Three Day Western Front Tour
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
- 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
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
- 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
- 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
- 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
- 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