2geonomads

Saturday 31st October 2015.

Up earlier than usual as our first destination is Villers Bretonneux, the large village which entered the history of the war  on 24th April 1918 when Australian troops finally halted the German offensive of March 1918.

The imposing white stone Australian National Memorial  was the last of the Great War national memorials of the British empire and Commonwealth to be built in France or Belgium and is composed of a central high tower and two corner pavilions linked to the tower by plain walls that bear the names of the 11,000 missing Australian soldiers who died in France.

The Anzac Day Dawn Service is held here every 25th April at 5.30 am and one can only imagine the intense emotion felt by the many who make this pilgrimage each year. In the stairwell of the main tower we find on a board the wording of a truly memorable speech by Prime Minister Paul Keating on a visit to this site. As he did with his Redfern speech he managed to encapsulate all the emotions and feelings associated with this memorial and its significance to so many Australians of all ages. What a contrast with the current crop of so-called statesmen.

A short drive takes us to Le Hamel where a memorial commemorates the Battle of Le Hamel in which a victorious General Monash led  his Australian and American troops into a tactical battle which lasted only 93 minutes! For the first time their attack combined infantry,artillery, tanks and parachute troops, a forerunner of modern war tactics.

After stopping briefly at Fouilly where a very friendly bikie club allows these two grey nomads to use their loo we proceed to Corbie Plateau and a field near some brickworks where the legendary Baron von Richthofen ( The Red Baron) was shot down by a Canadian pilot on 21st April 1918. Buried with full military honours by the Australians his body was eventually taken back to Berlin in 1925. He is now buried in Wiesbaden

We now have one eye on the clock as the Rugby World Cup Final awaits but on our way back to Bapaume we do stop off at Beaumont Hamel, the site of the Newfoundland Memorial and a remarkably preserved network of trenches.

Men from the Newfoundland Regiment left their trenches on 1st July and were immediately trapped by German machine gun fire. In one of the bloodiest actions of the Somme and within the space of only half an hour only 68 soldiers remained unscathed and all officers had been killed.

A very quick stop off at the largest memorial of all at Thiepval but we decide to return the next day when we also plan to visit Pozieres and view the Ulster site.

Dinner at the hotel is very tasty and we then settle down to watch the Match. A match worthy of the final and clearly the two best teams have got through. In the event the All Blacks are deserved winners 34-17 with the Wallabies putting up a great fight but Man of the Match Dan Carter clearly the difference.

As we are heading over the Channel the next day this gives us a great excuse to drink the bottle of fine Mercier champagne.

A day to remember in so many ways and we go to sleep with the voice of Karen, the Aussie girl on Tom Tom, ringing in our ears. I could quote so many instances of her mangling one of the world’s most beautiful languages but the one that stands out is the following:

Imagine in strine:

” At the next roundabout take the first exit,  Rudey Leg Lies. ” Imagine my disappointment when this is not a reference to some French lady of the night but is in fact Rue de l’Eglise ( Church Street ) which can be seen in almost every town!

Cheers

The Obese Ferret