SOMME BRITISH Sector - Newfoundland Memorial Park - Y Ravine - Beaumont-Hamel
- by Pierre Grande Guerre
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- 03 Apr, 2019
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Years of visit: 2005, 2007, 2011
| South of nearby Hawthorn Ridge, along the D 73 from Auchonvillers to Hamel, and south of Beaumont Hamel village: the shell holed battlefield of the nowadays called Newfoundland Memorial Park. |
... like from this British Observation Post bunker at "Fort Moulin", along the D 174.
This grieving Caribou is the symbol of the Royal Newfoundlanders Regiment.
The 1st Battallion of the Canadian Newfoundland Royal Regiment, part of the 88th Brigade, was assigned this section of the frontline at Beaumont-Hamel on 1 July.
Nowadays the Newfoundland Memorial Park shows shell holes, and zig-zagging traces of the trenches of the battlefield.
The guardians of the Park prefer not to restore the trenches, but to preserve the traces of the trenches in a natural way.
...crossing No Man's Land, to Y Ravine, and the former German trenches. View in the direction of the "Highlander" monument near Hunter's Cemetery.
At Y Ravine we pass Y Ravine Cemetery, containing 366 burials, mainly Newfoundlanders, killed near this spot on the 1st of July.
Source: Commonwealth War Graves Commission
Like on Maple Copse Cemetery, Flanders, again: "BELIEVED TO BE BURIED IN THIS CEMETERY"
A view from Y Ravine over the battlefield in the direction of the Caribou statue.
Some locations in Y Ravine are closed off by electric wire for obvious reasons.
Some 150 meters from Y Ravine Cemetery stands the proud Highlander of the 51st Highland Division, ...
... commemorating the heroic actions of the Division, who captured Beaumont Hamel and Y Ravine on 13 November 1916, together with the 63rd Royal Naval Division, four and a half months later!
... Hunter's Cemetery.
Source: Commonwealth War Graves Commission
... is the Hawthorn Ridge Cemetery No. 2 .
Source: Commonwealth War Graves Commission
... to the Monument for General Hunter-Weston's 29th Division near the entrance.
With this last view from Redan Ridge to Hawthorn Ridge and the Newfoundland Memorial Park, we went on further to the north, to the battlefield around the village of Serre.
Inleiding: Franz Von Papen & Werner Horn; schaker en pion
Onlangs stuitte ik in een oud boek (1) van 1919 op een opmerkelijk verhaal over een Duitse Luitenant, die in begin februari 1915 een half geslaagde bomaanslag pleegt op een spoorbrug over een grensrivier tussen de Verenigde Staten en Canada. Ook al staat de bekentenis van de dader, Werner Horn, deels in het boek te lezen, de naam van zijn opdrachtgever zal Horn blijven verzwijgen. Na wat verder zoeken vond ik ook de naam van Horn’s opdrachtgever, Franz von Papen, een van de aangeklaagden van het latere Neurenberg Proces in 1946.
In een Grote Oorlog als de Eerste Wereldoorlog is Horn’s aanslag op de brug uiteraard slechts een bescheiden wapenfeit. Toch vermoed ik dat dit relatief onbekende verhaal, dat de geschiedenis is ingegaan als de “ Vanceboro International Bridge Bombing ”, nog interessante kanten kent. Het is onder andere een spionageverhaal over hoe in een groter plan een sluwe schaker zijn naïeve pion offert.
Beknopte situatieschets Canada en de Verenigde Staten in 1915
This trip we start at the Léomont near Vitrimont and we will with some exceptions concentrate on the Battle of Lorraine of August-September 1914 in the area, called, the “Trouée de Charmes”, the Gap of Charmes.
After the Léomont battlefield we continue our explorations to Friscati hill and its Nécropole Nationale. Next we pay a visit to the battlefield of la Tombe to go on to the Château de Lunéville. There we cross the Vezouze to move on southward to the Bayon Nécropole Nationale. At Bayon we cross the Moselle to pass Charmes for the panorama over the battlefield from the Haut du Mont. North-west of Charmes we will visit the British Military Cemetery containing 1918 war victims. From Charmes we go northward to the battlefield of the First French Victory of the Great War, the Battle of Rozelieures of 25 August 1914. North of Rozelieures we will visit the village of Gerbéviller. From there we make a jump northward to visit the ruins of Fort de Manonviller to finish with an interesting French Dressing Station bunker, west of Domjevin.
During this visit, we try to focus on the day that the momentum of the battle switched from the French side to the advantage of the Bavarian side: the day of 20 August 1914, when the Bavarians rapidly re-conquered the territory around Morhange , being also the day of the start of their rather successful “Schlacht in Lothringen”.
We will visit beautiful landscapes of the "Parc Naturel Régional de Lorraine", memorials, ossuaries, and cemeteries. Sometimes we will divert to other periods of the Great War, honouring Russian and Romanian soldiers, who died in this sector. We start our route at the border village of Manhoué, and via Frémery, Oron, Chicourt, Morhange, Riche, Conthil, Lidrezing, Dieuze, Vergaville, Bidestroff, Cutting, Bisping we will finish in Nomeny and Mailly-sur-Seille, where the Germans halted their advance on 20 August 1914, and where they constructed from 1915 some interesting bunkers.
