Buster's Euro trip

[buster]

The next stop was the gun battery at Longues sur Mer, which was captured by the Devonshire regiment. This battery was captured intact and contrary to orders, two of the captors decided to try and fire one of the guns. The result was catastrophic and as you can see one of the battery elements is totally destroyed.. sadly the two tommies were killed in the blast also.

[buster]

[buster]

Jeff and Paul..... posing




Paul.... Hmmm 'nuff said.

[buster]

Next stop was Arromanches, this is the Westernmost end of Gold beach, this is where the Mulberry harbours were erected to facilitate the landings/disembarkation of the remainder of the materiel support for the war effort. This simple concept (by Sir Winston Churchill himself), is reckoned to be the foundation for the subsequent successes after D-Day and possibly the cornerstone for the war.

Not bad for a bunch of rafts eh?

[buster]

[buster]

Okay, after Arromanches we went down the coast to Juno beach, at this point time was running against us so it was literally just a whistle-stop visit as we still had 180 miles to cover on this day and it was already 3pm, anyway..... Juno.

[Porcelina Goddess]

Love the bike/tank pic. It's a good one!

[buster]

The tank at Juno is a british built Churchill Mortar thrower, this landed at ther beach and began it's journey inland, 100 metres from the beach it ran into a bomb crater and became stranded. Six members of the crew were killed whilst trying to escape from the stricken vehicle. Subsequently a bridge was run over the top of the tank to give the following forces a reasonably firm route through the craterfield.

The tank remained buried at that spot until the late 1970's when it was excavated and partial restoration put it into the condition you see today, where it remains as a memorial to those engineers who lost thier lives. Two of the original crew members were present at the dedication ceremony.

[buster]

Now we resume the journey to Abbeville, next to Amiens, time has beaten us to Sword beach and the Pegasus bridge, we will get to them next time. So on the route to Amiens, we crossed a couple of astounding bridges, quite a surprise!

This one first.....







Which was a pretty impressive climb, then just as I reached the top of the bridge I spotted this one in the distance... Yehaaa!

[womper]

the french know how to have fun it seems

[jyoung]

These are some touching & beautiful photos. I'd love to someday ship my bike & tour Europe like this. There is so much to take in.

[buster]

Well, after a very wet trip to Abbeville, we actually got drenched and we left wet gloves on the hotel room heater, then went out to eat. We came back about 2 hours later and the room was like a sauna, I am not exaggerating, the room was completely full of steam..... and it stunk!

Nyway next morning was to Amiens, a wee bit of a disappointment because the museum we wanted to visit was closed for lunch.. and being as we were against the clock for everything we had to skip it, however, the lady at reception allowed us to wander around the well presented reception area.

We must bear in mind that we are now in a predominantly WW1 region and as such, there is very little evidence left to see with the exception of the museums. Some of the more notable attractions were a little out of reach for us, this was mainly due to the fact that we only had one day per region. So a lot of what I have for you now on is museum exhibits.

On we go..... The village of Albert, just outside Amiens, which was a real tough action zone during the Great war

[buster]

This is the entrance to the museum, it is an entrance to an underground tunnel system which was used as a bunker in WW1 and an air raid shelter in WW2.




This is a picture of the church in the centre of the village this was decimated during WW1 and was completely restored between the wars, in WW2 it suffered no further damage as the occupying forces had no battles here.

[buster]

We then followed part of the "Poppy trail" which took us through some of the sites of the fiercest of the Somme battlefields.

I kid you not everytime you turned your head, and sometimes when you didn't you were confronted with sights like this.....



Closer....



The entire countryside is peppered with commonwealth war graves.....

On to Poziers, the scene of a particularly bloody battle...







Particularly poignant... Brothers in arms....

[buster]

Further down the "Poppy trail" to Thiepval, once again the scene of atrocious fighting, after the war to mark this spot it was decided to erect a monument to recognise those whose bodies were never discovered or identified, carved all around the monument are the names of these poor souls.

Incredibly breathtaking....











....and we think one of Buster's ancestors... J. Halliday, West Yorks. Regt. whoa.. moving.

[buster]

More at Thiepval...








Unknown Frenchmen...




Unknown Brits...




As I walking away from the main monument at Thiepval, I looked over to my left and spotted a smaller memorial stone and look in the background.....

[buster]

The last destination for today was the village of Rancour, it is the only village in the region that has a cemetary from each of the combative nations, Britain, France and Germany.

On the way there we passed this fellow at one of the crossroads, representing the Scottish Highland regiments, who were the prevalent British forces in that area.





Then on to the French cemetary at Rancour.



Directly across the road was the British cemetary, this also has 3 Airmen from WW2



Then we visited the German cemetary..





Each of the German stones represents four souls..

[buster]

The German Remembrance plaques...




Closer....



This shot was taken to show the german cemetary in the foreground and the British and French sites in the background. (The French graves are in the churchyard).

[buster]

The following day, we went to Passchendaele - now renamed Passendale. The village was wiped from the face of the map during hostilities, after the war and the inhabitants returned to a blood soaked mud bath, which was once their home, they decided to rebuild and rename.

To our Canadian cousins...








And just over to the the east of the Canadian memorial stone.....

[buster]

Next, Tyne cot cemetary, well the intro plaque tells it better than me..








One of the German bunkers, there are five of these within the walls of the cemetary, they decided to make the burial place, where most of the troops fell.