Images from a 2018 Battlefield Pilgrimage to the Somme area visiting many of the World War One battle sites, cemeteries and memorials.
(Photography by Steve Brunsden Copyright reserved)
The Arras Memorial
The Memorial is located in Fubourg d'Amieans British Cemetery, in the western part of the town of Arras. The memorial commemorates 34,785 soldiers of the forces of the United Kingdom, South Africa and New Zealand, with no known grave, who died in the Arras sector between the spring of 1916 and 7 August 1918; my Great Uncle Private S/40426 Harold Tyson of the Cameron Highlanders who died on 11th April 1917 in the Arras area was among them.
Arras Flying Services Memorial
The memorial commemorates nearly 1,000 airmen from forces of the Commonwealth who were killed on the Western Front during World War I and who have no known grave. The memorial was designed by Edwin Lutyens, sculpted by William Reid Dick and unveiled by Hugh Trenchard, 1st Viscount Trenchard, Marshal of the Royal Air Force on 31 July 1932.
Fubourg d'Amieans British Cemetery
The Newfoundland Memorial, Beaumont-Hamel
The Memorial is dedicated to the commemoration of Dominion of Newfoundland forces members who were killed during World War I. The 74-acre preserved battlefield park encompasses the grounds over which the Newfoundland Regiment made their unsuccessful attack on 1 July 1916 during the first day of the Battle of the Somme.
Preserved trench system, Beaumont-Hamel
Essex Farm Bunkers
Essex Farm Cemetery is a World War I, Commonwealth War Graves Commission burial ground within the John McCrae Memorial Site near Ypres, Belgium. There are 1,204 dead commemorated, of which 104 are unidentified. The cemetery was designed by Sir Reginald Blomfield and has an area of 6,032 square metres. These bunkers formed an Advanced Dressing Station (ADS) where the poet John McCrae author of that famous poem "In Flanders Fields", where he served as a Doctor.
McCrae died of pneumonia on 18th January 1918 whilst in command of No. 3 Canadian General Hospital, near the end of the war. He was buried, with full military honours befitting his rank of lieutenant-colonel, in Wimereux Cemetery just outside Boulogne, France.
John McCrae Memorial, Essex Farm Cemetery.
Essex Farm Cemetery,Ieper, West-Vlaanderen, Belgium; grave of Rifleman 5750 Valentine Joseph Strudwick 8th Battalion The Rifle Brigade who was killed in action on 14th January 1916 aged just 15. One of the most poignant visits of the whole trip.
West Riding Division Memorial, Essex Farm Cemetery.
Hill 60 Memorial, located in the Zwarteleen area of Zillebeke south of Ypres, Belgium.
The area was the scene of desperate fighting in April and May 1915 between the British and German armies. The launch of a British attack on 17th April 1915 began with the explosion of three mines which literally blew the top off the hill.
Hundreds of soldiers lost their lives on this small area of ground at that time and owing to subsequent fighting across the ground later in the war it was not possible to recover or identify many of them at the end of the war.
Tunneling and mining operations were carried out here by French, British, Australian and German soldiers. If tunnels caved in or were blown in by the enemy the soldiers who died underground were usually left where they died because of the difficulty of retrieving them. The remains of many soldiers, therefore, still rest in this site.
Queen Victoria's Rifles Memorial, Hill 60.
Lochnagar Crater, La Boisselle in the Somme département of France.
The Lochnagar Crater was created by a large mine placed beneath the German front lines on the first day of the Battle of the Somme, it was one of 19 mines that were placed beneath the German lines from the British section of the Somme front, to assist the infantry advance at the start of the battle.
The British named the mine after ‘Lochnagar Street’, a British trench where the Tunnelling Companies of the Royal Engineers dug a shaft down about 90 feet deep into the chalk; then excavated some 300 yards towards the German lines to place 60,000 lbs (27 tons) of ammonal explosive in two large adjacent underground chambers 60 feet apart. Its aim was to destroy a formidable strongpoint called ‘Schwaben Höhe’ (Swabian Heights) in the German front line, south of the village of La Boisselle in the Somme département.
Memorial to Private 12247 Tom Easton of the 2nd Tyneside Scottish, Northumberland Fusiliers who was killed on 7th July 1916, the 7th day of the Battle of the Somme.
Simple Wooden Memorial Cross, Lochnagar Crater.
Thiepval Memorial, Authuill, France.
The Thiepval Memorial to the Missing of the Somme is a war memorial to 72,337 missing British and South African servicemen who died in the Battles of the Somme of the First World War between 1915 and 1918, with no known grave.
One of the wreaths commemorating the individual engagements of the Battle of the Somme.
Thiepval Cemetery.
Memorial Cross, Tyne Cot Cemetery, Passendle, near Zonnebeke in Belgium.
Tyne Cot Commonwealth War Graves Cemetery and Memorial to the Missing is a Commonwealth War Graves Commission burial ground for the dead of the First World War in the Ypres Salient on the Western Front. It is the largest cemetery for Commonwealth forces in the world, for any war.
The name "Tyne Cot" is said to come from the Northumberland Fusiliers, seeing a resemblance between the many German concrete pill boxes on this site and typical Tyneside workers' cottages (Tyne cots). The concrete shelters which still stand in various parts of the cemetery were part of a fortified position of the German Flandern I Stellung, which played an important tactical role during the Battle of Passchendaele in 1917.
Tyne Cot Cemetery and Memorial.
An overwhelming site.
Tyne Cot Blockhouse Memorial.
Tyne Cot Memorial.
The Grave of an Unknown Lancashire Fusilier.
The Vimy Ridge Memorial, Vimy, Pas-de-Calais, France.
The memorial, designed by Walter Seymour Allward a Canadian monumental sculptor, is dedicated to the memory of Canadian Expeditionary Force members killed during the First World War. It also serves as the place of commemoration for Canadian soldiers of the First World War killed or presumed dead in France who have no known grave. The monument is the centrepiece of a 100-hectare (250-acre) preserved battlefield park that encompasses a portion of the ground over which the Canadian Corps made their assault during the initial Battle of Vimy Ridge.
Vimy Ridge Memorial.
"Canada Bereft", Vimy Ridge Memorial.
Inscription commemorating the fallen with no known grave, Vimy Ridge Memorial.
"Grief", Vimy Ridge
Vimy Ridge Statues.
Preserved trenches, Vimy Ridge.
Memorial to the dead of Ypres.
The Menin Gate, Ypres.
The memorial is dedicated to the British and Commonwealth soldiers who were killed in the Ypres Salient of World War I and whose graves are unknown and is the site of the daily Last Post ceremony held every evening at 8pm inaugurated in 1928.
Menin Gate Interior Roof.
Last Post Plaque.
