Tuesday 21 April 2015

The Somme Part II

Sunday dawned, if anything it promised to be an even better day than Saturday.  We returned to Pozieres to look at the Tank Corps Memorial, a prefect example of our lack of planning


Next was Thiepval, an extremely sobering memorial to the missing of the Somme with over 73,000 names of men who have no known grave.  I was lucky enough to get there before the crowds in the museum and able to spend a few quiet moments contemplating.



With a small cemetery attached.


Nearby is the 18th Division Memorial.


And a short walk leads you to the Ulster Tower, a memorial to the 36th (Ulster) Division.


The final port of call turned out to be the highlight of the trip at the Newfoundland Memorial Park.  The Newfoundlanders story is one of the saddest of many harrowing tales from 1st July 1916 with the regiment suffering one of the highest casualty rates on the day.


There are also sections of preserved trenches.


Together with several small cemeteries.


And the 51st (Highland) Division Memorial.


We retired to the nearby "Ocean Villas" tearooms for another late lunch and a discussion of the day's events before returning to base.  Another excellent day with much to see and we still felt that we'd only begun to scratch the surface of what there is to see.  Sadly this was our last day on the Somme although we had planned a short excursion on the way home.  More in the next post.

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