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Military keyword > june > 298th Army Band Berlin photo
Military keyword > june > Turning south from there I came to what seemed to me the saddest and most disturbing place of all. The German Cemetery at La Camba. In the centre, on top of a large grassy mound, surrounded by red roses stand two shrouded figures.
Military keyword > june > 298th Army Band Berlin photo
Military keyword > june > Beyond these are, tangled woods surrounded by yellow ropes strung between red signs "Danger Entre Interdit Munitions Non EclatÚe" (undetonated explosives).
Military keyword > june > 298th Army Band Berlin photo
Military keyword > june > The Grange tunnel. Part of a vast maze of tunnels built to protect the soldiers from the "toxic" open fields. Eighty two years ago on this ridge, on Easter Monday, April 9, 1917 there was no peace, no leaves, no grass, no memorial, only ceaseless noise, unending mud (tilled by countless artillery shells) swallowing the bodies of thousands of nameless men. Four divisions -one hundred thousand Canadians- men and boys, many as young as sixteen, fought together for the first time as a distinct army corps. Here 20,000 soldiers, marching behind a "creeping artillery barrage" from 1079 guns rose out of their tunnels and trenches and launched into the north-west wind that swept the devastated countryside with sleet, snow and machine gun fire. Three days later they emerged, having accomplished what the French, with one hundred and fifty thousand casualties over three years had failed, to achieve. They had taken Vimy Ridge. Of the 10,602 casualties, 3,598 were young Canadians. They would never in the words of John McCrae, "feel dawn or see sunset glow" again. Many claim that this battle marked the end of our country's adolescence. This was the place where we earned the right to play at war with the bigger, older boys. In recognition, the French government gave the land to Canada and has recognised it as Canadian soil. When I read this I thought: so now we own a piece of French real estate, the price, only sixty six thousand Canadian lives, a bargain at the time. I put my hand on some of the names engraved on the monument, the ones whose bodies disappeared in the mud without a trace, and felt chagrin replace my earlier feelings of pride. Pride would have meant I had a right to glory in the suffering, pain, the fear and death of these Canadians who willingly or not, lost their lives defending their King and his British empire.
Military keyword > june > Behind the memorial the battlefield has been preserved. The mud is gone. The trenches are lined with cement "sand bags." The tunnels and the great craters, some more than thirty metres across, named after Canadian cities (Montreal, Winnipeg) are now covered in grass.
Military keyword > june > Sheep are used to crop the grass as it is too dangerous for humans to do it.
Military keyword > june > 298th Army Band Berlin photo
298th Army Band Berlin photo
Photo by: jonesjones1945 · see photo in gallery
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