WW1 Revisited
A Great War Journey with Paul Reed
Archives
Hendecourt-les-Cagnicourt is 16 kilometres south-east of Arras and 4 kilometres south of the Arras-Cambrai main road. Dominion Cemetery is 2.5 kilometres north-east of the village, about 545 metres from the road. Hendecourt-les-Cagnicourt was captured by the 57th (West Lancashire) and 52nd (Lowland) Division on the night of the 1st-2nd September 1918. Dominion Cemetery was made by Canadian units in September 1918, after the storming by the Canadian Corps of the Drocourt-Queant Line;… Read More
The village of Caix is situated about 28 kilometres south-east of Amiens, midway between the N29, Amiens to St. Quentin road, and the D934, Amiens to Roye road. Caix British Cemetery is south of the village. From the centre of the village on the main road, D28, in the direction of Beaucourt en Santerre, turn left at the D41 in the direction of Le Quesnel. About 200 metres along this road is… Read More
Forceville is a village some 10 kilometres north-west of Albert on the road to Doullens. Forceville Communal Cemetery and Extension lies to the west of the village of Forceville, 20 kilometres from Doullens and 10 kilometres from Albert, on the D938, the main road between these two places. Commonwealth forces took over this section of the front line from the French in 1915 and in early August, land to the south of… Read More
The village of Sommepy in the Champagne battlefields was behind the German front line for most of the war until the ruins of it were taken by American troops from the American Expeditionary Force in September 1918. This archway, which was once part of the entrance to a large chateau, is the only remaining structure from the pre-1914 days still standing in the village. It is peppered with shell impact marks and… Read More
Located within the St Mihiel American Cemetery is an imposing stone statue of an American ‘Doughboy‘ – in fact an American officer dressed in the uniform worn by US troops here in 1918. The text on the memorial reads: Blessed are they that have the home longing for they shall go home. The memorial was placed in the cemetery by Harriet Beale, whose son Walker Beale is interred here. 1st Lieutenant Walker Blaine Beale served… Read More
This German observation bunker is located on the Sundgau front in Alsace at the far end of the Western Front. It’s sits on rising ground in what was once Germany before 1914 and overlooks the site of the former French positions which ended here on the Swiss border close to the village of Pfetterhouse. This area saw fighting in the early period of the war and then settled down to static trench… Read More
The village war memorial in Thiaucourt-Regniéville bears a striking bronze showing a soldier of the American Expeditionary Force (AEF) shaking hands with a French soldier, a Poilu. This recalls the occasion during the fighting for the St Mihiel Salient in 1918 when Americans and Frenchmen fought side by side. The War Memorial shows sign of battle damage from the fighting in this area in 1940 and 1944.
Located south of Soissons in the Aisne, this German cemetery has 9,229 indivudal burials of which thirteen are unknown. There are large ‘mass graves’ in the cemetery, containing a further 5,557 burials, of which 4,779 are unknown. Taken on a Canon EOS 400D at sunset in March 2010.
In the four years of the Great War in Flanders the British Army established camps all around Ypres, many of them containing permanent structures like these two shelter bunkers located on the former site of ‘ANZAC Camp’ south-west of the city of Ypres. The camp had been used by Australian and New Zealand troops during the Battle of Passchendaele, but the bunkers may date from early 1918.
Like silent sentinels these bunkers, which once formed part of the German Hindenburg Line defences, overlook the St Quentin Canal. They look out across the fields of British victory from the final battles of the Great War on the Western Front and close by are the burials in Guisancourt Farm Cemetery; the men who were among those who took this ground in October 1918.
WW1 Revisited 
Comments on WW1 Revisited