Back from the front

Phil Davies (FGM) · 11-01-2008, 07:43 PM,

Hi all I am back from the Western Front, what a great experience it was too. Long days with lots of travelling saw us cover the whole of the British sector. We went to The Somme where I walked up the sunken lane and saw the crater left by the Hawthorn mine, Thiepval memorial, Battle of Loos, Sanctuary wood, Hooge, New Foundland memorial park with the intact trenches, Vimmy Ridge memorial park with the intact German trenches, Devalle wood, Memetz Wood and loads of other places. The remarkable thing is that these places have hardly changed in ninety years, you could just imagine the troops and the trenches, it was truly an incredible experience and I recommend anybody to go and see it for themselves. I have taken loads of photo's and I'll try and post some later.

Der Kuenstler · 11-01-2008, 11:46 PM,

Yes - we want pictures!

Phil Davies (FGM) · 11-02-2008, 03:21 AM,

How do I attach photos to a post then ? just tried but said the file is too large can upload 500kb which seems a bit small :conf:

Mikey_FGM · 11-02-2008, 03:45 AM,

One word:

Photobucket

wigam · 11-02-2008, 06:52 AM,

Yeah Phil, Welcome back. Shoot over to photo bucket and upload them there and use the image line and post that into your new message. Sounds like you had a great time. Must have been very moving aswell.

Stryker · 11-02-2008, 10:15 PM,

Phil, did you organise your own trip, or use a travel company specialising in battlefield trips properly organised (now saying that your own wouldn't be :P )... and if so, how did hotels and travel work out?

thanks for any info.

Phil Davies (FGM) · 11-03-2008, 05:05 AM,

Stryker Wrote:Phil, did you organise your own trip, or use a travel company specialising in battlefield trips properly organised (now saying that your own wouldn't be :P )... and if so, how did hotels and travel work out?

thanks for any info.

I went with a company called Ledger, I have been with them before in 2003 when I organized a Blitz club "Big Meet" to Normandy. We had had an really good guide who gave us lots of information about how battle developed which direction the attacks came from who was involved etc. The days were long starting at 7am for breakfast and not getting back till 8pm. The only bad point if you can call it that was the hotel didn't do evening meals and Menen isn't the most livley of places to go and get some either but there are one or two nice resturants there.
The trouble is with doing it this way is that your on a time table and we were only having between 10-60 mins depending on how much there was to see at places, I of course could have spent a lot longer at some. If your up for it I would take a metal detector next time, there is just SO MUCH stuff in ground as some places have not been touched since the end of the war you couldn't fail to find something. Personally now I know the lie of the land so to speak I would make my own way there with a really good guide book and do more walking, most farmers I am told don't mind so long as you don't cross the field just stick to the edges. This is a good time of year to go too as the fields have been harvested and the farmer has turned to ground over, I found a small piece of shrapnel just by doing a little field walking around the edges.

Stryker · 11-04-2008, 06:19 PM,

Thanks Phil, I have been trying to get my wife to accompany me to the Peninsular war battle sites in Spain for years (she's spanish) but somehow we keep missing out... got near Talavera once but we ran out of time and it was the opposite direction to where we needed to go! having two small children in tow doesn't help either, although my 8 year-old son should be used to wandering around muddy fields on rainy days as he plays rugby!
I think I'd prefer to organise my own trips, 10 - 60 minutes isn't enough, I like to wander and ponder a lot, I also like to read up as much as possible on the battles before I go... I do this for any journey actually.. especially visiting new countries, towns and castles.
Never thought of the metal detector option, I guess you can buy smaller fold up ones... I'll have to investigate!
Again, thanks for the info.... we're waiting for the pics :)

Paul