.

After that, we looked around the monument for a while. Tammy had a book of boys from Summerland BC and a number of them were on the monument. We took some time there and did some name rubbings for Tammy to take home.

Nathan had a story about a couple of the names that were on the wall. A father and a son. I can't remember all of the details--I'll have to get him to send out the story. It left us all in tears. We took out photos and gathered our thoughts and then headed away from the gate.

There was time for a drink and a snack before we had to head to bed. The next day we were off again and we had to pack up all our stuff to move to our next stop.

I really liked Ieper. It was a nice town. Fantastic town square--great architecture--they had rebuilt it almost exactly as it had been before the war. I could go back there again.

We were on to Arras. And another phase of the war.