Wipers

The German strategy was to invade France through Belgium. The recently arrived British Expeditionary Force (BEF) meet the enemy at Mons and then had to retreat westward in the face of incredible numbers. ?The race to the sea had begun.

Retreating with the British were the remnants of the Belgian Army, who made the gut rending decision to flood their lowland fields, and thereby secured the Allies left flank.

All attention them focused on an ancient town next to the flooded lowlands, necklaced with medieval walls and a semi star moat. The town had made its living off the cloth trade, evidenced by the canal network and large Cloth Hall in the middle of its square.

Ypres had last seen British troops in 1815 marching towards a place called Waterloo. Now it became the Allies’ Stanlingrad, a symbol, a place for last stands, contained within the fields of Flanders.

When Fall 1914 came the Germans retreated to a series of hills wrapping around the town to the southeast of town, happy just to sit tight and send artillery into the town called Ypres, but often mispronounced by English speakers as Wipers. This is the Ypres salient, a town surrounded by a semi-circular series of hills, always under observation by the enemy, always susceptible to artillery and sniper fire.

Canadians would write their history on this campaign starting in April 1915 when the 1st Division was exposed to the first gas attack on the western front.

The hills were cut through by a roadway, a railway, and a canal. If you drew a line along the top of the hills are made a profile map, you would quickly see that the places next to the hill cuts were strategically critical to keep, so you could look into the enemy’s back yard and rain down hell on them. Names like Mount Sorrel, Hill 60/ The Caterpillar, and the Bluff were all fought over, thousands dead and wounded for a few extras’ meters in elevation.

A year later in June 1916 the enemy attacked at Mount Sorrel, a high point in the hills, creating 8000 Canadian casualties and sending a young soldier in England named Harry Greaves into the battle.

When we arrived, the town was packed with people. The local festival hadn’t been held in 6 years along with the celebration of Victory in Europe day meant we had to gingerly make our way through the main square (cursing Google Maps again) before finding our hotel against the eastern walls.

Freshening up, we then proceeded to walk the 200 meters or so back into the main square, set up with portable stands for the planned festivities. A British marching band oompahed by, on its way to Menin Gate. Each night since the 1920’s the locals have played the Last Post on their trumpets, saluting the names contained on the Menin Gate Memorial. If you were a Canadian soldier lost in France with no known grave, your name would be on Vimy Ridge, if you were lost in Belgium, you name is on Menin Gate.

The next day I was up early and backtracked through the square to St. George’s Church. Built in the 1920’s to provide support to the vast number of English people who came on their pilgrimage to the battlefields, the Church of England facility was unlocked. I popped in. The sun was already shining through the stained-glass windows. The walls were completely covered with brass memorials to the 50 plus divisions that had served in the area, as part of the BEF. A side alcove held many more memorials, a baptismal font, and numerous poppy covered wreaths.

The pews all held dedications to individuals who’d been lost in the Ypres Salient. Even the seat cushions contained memorials to battalions and regiments.

A British couple came in, they graciously lent me a pen to sign the guest book, and we started to chat.

They came as often as they could to Wipers, as we were to see, so did many people from England. Whereas in Canada you might get half a day for remembrance, in England they come to pay their respects continuously, year-round.

I head back to the hotel, and we soon head out towards our first stop, the Bluff.

The Bluff is located within a wonderful park that the local authorities have set up east of Ypres.

We turned into the parking lot and walk along the asphalt bike path towards the edge of the canal ravine. We are behind enemy lines. The hillside is liberally covered in trees. Go straight and you head downstairs to the edge of the canal. Turn right and you head towards ?the British frontlines.

Slightly behind us is a restaurant and patio, and next to it a variety of interactive displays telling the history of the hillside called Palingbeek. Many people chose to enjoy the park via bicycle. We turn right and continue down a pathway, and soon came to a display on the Bluff.

I am concerned, I can see the entrance to the Bluff, but my mind tells me it is locked. An interactive display tells the story of the warfare in this area.

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Earlier in the century they’d tried to dig a canal by the hillside, triggering a landslide which halted construction. The concrete locks were in place, along with the main channel, excavated and the spoil piled high on the banks creating a prominent feature that was now occupied by both sides. Hundreds died taking, losing, and retaking the Bluff. In July 1916 it was in the Allies’ hands, and now it was the turn of the 7th Battalion CEF’s turn to man it. The soldiers had been warned that an explosion was expected.

In my grandfather Harry Greaves’ own handwritten words, he described the 7th Battalion’s time on the Bluff:

·???????? “around the 23rd of June (July) we took a prisoner and was told that they were going to blow a mine at 10 o’clock that night.

·???????? about a quarter to ten the Corporal came and took all the men and left me in the trench and told me the next man would be about 40 to 45 yards from me.

·???????? At 10 o’clock the earth started to shake, and the trench started to cave in

·???????? I jumped to the top of the trenches and as I got there, there was a loud blast.

·???????? I was picked up and thrown to the ground.

·???????? I then got up and was making my way back to the trench when pieces of earth started to fall on me.

·???????? ?I went several more yards when a sandbag crushed me to the ground and knocked the wind out of me.

·???????? ?I struggled with my hands and feet to get my breath.

·???????? After it came back, I tried to get up and could not move.

·???????? I pulled my left leg and my left arm underneath me and used them to move the sandbag several inches so I could squirm from underneath.

·???????? I then got up and went to the trench and as soon as I got there along came Mr. Highet and Corporal Pinston

The 7th Battalion had been caught in one or the 600+ mine explosions that were exploded on both sides during the war. Harry survived to march to the Somme in August 1916, 21 of his fellow soldiers were not so lucky.

We finish watching the interactive display and head across the bike path to the Bluff. The gate I was afraid was closed, is not, it is just tilted so that a sheep leaning against it would be unable to open the gate because their body will block the swing of the gate. Yes, we are in the realm of unexploded ordnance again. This time we are on an elevated wooden boardwalk, you could hop off if you wanted to, but why would you. The 100+ year old trees are tall, and we walk by many craters reflecting the many attempts to blow one’s enemy off the Bluff. I cannot tell which crater was the one blown on July 25, 1916. This is a cemetery containing hundreds of bodies. The craters are filled with water, the drainage cascading down from higher ones to lower ones, then over the ridge and into the canal. Large deciduous tree in full leaf shaded the entire site, the floor covered in swampy plants. The boardwalk snaked its way through the area until we came back out onto the main bike path.

Now we climbed an observation platform. Behind us the Bluff, on our left the British frontlines, then a 50-meter open space, then the German frontlines. We reflect on what it was like to be inside a trench. This is Flanders Fields.

Heading back to the car park we head down to the canal, a sign chronicling ?a bridge built before 1914 that had collapsed from another landslide, a fact obviously ignored by the canal builders.

We walk along the canal bank, trying to see up into the Bluff, too many trees, but you can just make out the profile of the hillside, not much higher than a noise berm you would find on the side of a highway. you can make out pieces of the berm are missing, showing that the mine blast had partially blown outwards instead of upwards, saving one or two lives that night.

We have lunch at the restaurant, out on a sunny patio next to a bouncy castle.

Back in the car now we head for another cut in the hillside, called Hill 60. The car park reflects back to a time when people arrived via horse and buggy. They are expanding it, but luckily, we are there before the tourist buses arrive. Again, the fenced in compound and boardwalk, the sheep again working hard.

Popping across the road crossing the railway line, we visit the Caterpillar crater, detonated in early 1917 as part of the Allied offensive.

Heading back down the line, we visit railway Dugouts Cemetery, home to many 7th Battalion soldiers injured in the same mine blast but died after arriving at the advanced aid station. Many headstones list the date of July 25, 1916.

We stop another cemetery containing one of the 51st battalion chaps who served with the 49th Battalion. I take a photo.

The day is moving on. We head north now, to Tyne Cot, near a town called Passchendaele.

Google Earth makes amends by delivering us to the Tyne Cot car park. We enter the small museum, on the speaker a soft British female voice names those contained within the cemetery, adding a new name every few seconds. It takes around 20 hours to name all the names.

We now walk around the east side of the cemetery wall to the south entrance. We look south and east, to the hillsides the Canadians advanced up late in 1917, after the success at Vimy, then Hill 70 near Lens. I am here for a reason, one of the chaps I’ve been following was invalided out to base duties at Le Havre for health reasons, then brought back into the frontlines as the supply of new soldiers dried up. His body was never found.

We finish at the Canadian Memorial at Passchendaele, I take a photo of the Canada Gate, a sculpture whose counterpart is in Halifax, Nova Scotia. I do not like it. It is tacky and does not blend in well with the subdued “English Garden” theme of the cemeteries, maybe in 100 years it will grow on me.

Back at the hotel, I pop out to visit another cemetery containing another chap? from Edmonton, killed early in the war. I cannot go through the Menin Gate with a car, it’s under repair, but the detour takes no time at all, and I get a photo of another of my grandfather’s mates who didn’t make it home.

That night we attend the Last Post ceremony at Menin Gate. Although under repair, they have made space within the monument for people to stand. There are hundreds of people in attendance. Walking down Menin Gate Road we watch people getting up from their tables in the pubs, leaving their drinks, and heading for the ceremony.

At 8 PM the officials announce the start of the ceremony. They ask for silence and for no applause. They play the Last Post. I look up at all the names on the interior walls of the Menin Gate memorial, wondering whether Canadians will be called to defend Europe once again sometime soon.

After the ceremony, the participants retreat back to their stools and drinks in the pubs, and life goes on.