Flanders Fields Experience...A day we won't forget

Sunday 18-10-15
We had booked into a small tour of the war cemeteries around the Ypres area. We met up with about another 10 people and joined our tour leader. We were split between 2 mini vans. There were 7 Australians and a family of  5 from UK. Our tour leader was both passionate and extremely interesting. He explained so much about WW1 in this area but I won't even attempt to summarize all that he told us. We visited an old clearing station, the site where John McCrae wrote the poem "In Flanders Fields" and of course many graves all at Essex Farm Cemetery. From there we went to a factory where in the middle of it they found trenches that once was the front line for the British and it's Allies. We visited a German Cemetery which had the graves of thousands of young German students who had been sent to the frontline with little training. We went to the Brooding soldier monument to the Canadians, many who were victims of the early gas attacks. We visited the largest Commonwealth Cemetery in the world, Tyne Cot Cemetery, at Passchendaele and once our guide knew he had quite a few Australians he took us to the monument for the Australian 5th Division and cemetary in Polygon Wood. This is the division my Great Uncle fought with. We saw thousands upon thousands of war grave of both the Allies and the Germans. It really was hard to comprehend and so many have not been identified although now with DNA technology more advances are being made in this area. We also  visited a farm where our guide showed us the WW1 ammunition, artillery, guns, etc that are still coming to the surface as farmers plough their fields. We could not believe that 100 years on there is still so much here. When you consider that this area of Belgium saw 4 years of the most intense fighting I suppose it makes sense. When the farmers find something they call a special army number and depending on what has been discovered, it will be picked up in one hour, one day or one week. There are still fatalities each year as people find things and don't realise what they have found. Bones of soldiers are still being found too.
I think if you have the opportunity to visit this area you should do it  because no matter what I write I cannot really  describe accurately what has happened here. After this very moving and informative tour we went back to Ypres to visit the Flanders Field's Museum, in the magnificent Cloth Hall building. Most of this beautiful medieval building was destroyed in WW1 as was the whole town but it was faithfully rebuilt after the war. Again we were to experience a wonderful and moving time learning more about the war and viewing more interactive productions in this museum. We were also feeling fit and took the 231 extra steps up to the Belfry tower for a great view over Ypres and beyond.