Hampstead Pals

Private Arras & The Somme Battleground Tours

Jon Nicholls — Wed, 17 Feb 2010 11:28:40 +0000

There's a new page on this site about Arras & The Somme Battleground Tours

'Private Arras & The Somme Battleground Tours' – Personal Pilgrimages to the Battlefields of the Great War of 1914-18 with Jonathan Nicholls. Author of Cheerful Sacrifice. The Battle of Arras 1917'

Due to recent private demand, Jon is now offering you, personally arranged and guided tours of the 1914-18 Battlefields. He will take you where you want to go. Numbers are limited, 2-12. For just two, or four guests he will collect you at your home, or meet you at a convenient place & transport you safely to France, via the most convenient route. He will also arrange the best accommodation, according to your wishes, (and your pocket!) usually, in the beautiful town of Arras, where there are a selection of good hotels, restaurants and bars. Transport is by a brand new, Landrover 4 x4 or for larger groups, a top of the range, Volkswagen Sharan or Iveco mini-coach.

For more information see Arras & The Somme Battleground Tours

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The Anthony Spagnoly Remembrance Tour

Jon Nicholls — Sun, 15 Nov 2009 13:35:41 +0000

I have just made a new page about The Anthony Spagnoly Remembrance Tour. May 2009 by Pal, Christopher Quinton, it's a very well written and informative page, which you may wish to comment on. For this reason I have left the comments 'open' for you to add any comments you wish.

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The Hares of the Somme

Steve Page — Wed, 07 Oct 2009 20:33:02 +0000

In a poem Hares of the Somme I speculated as to how these creatures survived the Great War. In “Gas” The Story of the special Brigade (RE) by Major General C.H. Foulkes CB CMG DSO reference is made to the efforts of British gas on pets and wildlife, which appeared in a German newspaper the Frankfurter Zeitung.

Eagwyrt by Kate Wyatt.

“All the pets in the trenches suffer from the gas attacks. The Guinea-Pigs are the first to scent the gas and the cats also complain at once. Many dead rats and mice are found in the trenches after gas attacks. Owls are greatly excited. Behind the front fowls and ducks are said to become restless a quarter of an hour before the gas clouds approached; and the gas kills ants and caterpillars, beetles and butterflies. I found a hedgehog and an adder both killed by gas. The only birds that seem indifferent to gas are the sparrows.”

Foulkes also observes ‘Pigeons too, seem to have been found susceptible, because the Germans kept their carrier pigeons in gas tight boxes which had ordinary respirator drums screwed into one side.

In another paragraph it was found that goats and men are equally resistant to prussic acid gas while mice have shown to be ten times as susceptible as men are to carbon monoxide for which reason miners use them as well as canaries as detectors of the presence of this gas.

A man’s eyes are by far the most sensitive of his organs, and he is ten times as susceptible to lachrymators compared with a dog and a thousand times compared with a horse.

Foulkes records that on the Somme battlefields the British carried out more than fifty gas cloud attacks in aid of the infantry operations in the course of the first eighteen days and over a hundred by the end of the year (1916).

Interestingly no mention in “Gas” is made of Hares Rabbits Foxes or Badgers, which are now the latest form of wildlife to be gassed deliberately.

The Germans first used Gas at 1st Ypres 22nd April 1915. In retaliation the British used gas at Loos in September 1915 by which time the Germans had introduced gas shells. With prevailing winds on the Western Front from the west the British persevered with ‘gas cloud’ delivery and later used Liven’s Projectors and 4” Stokes Mortars to deliver the most lethal gas phosgene.

I conclude that the ’Hares of the Somme’ survived by “making themselves scarce and out of harms way”.

The Hares of the Somme: ‘Jacobs Ladder’

The hares of the Somme, on Pal’s trips we see them….

This year there was one at High wood, another at Hamel.

The Hamel Hare disturbed by our visitation, froze, and eyed us with fear, before seeking refuge behind the Cross of Sacrifice. Hamel war Graves Cemetery is partly excavated into the foot of a hill, and has retaining walls on two sides, which meet at a high right-angled corner, here the Hare became trapped.

No where to run, and no escape route other than four or more feet vertically. The Hare hunched on it’s haunches and leapt upwards, clawing at the wall, but failed to reach the top. Again it tried, only to fall back absorbing the shock.

Hamel Military Cemetery Pals Tour 2009 by Stephen Page

Then, after a pause, to rewind its spring, the third attempt, as if by ‘Jacobs Ladder’, was lucky….

It went up over the top and away to the grassy slopes beyond, and adventures new.

Edmund Blunden records* that Hamel was the site of a hugh supply dump for the Somme battles. ‘Jacobs Ladder’ was a steeply inclined communications trench with steps, up to the high of Mesnil above, which was under enemy observation. The War Graves Cemetery was probably built on the site of a former ‘Soldiers Cemetery.

Hares of the Somme
On Pals trips we see them,
The Haers of the Somme,
running pell mell on
ground where young men once fell.
To Jack Rabbits they’re akin,
born with eyes wide open,
and fully furred. They live in
Forms , or folds in the ground
Not warrens, below unseen
as the Huns in nineteen sixteen;
who, on that first ghastly day
surfaced, and machine gunned
until the fields ran with blood.
How did the Hares manage
to survive the Great War.
God knows what horrors
their ancestors saw.
with innate animal instinct
did they evacuate the ground,
and quietly await events:
whilst armies fought all around,
intent on killing each other.
Today, the Hares of the Somme
grow healthy and strong:
as with boundless energy and no fear
they run, oblivious
of what once happened here

EDP May to August 2006.

So next time we travel the Somme countryside in our coach with its elevated view across the battlefields, look out of the windows and you to may spot a Hare of the Somme.

Steve and Eric Page 2009

Harry Patch Death

Jon Nicholls — Sat, 25 Jul 2009 23:19:10 +0000

Obituary: Harry Patch

He was a plumber from Somerset, in many ways an unremarkable man, but Harry Patch became the last British survivor of the carnage of the Western Front.

He was the final physical link to a conflict that saw two armies bogged down in the mud of Flanders and northern France for more than four years.

Henry John Patch was born at Combe Down, a small village near Bath, on 17 June, 1898 in the twilight of the Victorian age.

He left school at 15 and became an apprentice plumber but within a year came the outbreak of the Great War.

His brother had been wounded at Mons so Harry had an idea what to expect when he was finally conscripted into the Duke of Cornwall's Light Infantry at the age of 18.

He trained as a machine gunner before embarking from Folkestone in May 1917 en route to Reims. On his 19th birthday he found himself in the trenches.

Passchendaele

He arrived on the eve of what was to become the last, and one of the bloodiest, British offensives of the war, the Third Battle of Ypres, better known as Passchendaele.

The brainchild of Field Marshal Sir Douglas Haig, it was designed to push the army north east and liberate German occupied ports on the Belgian coast.

The offensive soon became bogged down in a quagmire caused by torrential rain and the effects of the massive British artillery barrage which had preceded the move forward.

The battle lasted three months, gaining just five miles of ruined ground at the cost of more than 300,000 British lives.

Harry Patch's war came to an end on 22 September, 1917 when a German shell burst over the heads of his five man Lewis gun team. Three of them were blown to pieces while Patch was wounded in the groin by a piece of shrapnel.

He was in hospital for 12 months and was convalescing on the Isle of Wight when the Armistice was signed.

In 1919 he married Ada Billington, a girl he met while recovering from his wound and returned to work as a plumber. They had two sons, Dennis and Roy, but he outlived both of them.

Silence

Too old to fight in World War II he became a firefighter in Bath, tackling the aftermath of German air raids.

In 1980 he remarried, but his wife Jean passed away in 1984. From 2003 he had a third partner, Doris, who lived in the same retirement home and died two years ago.

For more than 80 years he would not talk about his war time experiences, refusing to attend regimental reunions and avoiding any war films which appeared on the television.

In 1998, he agreed to be interviewed for the BBC One documentary Veterans and the realisation that he was part of a fast dwindling group of veterans of "the war to end all wars" persuaded him to step into the limelight.

He accepted an honorary degree from Bristol University in 2004 in recognition of his war service and for his work on the construction of the centrepiece of the campus, the Wills Memorial building, which opened in 1925.

He returned to Passchendaele in 2007 for the 90th anniversary of the battle, laying a wreath, not only on a memorial for the British dead, but also at a cemetery for the German victims of the offensive.

On his 101st birthday he travelled to France where he was awarded the Legion d'Honneur, and subsequently made an officer of the Legion d'Honneur.

In 2008, he was also honoured by the Belgian king, Albert II, who appointed him Knight of the Order of Leopold.

One of his favourite awards however was that of the Freedom of the City of Wells, where he had lived for many years.

In 2007 he became the UK's oldest author when he collaborated with Richard van Emden to write The Last Fighting Tommy, a detailed account of his life. He also became a celebrity agony uncle for men's magazine FHM and would often speak at festivals.

But Patch had no time for the Act of Remembrance on 11 November, an event he described as "just show business".

He always maintained that his Remembrance Day was 22 September, the day he lost his three best mates and his war ended.

Harry Patch was essentially an ordinary man who led an ordinary life. Even his experiences on the Western Front were no worse than those shared by many other soldiers.

What was extraordinary was that he lived so long, bringing first hand memories into the 21st century of a battle that has passed into history.

We don't sail with Sea France!

Rick Lomas — Tue, 04 Nov 2008 08:44:46 +0000

We no longer use this grossly incompetant and always unreliable ferry crossing company for our regular Dover-Calais crossings..

On a recent 'Pals' Pilgrimage to the Somme, we made the unfortunate error of booking with 'Sea France' Dover- Calais and reverse, for the second time in one month.

On the outward journey, we were delayed by 1. hour 30 minutes, the ‘predictable’ excuse being given as ‘gales in the channel.’ On the return leg on Thursday 23 October we duly arrived at Calais Docks at 4pm to catch the 5pm ferry and were told that ‘Due to gales in the channel’ the crossing would be delayed until 6.30pm. We were then kept waiting on the Quayside at Calais, when the Sea France reps told us we were delayed until 7.30pm. Then 8.30pm. We eventually sailed at 9pm. A delay of five hours. This is unacceptable and is the second time in one month this has happened. We noticed that P & O Ferries sailed as normal. There were no gales in the channel.

The short of all this is, that Sea France will not sail until there is enough cars to go on the Ferry and then it is packed. They cancel the previous sailings until it is financially viable to sail with a full load. Not only is this a shabby trick from a shabby company, they are totally incompetent and are sublime liars, as only the French can be. We will never use them again. Not only are they dishonest, the Ferries are filthy and the service extremely poor. The crews are surly and lazy and give appalling service. The whole useless lot should be sacked from the lousy management down and the company rolled up. The Channel would be a better place without this lot!

Learn from our mistakes! Do not use Sea France. Sail with P&O!!

Tony Spagnoly

Jon Nicholls — Mon, 13 Oct 2008 10:38:03 +0000

We are sad to announce that our favourite guide to the Battlefields, Tony Spagnoly, passed away on Sunday 5th October after a short illness.

Anthony Spagnoly R.I.P.

Tony was 81 and had been housebound with his 'dodgy hip' for sometime. He accompanied the Pals on many battlefield trips from 1993 to 2005. He was undoubtedly, since the passing of Rose Combes, the greatest knowlege of the old Western Front of 1914-18 and knew the whole area like the back of his hand. Tony served in the Royal Navy during the last war and after, on HMS Belfast. He was an early member of the Western Front Association and a friend to many. He was also the author of several books 'Salient Points' on the Battlefieds. He will be sadly missed. God bless you, mate.

Vimy Ridge by a Canadian in France

Jon Nicholls — Thu, 02 Oct 2008 22:39:02 +0000

A Canadian in France
By Aaron Rowe

Rising out of the plain above the little French town of Arras is Vimy Ridge. Wind sweeps up the grassy slope and through the forest towards the gigantic marble monument to the fallen Canadian soldiers of the First World War. The monument, while in France, is actually on Canadian soil. The land was given to the Canadian government by the French government as an honour for the sacrifice of its citizens in the defense of France. As a Canadian traveling in France, the Vimy Memorial is a warming reminder of home. Often, when we venture far from home, we long for something familiar, something to remind us of where our home is, and in northern France, I was in desperate need of this.

France is a beautiful place. It's regional diversity gives a traveler the feeling of being in a few different countries. My journey in France began in the north and quite honestly, did not prove to be the most enjoyable experience. Making my way from Belgium I hitchhiked along the highway towards where I knew Vimy Ridge was. As a history student I knew I had to see the Monument first and, having hitchhiked rather easily in Holland and Belgium, I figured my fortune would continue in France. However, this was not the case. I spent hours standing on the side of the road, in different places and different spots, trying to get a lift. When I was just about to give up, a kind French gentleman saw me, gave me a shocked look like he was supposed to pick me up and caught himself before he drove past, and took me in. He didn't speak English and my French stopped at grade 11 but we understood each other well enough. I told him I wanted to go to the memorial and he drove me right up to the top of Vimy Ridge.

At the Ridge I was overwhelmed by the sheer size and beauty of the memorial. The artistic design of the statues, the weeping lady, the angels, portrayed a sensitivity to the spirit of sacrifice that men underwent to defend a country they really had very little if any connection to. The forest leading up to the monument has a tree for each man killed and the grave sites around the Ridge bear their tombstones. I as pleased to find Canadian university students like myself working as guides at site. I quickly struck up a conversation with one and within a few minutes I was offered a place to stay for the night. One of them gave me a tour of the trenches and tunnels and when the day was over, I hopped in their van and we headed into the village. Tourism Canada had set these guys and girls up with a nice flat where I bunked on the couch and we had pasta dinner (which I much welcomed since I hadn't eaten much of substance for a few days). After dinner we went out to a local pub, played cards and drank Guinness, and played pool. Having been on my own for much of my trip around Europe I felt a warm comfort and peace about my trip that I hadn't felt since being in Europe.

I left the next morning with the sun shining out across the plains of northern France and a better confidence that the rest of my time in Europe would be a great adventure. I had a much better feeling about France. The people hadn't changed but I realized that the people were not the problem. People are people anywhere you go. I just needed to adjust my outlook and come to terms with the fact that I was alone in a foreign land and it was up to me to make the most of my travels. What being with other Canadians gave me was a dose of home and that dose was enough to carry me through.

Aaron Rowe is a writer and high school teacher in Langley BC. See more at http://adrowe.wordpress.com

He has a passion for European travel and you can learn more about the countries of Europe at http://www.learnabouteurope.com

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Aaron_Rowe
http://EzineArticles.com/?A-Canadian-in-France&id=1325287

Hampstead Pals Video

Jon Nicholls — Wed, 01 Oct 2008 07:41:11 +0000

This video was made by Rick Lomas using the images from the current photo album. You will find this all over the internet thanks to the wonderful video submission tool Traffic Geyser.

Could we organize a battlefield tour for you?

Rick Lomas — Tue, 30 Sep 2008 14:01:35 +0000

Moderne Hotel, Arras

Thinking of arranging a tour to the battlefields and need us to do it?
We can supply all your needs for groups, small or large;

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Google and Technorati

Rick Lomas — Mon, 29 Sep 2008 11:54:31 +0000

This site was indexed by Google this morning and now we are including it in Technorati

If you have a Technorati Account please add this site to your account as a favourite. It will help get the word out about Hampstead Pals.