In June this year Jacque and I spent 5 weeks in Europe and while there we went on a World War 1 tour though France & Italy where a lot of the fighting was done. Whenever I show these photos people are interested in the stories around them so thought I should perhaps share. We wished to do a tour as my grandfather John Williamson Fotheringhame had fought in the Scottish Highland Division and had fought in France and Belgium around such infamous places like the Somme and Ypres. His brother was killed on 21st March 1918 in a place called Pozieres which is in northern France. He has no grave as he was on a horse drawn ammunition wagon that got hit by an artillery shell. His name is on one of the plaques at Pozieres, He was just 20 years old.The little that Grandad talked about the war the one thing I remember him telling me is that he marched and fought in Belgium as the allies pushed the Germans back towards Germany. So thats why we wanted to do the tour, to be in places that Grandad had been and see where the New Zealanders had helped liberate. There were 30 of us on the tour (15 couples) and we were the only New Zealanders the rest being Australians! Once we got over the sheep jokes and we told a few Kangaroo ones things settled down. (You can always tell an Australian, you just cant tell him much). Everyone had an interest in the war but about 10 couples had specific graves they wanted to find and with the help of our tour guide, who was a German (which was great as he gave the German views on the war and battles), we found them all. The last one we found took a lot of finding as it was a small cemetery and it got to the last day but we all wanted to find it as it was for a guy called Tim from South Australia. His Grandfather and Grandfathers brother had fought together at a place called Bullecourt and the brother had been killed. Tims Grandfather had helped dig the grave for his brother. This is the photo with the graves that are close together. The other thing about this graveyard is the oldest person we could find was 22 years old with a lot being aged 18 and 19 and all had been killed on the 6th and 7th July 1916 for a small hill called Hill 103. The first photo is of a ANZAC graveyard in France which I cannot remember the name of but was huge and with 12,600 names of soldiers with no known grave inscribed on the walls. This again for a small hill. We visited a town in Belgium called Bruges which is close to where a lot of Kiwis fought and died in 1917. This is what we Kiwis call Passchendaele (it is the correct spelling). We went into a store to buy some cushions with the poppy on them (this is where the poppy thing all began) and were served by an old lady who on hearing our accents asked if we were Kiwis and when we said we were, told us they, the people of Bruges, owed us so so much for sending our young men over to help them. Thought i would share this as it is close to christmas and so many young men never made it home.
Posted on: Sun, 21 Dec 2014 06:37:43 +0000
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