Hooge, Ypres and Sanctuary Wood

[ajmac]

On Saturday I managed a day away from site and visited the former WW1 front line to the East of Ypres, I would advise anyone who gets the chance to spend a day, the evidence of the terrible destruction is still within the landscape today, the museums are reasonable and the numerous cemeteries moving, for me the Sanctuary wood one because it was so quite and remote, just the trees rustling and wonderful roses everywhere.

 

If it had been a holiday I would have teken an organised tour, there is so much history in such a small area that without a guide or at least a guide book you don't know what you are looking at.

 

Hill 62 Museum:

Part of the British support trenches and communication trenches run through the wood (Sanctuary Wood) behind this museum, you need wellies to walk down the trenches and it gives you a vivid feeling of what life must have been like early in 1915 before all the trees were blown to pieces by shell fire! There are craters all around and lots of original hardware recovered from the wood in the years after the war and before WW2. If I am honest the museum is rather poor, some items from WW2 are sprinkled around and the trenches (which should be the main attraction) don't have enough explanation. Some books say they were re-dug after the war to create the museum, I guess we will never know, whatever the case it surves a purpose and does follow the british trench line from WW1.

 

Hooge Crater Museum:

Great! Housed in a chappel and school building built after WW1 the museum sits in 'no mans land' to the North of the Menin road just in front of what was the british front line (quite a complicated timeline, the lines moved around a lot around Hooge). Hooge was erased by 1917, not even the road was visable in aerial photographs and a series of huge creaters surrounded what had once been the villiage, some are still visible behind the museum, but I didn't have a look.

 

Railway Wood:

Just down the road toward Ypres if you turn right is Railway Wood, I went in front of it and up to a memorial to the tunnellers who placed the mine charges which broke the German front line at Hooge, the ground around the memorial is still torn up from the intense shelling, but the cows didn't appear to mind waking up and down the mounds! Behind this memorial is a wood, the place was deserted so I walked in fighting the nettles and brambles. It was silent and I soon came upon a massive creater, big enough to fit a dozen range rovers in....I had got the creeps by then and went back to the car, the german lines once ran through that area.

 

Ypres:

Menin Gate, Grand Place, Flanders museum etc... all good, hard to believe that the place was nothing more than a ruin in 1918.

 

I have got to end with a quote from a book I picked up in the Flanders museum about Sanctuary Wood:

 

"The name of the wood will perhaps pass down to history; in any case, those who have been there will remember it, and tell of it, and tell of it while life lasts, for the shadow of its trees is like the shadow in the valley of death"

Cpt Ernest White RAMC, 1916.

 

The two photos show the trench system in Sanctuary wood and the German view of Ypres, the British front line was just forward down the slope through Sanctuary wood which once stretched all over the slope and is now only to the right of the photo.

Edited September 13, 2011 by ajmac

[Paul Drake]

I would second that, recommend that anyone who gets the chance visits the Belgian battlefields, especially not missing out the smaller cemeteries.

[Tony B]

Don't ignore the older fortifications either! Ipres is a fantastic example of a Vaubin fortified town. Although (not to upset our friends in the Neederlands!) the work of Menno Van Coeheen shouldn't be ignored.