During the next two days we visited many WW1 cemeteries and museums in the area, many dedicated to the Australian soldiers who traveled to the other side of the world. In the Fromelles area, we visited the Pheasant Wood cemetery which is quite new and has only been finished in the last 2 years. The pristine headstones lined up in the beautifully manicured garden are a great tribute to the care put into these memorials by the CWGC, and while nothing can make up for the lives and loved ones lost in the war, it must make the families of soldiers proud to know that their sacrifices are still greatly respected and appreciated.
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| Pheasant Wood |
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| An Australian soldier's grave at Pheasant Wood |
The nearby VC Corner cemetery is dedicated to unknown soldiers, and has no gravestones but instead a special type of rose rose cultivated for the war memorial, and a wall of the names of soldiers whose final resting places are unknown. Interestingly, a tour guide there was telling his group about how a number of the soldiers have been discovered since their names were put on this wall, and are now commemorated elsewhere. However due to the decision that a soldier will only have his name on a single war memorial on the Western front, the government is planning to rip down the plaques and put up new ones with the updated lists.
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| VC Corner Australian Cemetery |
On our way back home from Fromelles we were planning to drive through a town called Loos. We entered it into the GPS and drove off happily, not noticing that we were headed in the wrong direction towards another place called Loos on the border of Lille. We had being doing our best to avoid cities while driving the rental car, and we all got a bit of a shock when we saw Lille on the street signs. Fortunately we made it out safely and updated the GPS to take us to Vimy, where we stopped at a little park and ate lunch in the boot of the car because it was raining.
We had been told that the Canadian memorial at Vimy was worth seeing, but the lack of signage was so frustrating that we almost gave up. We were about to drive off when we saw a guy standing out the front of his house so we stopped and asked him for directions. He was so kind to us- he jumped in his car and told us to follow him which we did- and he led us right up to the gate of the memorial complex. What a friendly fellow!
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| Trenches at Vimy Canadian Memorial |
The memorial park was massive- it had multiple cemeteries, a visitor centre, a restored trench system in a heavily cratered field, and the biggest memorial statue we saw on our entire trip. It was almost too big- where all the other memorials were mostly reserved and respectful, this looked like something from a scene in the Halo xbox game. It was quite impressive. The complex was also full of woods that were roped off with signs warning about live explosives still being buried- and flocks of sheep happily wandering through these roped off areas. We all had our cameras ready on video mode to capture the moment when a sheep was exploded by a landmine, but unfortunately for us this did not happen.
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| The Canadian memorial |
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| The memorial from up close |
As we drove home, we took a wrong turn near the Arras city centre and it was like being transported back in time- the old town squares were surrounded by neat rows of beautiful old buildings that had managed to survive the war. We explored the area with its old cathedral and town hall (including purchasing a 2.50 euro parking ticket which lasted us until lunch time the next day) before having dinner at a little pizza restaurant. The pouring rain, burnt pizza, weak wine and uncooked bread did not dampen our spirits as it had been a great day.
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| Arras town sqaure |
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| Battle-scared forest at Vimy |
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