After the hard drive the day before niether of us felt like going very far. We briefly contemplated going to Arras to visit the Wellington Tunnels, but it was 40-60 mins away and the opening times followed the ‘closed for at least 2 hours’ culture of France. So, I decided that we’d visit cemeteries, be no more than about 20 mins from the B&B all day, and maybe do some caching too (the latter did not happen).
I had two cemeteries I wanted to visit to find University of Manchester casualites of 1914 and with a quick look at the CWGC website and our France road atlas concluded that we’d just go fairly radomly around cemeteries and maybe I’d pick up some other UoM men from 1915-1918. In the morning we visited: Le Touret; Post Office Rifles, Festubert; Buevry Communal Cemetery Extension; Woburn Abbey Cemetery; Guards Cemetery, Windy Corner, Cuinchy
Getting hungry we headed for Fromelles where our B&B host had told us there was a good little museum. Saw some large bunkers on the way, but didn’t have time to stop and explore. We ate our lunch, which we’d picked up from a pattiserie earlier in the morning, on the benches outside the museum. The museum is small, but well done and provides context for the new Phesant Wood Cemetery from the viewpoint of both 1916 and the recent work to estabish it.
In the afternoon we covered: The Austrilian Memorial Park, Fromelles; Laventie Military Cemetery; Pont Du Hem Cemetery
I’d realised just before we left the UK that we’d be staying close to the location of a successful attack made by 31st Division (alongside 5th Division), 28th June 1918 known as the Battle of Forest De Nieppe. I’d written about it in my masters dissertation and I was naturally keen to see the area so late afternoon we moved to Vieux Berquin and vistied Nieppe de Bois cemetery and Aval Wood Cemetery. I rarely fail to have a relevant trench map when on a battlefield and this was no exception as I had one I used in my dissertation. It showed the second cemetery to be very close to the jump off point of one of the brigades and faced the direction of the attack. As we drove back to the B&B I was able to track the farms and we passed brigade HQ. I found a lot of East Yorks and several other men who died on 28th/29th June 1918 in these cemeteries.
All in all a relaxed day and whilst I enjoy organised battlefield tours it was nice to not be working to a fixed timetable for a change. Mike doesn’t have the same level of interest as me, but he was very patient while I pottered and he helped locate some of the men in the bigger cemeteries. I really appreciated him acting as my battlefield taxi/chauffeur for the day.
Finally, the B&B we were staying in was La Peylouse Manor at Saint-Venant. One of the owners, Didier, explained to me it’s Great War history. It was the HQ for the Portuguese and Indian Armies, then a trench mortar school. In the breakfast room is a picture of Haig on the front steps. In 1918 Siegfried Sassoon’s unit was nearby and helped protect the house and gardens. He wrote three poems while here and the gardens have an exhibition about him.
Just another Mike and Pen Sites site