Page 14 - QARANC Vol 14 No 9 2014

12 QARANC THE GAZETTE
The group at Etaples cemetery
Guillemont Road Cemetery
Jurassic Coast Branch
Battlefield Tour 12-16 May 2014
A group of 52 retired QA’s (from 10 branches) and their partners left The Union Jack Club in Waterloo to embark on what was to be an amazing Battlefield Tour. We were lucky to be accompanied by our guide Pete Starling recently retired Director of the Army Medical Services Museum.
We arrived in Calais and drove to Belgium where our first port of call was Godewaersvelde British Cemetery where Sister EM Kemp of the Territorial Force Nursing Service who died on 20.10.17 is buried. Maj (Retd) Pat McKay laid a wreath on her grave. Coincidentally, both trained at Kings College Hospital in London, albeit decades apart!
Our next port of call was Lijssenthoek Military Cemetery where staff nurse Nellie Spindler is buried. One Morning Nellie was hit in the back by shrapnel whilst sleeping following a night shift. Nellie was 26 years old and had served with The Queen Alexandra’s Imperial Military Nursing Service for 1 year and 285 days.
We then drove to the Hop Store Cemetery, after which we drove onto our hotel The Novotel in Ypres where we stayed for two nights.
The next day we visited Poperinge New Military Cemetery where 312 soldiers were executed for such reasons as insubordination, desertion, cowardice and murder. Three officers were also executed one of whom was 2nd Lt Eric Poole. He was hit in the head and knocked unconscious. His medical officer decided he should be evacuated to a base hospital and a consultant agreed, but a medical board disagreed and sent him back to his battalion. 2nd Lt Poole did not move with his battalion to the trenches but went to get some tablets and was gone for 2 days. He was charged with desertion but despite being diagnosed with shell shock he was sentenced to death with no recommendation for leniency.
Our next port of call was Essex Farm Dressing Station, where John McCrae a Canadian Doctor arrived with his artillery brigade. There were too many dead to remove during the 2nd battle of Ypres so they were buried in the vicinity of Essex Farm, hence the cemetery. The cemetery contains 1088 British, 9 Canadians, 102 Unknown and 5 German graves. Amongst those buried is 15year old Pte VJ Strudwick. Boys as young as 13 enlisted until their parents found out and they were sent back to UK. Victor Sylvester (big band leader) served as a 15year old until his mother found out and
insisted he return home. He was selected to be a part of a firing squad. He was too young to fight but not too young to kill. Maj (Retd) Diana Wilson read “In Flanders Field” written by John McCrae (a Canadian military surgeon) in May 1915 - one of the most enduring poems of the 1st World War.
We were then taken to Langemark German Cemetery to see the difference between the German and British cemeteries. The plain German graves had several names on each gravestone, and there were no flowers.
Our next stop was Vancouver Corner where a huge memorial of a brooding Canadian marks the battlefield where 18,000 Canadians withstood the first German Gas Attacks. We then went onto Passchendaele Museum Memorial Park where in 1917 in 100 days half a million casualties fell. Here you can experience how the British went to live underground where we saw dressing posts, communications posts and sleeping quarters.
The Hooge crater was our next stop; the result of an underground mine which was detonated and killed 500 Germans in the explosion. Captain Noel Chevasse RAMC was awarded the Victoria Cross during the battle of Hooge for most conspicuous bravery and devotion to duty.
That evening we all attended The Ypres Memorial (Menin Gate). The road is closed to traffic and hundreds of people turn out to hear the Last Post, which is played at 2000hrs every evening. It really was an emotive evening. QA’s who had berets and medals with them wore them and wreaths were laid.
On Wednesday we left our hotel in Ypres and made for the Somme in France to our next hotel the Mercure in Arras. On route we stopped at Vimy Ridge the Canadian Memorial where the names of 11,285 Canadian soldiers are carved on the walls of the Vimy monument. At Vimy Ridge the Canadians dug subways and undermined German positions. Tunnellers built a network of 13 tunnels to give troops protection. The subways were 8 metres deep totalling 10 kilometres overall.
That afternoon we had free time to spend in Arras.
On Thursday our first stop was to Beaumont-Hamel Newfoundland Memorial, which was established in memory of the Royal Newfoundland Regiment. On the first day of the Battle of the Somme July 1st 1916 the First Battalion of the Newfoundland Regiment sustained staggering casualties