Our first stop this morning is to Hill 60, a small piece of high ground which was bombarded almost continually during the war. It really isn't a hill, but actually a slag heap created from the tailings of railroad construction. At one point, the British tunneled under the hill and mined it. The resulting explosion took about 10 feet off the top of the hill. It was interesting in that the hill has been maintained just as it was over one hundred years ago. The tortuous terrain is due to all the ordinance expended on it. There was so much unexploded ordinance remaining that they could not safely mow the grass, so they brought in sheep to keep the grass trimmed.
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| Bunker |
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| You can see the steeples of Ypres in the distance |
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| Memorial to the miners |
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| Lawn maintenance staff |
On to the museum in Kemmel.
A church is across the street from the museum.
Next we visited Bayernwald park containing a recreated trench system including tunnel shaft entrances.
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| Shaft entrance to tunnels |
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| Bunker |
The "dipples" on the relief map indicate where mines were exploded along the German front line. A total of 19 mines went off out of a total of 24. Still waiting for the others to go off.
Peace Pool (Peace Pool). This crater was created by one of the 19 mines. It is about 40 feet deep and has a diameter of about 380 feet. The explosive charge was 90,000 pounds of explosives.
There were three Irish Divisions in the British army. One was Protestant from Ulster and the other two were from, what would become the Republic of Ireland.
Next on to the site of the unofficial Christmas truce of 1914 when the British and Saxon soldiers came out their respective trenches to celebrate Christmas together and played a game of football. They generals were not pleased!
Right next door was a British graveyard.
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| British Pillbox |
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| Another graveyard in the distance |
Next, we visited a bunker in the middle of a muddy plowed field. This was one of the places that the fuhrer, Adolf, was stationed during WWI near Fromelles, France.
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| Our Guide Chris standing where the fuehrer was standing in 1940 |
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| 1940 on Hilter's victory tour to Paris |
On to the mining operation of the New Zealanders. We had to wear Tommy hats.
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| Exit #10. There were 52 exits in all |
In Arras that evening, Stephen and I journeyed out and found a nice looking restaurant. The menu was in French so we just order the specialty of the house.
The appetizer was a country pate. Very very good!
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