Marple Remembers 2003 - Introduction

MONDAY 15th APRIL 2003 (Day 1)

After a disturbed night I was up at 04.30 to finish packing and to get everything together ready for my departure. Carol rose at 05.00 and after a quick breakfast she drove me to Smith's Coaches garage. There the coach was waiting with Alan and Kath already aboard. They had taken the front left seats so I sat immediately behind them. At 05.30 Brian, our driver for the trip, headed into Marple. Soon we were standing by the Regent Cinema and most of the rest of the party were boarding. Alan and Kath were asked to move to the seats behind me so that Pete and Andy could occupy the front ones with all their trip-running gear. I can understand their desire to be at the front of the coach. Having organised many similar trips I appreciate that the position near to the driver at the front of the coach is the best from which to try to control everything.

By 06.00 we were on our way and after picking up Jack at the Texaco garage and a few more people in Offerton we made for the motorway. We had another pickup at the Knutsford services before our final one at the Stafford services, where we met Ray and his wife. Ray and I had shared a room last year but this year his wife had come between us. Then it was full tilt down the M6 into the first traffic jam. This was caused by what proved to be an horrific accident involving a heavy goods vehicle. Its cab was completely destroyed and several fire crews were hacking at the debris, presumably to try to extricate the driver. I hope they were successful.

Then came Birmingham!!

It was not until 09.30 that we reached Watford Gap services where we had breakfast. We stopped for only thirty minutes during which I had a horrid few rashers of soggy tasteless bacon between two slices of flabby white sliced bread. With a pot of lukewarm coffee the bill was �5.38. I've had a roast Sunday lunch in a pub for that sort of money - and enjoyed eating it.

The journey continued on around London. On the crest of the Queen Elizabeth II bridge I was impressed by the fantastic scope of the view. What a pity that the only things to see are part of a very unattractive industrial landscape and the dirty river.

One more stop and at 13.15 we were in the Eurotunnel terminal and driving on to the train. This was my first journey under the English Channel and, quite frankly, I wasn't looking forward to it. The train comprised thirty units and we had the seventh one all to ourselves. Soon the shutters between the units came down and we were sealed into the compartment. For most of the trip we stood outside the coach as it was too warm inside. The view from the compartment windows was, understandably, not exciting. Thankfully the crossing took only a short time and by 15.05 (local time) we were in France and heading northwards towards Belgium

ARNEKE CEMETERY

In October 1917 the 13th Casualty Clearing Station moved back from near Proven to Arneke and around it grew up the British Cemetery. The 10th and 44th Clearing Stations joined it in April 1918. The cemetery was used by these hospitals until the end of May and again from July to September 1918 by the 62nd (1/2 London) Clearing Station. In November the 4th and 10th Stationary Hospitals used it for a short time. There are now nearly 450 1914-18 and a small number of 1939-45 war casualties commemorated in this site.

The first stop, at 16.30, was at Arneke military cemetery. It was a typical Commonwealth War Graves Commission cemetery, situated down a narrow lane and almost in the adjacent farmyard where Brian managed to turn the coach around. As is usually the case the graves were enclosed by a small wall. At the heart of the area is a white stone cross superimposed upon which is a large bronze sword. Behind is the Stone of Remembrance bearing the words 'THEIR NAMES LIVETH FOR EVERMORE'.

The chief reason for visiting this particular site was for Frank to pay his respects at the grave of an uncle, Private Joseph Cassidy of the Royal Irish Fusiliers. He died at the age of 21 on 10th September 1918 of wounds he had suffered at Messines. Arneke cemetery marks the site of a casualty clearing station. This means that most of the graves are of soldiers who died there after they had been transported from the front line. As a result, most if not all the headstones are able to give the full details of the soldiers under them; their rank, name and number, their regiment and the date on which they died. Often their age is included and, at the bottom of the stone, a few lines are added by their family. It also means that many different regiments and corps are represented. There were also several French graves as a well as a few German ones. Arneke cemetery is also the last resting-place of a Marple man, F. S. Carter of the Cheshire Regiment.

On the way to our next stop we passed close by the Mont des Cats. Andy informed us that this is the very hill up which the Grand Old Duke of York marched his 10,000 men before immediately marching them down again. Generally this part of France/Belgium is very flat with only a few small hills that dominate the surrounding countryside. It is easy to see why the occupation of even such low hills became so vital to the combatants of the Great War and, as we were to see, cost the lives of so many men.

BAILLEUL CEMETERY

Bailleul was occupied on the 14th October 1914 by the 19th Brigade and the 4th Division. It became an important railhead, air depot and hospital centre; the 2nd, 3rd, 8th, 11th, 53rd, 1st Canadian and 1st Australian Casualty Clearing Stations were quartered in it for considerable periods. It was a Corps Headquarters until July 1917 when it was severely bombed and shelled. The battle of Bailleul, one of the Battles of the Lys, was fought between the 13th and 15th April 1918. The town was defended by the 29th, 31st, 34th and 59th (North Midland) Divisions and the 4th Guards and 147th Brigades but it was entered by the Germans on the evening of the 15th. By the end of the month the enemy advance was held at St. Jans-Cappel and Meteren, north and west of Bailleul, and the allied artillery had destroyed the town. It was found empty and reoccupied on 30th August 1918.

There are now nearly 4,500 1914-18 and a small number of 1939-45 war casualties in this site. Of these nearly 200 from the 1914-18 War are unidentified and eleven special memorials record the names of soldiers from the United Kingdom buried here in April 1918 whose graves were destroyed by shell fire.

The next cemetery, Bailleul, was between a housing estate and the local civil graveyard. Again it marked the site of a casualty clearing station and, being closer to the front, was larger than that at Arneke. Once wounded, a soldier received initial basic treatment at the regimental aid post before being passed back to the nearest dressing station. Here an attempt would be made to stabilise the patient and make him fit enough to be moved back to a casualty clearing station and eventually, if he survived the journey, to a base hospital near the Channel coast such as the one at �taples that we visited last year. Needless to say, many men did not complete this journey, made by any of a variety of means of transport - motorised or horse-drawn ambulance, train or canal barge. Their last resting places mark the smaller clearing stations along the line of evacuation where they finally gave up their sad struggle for life.

Bailleul was also the scene of much hard fighting during the last German push and its subsequent repulse in 1918. Some of the battle dead are buried in this cemetery. For the first time on this trip we saw nameless graves, their occupants 'KNOWN UNTO GOD'. The cemetery also contains some unusual headstones. In among the usual British Army regiments we came across the stones for men of the Indian Army who died so far from their homeland in a cause they must have found difficult to understand. There were Ghurkas and Pathans with their details recorded in strange scripts. At the back of the cemetery was a row of stones marking the graves of thirty members of the Chinese Labour Corps buried between November 1917 and March 1918.

We had stopped here to visit the grave of Private John Cassidy, another of Frank's uncles and older brother of Joseph Cassidy whom we had visited in Arneke cemetery. John had also been in the Royal Irish Fusiliers but had died of wounds on 17th November 1916. We wondered if, as he was evacuated along the railway line, his younger brother had realised how close he was passing to his already dead brother's grave.

Along the edge of the cemetery were a number of German graves. A few of these held men killed in 1944 when war once again passed through this part of France.

At 18.15 we finally entered Belgium. A dilapidated border post, badly decorated with graffiti, was the only indication of the transition from one country to another. Soon we could see the spires of Ypres (or Ierper as the local Flemish people prefer to know it) and the famous Cloth Hall, all carefully reconstructed since 1918. It is hard to remember that over 250,000 British troops died around here, representing one in four of all the British dead for the whole of the war. Having rounded Hellfire corner, allegedly the most shelled part of the whole front line, we entered Ypres through the Menin Gate and eventually stopped outside our hotel, the Ypres Novatel.

We soon disembarked and Robin, my roommate for the week, and I headed for our room. It came as some surprise to discover that the large and bright room contained only one large double bed. We eventually became friends but to start the friendship by sharing a bed was a big concept to grasp. A quick visit back to Reception was enough to discover that the sofa under the window was also a single bed so that solved that potential problem.

THE MENIN GATE AND "THE LAST POST" CEREMONY

The original Menin Gate marked the start of one of the main roads out of Ypres towards the front line. Tens of thousands of men passed through it and along the infamous Menin Road. Too many of them never returned. Then there was no actual gate and certainly no arch. It was merely a gap in the town's ramparts with a bridge across the moat.

Following the end of the Great War, plans were discussed for a suitable memorial in Ypres. The British Government suggested purchasing the ruins of the town and leaving it as a memorial to the soldiers and townspeople who had lost their lives in the Salient. The Belgian Government refused to sanction this plan but offered two possible sites in the town, the ruined Cloth Hall or the Menin Gate. Following a change of heart over the Cloth Hall it was decided to erect a memorial on the site of the Menin Gate to those members of the British and Empire armies who had died in the fighting around Ypres and who had no known grave.

The Gate was designed by Sir Reginald Blomfield and finally completed, despite considerable construction difficulties, in 1927. It represents a great triumphal arch in the classical Roman tradition. Made of French limestone and weighing 20,000 tons, the monument is 135 feet in length, 140 feet wide and 80 feet high. At the summit is a British Lion designed by Sir William Reid Dick. It was intended to look "not fierce and truculent, but patient and enduring, looking outward" along the Menin Road. On great panels, all around the walls, are the names of 54,896 officers and men of the Commonwealth forces. This figure does not represent all the men who disappeared in the Salient. It was discovered that the Menin Gate, huge as it is, was not large enough to hold all the names of the missing. The names recorded on its panels are of the men who died between the outbreak of war in 1914 and 15th August 1917. The names of a further 34,984 who went missing from then until the end of the war are recorded on carved panels at Tyne Cot cemetery.

Unveiling the memorial on 24th July 1927 Field Marshal Plumer said: -

One of the most tragic features of the Great War was the number of casualties reported as missing, believed killed� When peace came and the last ray of hope had been extinguished the void seemed deeper and the outlook more forlorn for those who had no grave to visit, no place where they could lay tokens of loving remembrance�and it was resolved that here at Ypres, where so many of the missing are known to have fallen, there should be erected a memorial worthy of them which should give expression to the nation's gratitude for their sacrifice and their sympathy with those who mourned them. A memorial has been erected which, in its simple grandeur, fulfils this object and now it can be said of each one in whose honour we are assembled here today: He is not missing; he is here!

By 19.30 we were back down in the bar for a quick beer as the group assembled. A quarter of an hour later we walked back to the Menin gate to witness the regular evening ceremony of sounding the Last Post. Tonight a crowd of about 200 people had congregated under the arch. Sharp at 20.00, five smartly dressed firemen formed up across the road and sounded the British Army's Last Post, the bugle call that traditionally ends the day and is also sounded at military interments. During the ensuing reverential silence various groups laid poppy wreaths at the memorial. Tom and Joan, his grandmother, placed the one from the Marple group. Finally the bugles sounded Reveille, the call that signals the start of a new day.

THE LAST POST

In 1928, a year after the inauguration of the Menin Gate Memorial, a number of prominent citizens in Ypres decided that some way should be found to express the gratitude of the Belgian nation towards those who had died for its freedom and independence. The idea of the daily sounding of the Last Post - the traditional salute to the fallen warrior - was that of the Superintendent of the Ypres police, Mr. P. Vandenbraambussche. The Menin Gate was thought to be the most appropriate location for the ceremony. The privilege of playing the Last Post was given to buglers of the local volunteer Fire Brigade.

The first sounding of the Last Post took place on 1st July 1928 and a daily ceremony was carried out for about four months. The ceremony was reinstated in the Spring of 1929 and the Last Post Committee was established. From 11th November 1929 the Last Post has been sounded at the Menin Gate every night and in all weathers. The only exception to this was during the four years of the German occupation of Ypres from 20th May 1940 to 6th September 1944. The daily ceremony was instead continued in England at Brookwood Military Cemetery in Surrey. On the very evening that Polish forces liberated Ypres the ceremony was resumed at the Menin Gate in spite of the heavy fighting still going on in other parts of the town.

I spent a few moments examining the names on the many marble panels that cover every surface of the great construction. Every regiment and corps in the British and Commonwealth armies is represented; men from the English counties and towns, the Scottish Highlands and the Welsh valleys, from Ireland, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa and India. It is almost too staggering to take in at one visit.

The following Marple men are remembered on the walls of the Menin Gate (with the date of their death): -

Robert Ashton	06/03/1915
Francis Edmund Bradshawe Isherwood	09/05/1915
Geoffrey Hamilton Bagshawe	13/05/1915
Joseph Ardern	20/06/1915
Burt Morris	07/06/1917
John William Hallworth	13/06/1917
Joseph Bell	27/07/1917
John William Hayes	31/07/1917*
Fred Hopwood	31/07/1917*
Bertram Smith	31/07/1917*
John Thomas Booth	31/07/1917*
Harold Matthew Burton	31/07/1917*
Robert Cunningham Dixon	31/07/1917*
James Everatt Sharples	03/08/1917

* 31st July 1917 was the start of the disastrous part of the Third Battle of Ypres generally referred to as The Battle of Passchendaele.

After the ceremony most of us repaired to a bar in the town square for a drink and something to eat. I had steak with a mushroom sauce, which was very tasty, with plenty of mushrooms. Those new to Belgium were fascinated by the drinks menu with its long list of Belgian beers. Not everyone realised that some of these beers are considerably stronger that our own ales!

It had been a long day and by the end of the meal I was feeling very tired. Some of the party went off to another bar to continue the evening but I crept back to the hotel and my bed.

THE FIRST BATTLE OF YPRES - OCTOBER TO NOVEMBER 1914

With the failure of the German offensive against France at the battle of the Marne and the allied counter-offensive, the so-called Race to the Sea began, a movement towards the North Sea coast as each army attempted to out-flank the other by moving progressively north and west. As they went, each army constructed a series of trench lines that came to characterise the war on the Western front until 1918.

Meanwhile on 14th September the French Commander-in-Chief, Joseph Joffre, undertook an intensive combined allied attack against the German forces on the high ground just north of the Aisne River. The German defences were too strong and the attack was called off on 18th September. Stalemate had set in.

By October the Allies had reached the North Sea at Niuwpoort in Belgium. German forces had driven the Belgian army out of Antwerp and back towards Ypres. The British Expeditionary Force (BEF) under Sir John French took over the line from Ypres south to La Bass�e in France from which point the French Army continued the line down to the Swiss Border. Such was the background to the First Battle of Ypres that commenced on 14th October 1914 when Eric von Falkenhayn, the German Chief of Staff, sent his 4th and 6th Armies into Ypres.

The battle began with a nine-day German offensive that was only halted with the arrival of French reinforcements and the deliberate flooding of the Belgian front. Belgian troops opened the sluice gates of the dykes holding back the sea from the low country. The flood encompassed the final ten miles of the trenches in the far north and would later prove a hindrance to the movement of allied troops. During the German attack British troops held their positions, suffering heavy casualties, as did the French forces guarding the north of the town.

The second phase of the battle saw a counter-offensive launched by General Foch on 20th October, ultimately without success. It was ended on 28th October.

Next von Falkenhayn renewed his offensive on 29th October, attacking most heavily in the south and east, once again without decisive success, although by 1st November they had taken Messines Ridge, Wytschaete and Gheluvelt and had broken the Menin Road. It seemed as though an allied defeat was imminent. However, the arrival of French reinforcements saved the town, the British were able to counter-attack and Gheluvelt was recaptured.

The German offensive continued for the following ten days, the fate of Ypres still in the balance. A further injection of French reinforcements arrived on 4th November. Even so, evacuation of the town seemed likely on 9th November as the German forces pressed home their attack, taking St. Eloi on 10th November and pouring everything into an attempt to recapture Gheluvelt on 11th and 12th November, but without success. A final major German assault was launched on 15th November. Still Ypres held out. Now the Belgian autumn had set in and soon heavy rain arrived followed by snow. Von Falkenhayn called off his attack.

It was becoming evident that the nature of trench warfare favoured the defender rather than the attacker. The BEF had held Ypres as they continued to do until the end of the war despite repeated German assaults. The Allies now held a salient extending six miles into the German lines. The cost had been huge on both sides. British casualties were 58,155, mostly from the pre-war professional army - the last of the Old Contemptibles. French casualties were around 50,000 and Germany lost 130,000 soldiers.