Three day Western Front tour

Possible stops over the three days could include:

Day 1 – Ypres Salient

The ‘cauldron’ for the British Army. Never quiet, always dangerous and frequently fought over.

Morning:

• Essex Farm and the canal bank
• Pilckem Ridge
• Harry Patch’s attack from the Steenbeek, 16 August 1917
• Soldatenfriedhof, Langemarck
• Vancouver Crossroads/Canadian gas memorial

Brooding Soldier Gas Memorial, Vancouver Corner, St Julien

• Cross Roads Farm. Robin Skeggs in the front line, 1915.
• 1915/1917 panoramas at Gravenstafel Crossroads
• Tyne Cot Cemetery

Lunch at the Café de Dreve, Polygon Wood

Afternoon:

• Robertson’s Bridge – Clement Robertson VC – the first Tank Corps VC
• Via Polygon Wood to Railway Wood
• Hill 60 and the Caterpillar
• The Bluff
• Via Bedford House to Wijtschate and Messines.
• Return to Ypres via the 1917 Messines mine craters

Old IWGC signs at the Lille Gate

Last Post at the Menin Gate followed by dinner at one of the many restaurants in the Market Square (Grote Markt).

Day 2 – Flanders, 1915 and Arras

Morning:

• Ploegsteert – Churchill’s front line command

Ploegsteert Wood Military Cemetery

• Houplines/Chapelle d’Armentieres and Wez Macquart for Robin Skeggs, 3rd Rifle Brigade at the Christmas Truce, 1914
• Fleurbaix/Fromelles/Aubers Ridge including a visit to Fromelles (Pheasant Wood) Military Cemetery – the first new war cemetery to be built by the CWGC in fifty years
• Neuve Chapelle & Festubert
• Via Givenchy & Cuinchy, including Sapper William Hackett VC & the Tunnellers Memorial to the Hohenzollern Redoubt
• Loos and Hulluch

Lunch en route

Afternoon:

• Vimy Ridge – Canadian Memorial. Preserved trenches, craters & tunnels

The Canadian Vimy Memorial sits on Hill 145, the highest point of Vimy Ridge

• Third Army attacks east of Arras in April 1917. We will stop at Gavrelle, Fampoux, Roeux, Monchy-le-Preux & Infantry Hill, Guemappe, Wancourt &  Neuville-Vitasse
• Bullecourt
• Back to the splendour of Arras town

Day 3 – Somme, 1916

Visit the now tranquil fields of the rolling Somme countryside, once the scene of the greatest battle of the war.

Morning:

• La Boisselle and the Lochnagar Crater, 1 July 1916

Lochnagar Mine Crater, La Boisselle

• Via Mash Valley to Ovillers and the Nab
• Past the Ulster Tower, over the Ancre towards Beaucourt and up to the Sunken Lane beyond Beaumont Hamel. Hawthorn Ridge mine.
• Sheffield Park and the ‘Pals’ at Serre
• Newfoundland Memorial Park, Beaumont-Hamel

Lunch at the Old Blighty Tea Rooms, La Boisselle

Afternoon:

• Past Lochnagar to Fricourt and the Bois Francais
• Devonshire Cemetery and the attack of the Devons
• Livens Flame Projector sites at Mametz and Carnoy
• Success in the south – Maricourt to Montauban
• Flatiron Copse Cemetery & Welsh Dragon Memorial at Mametz Wood

The impressive Red Dragon of the 38th Welsh Division Memorial overlooking Mametz Wood

• Caterpillar Valley Cemetery
• Longueval and Delville Wood. Ginchy, Guillemont and the Quadrilateral
• Via High Wood and Martinpuich to Pozières
• Mouquet Farm and Thiepval
• Thiepval Visitor Centre and Thiepval Memorial

Endless names on the Thiepval Memorial to the Missing