World War One Battlefields Trip

During the half term holiday forty-one year 11 pupils, accompanied by five staff, visited the battlefields of the First World War.

Having travelled overnight and arrived in France at lunchtime the group visited Vimy Ridge on the first afternoon. This was the site of a huge Canadian attack in 1917, and the pupils had their first experience of walking in the trenches and seeing the shell marked terrain of no man’s land. On the ridge itself the group viewed a huge monument to the more than 60,000 Canadian soldiers who died in the war. This incredible monument includes the statue of Mother Canada grieving for her lost sons.

The second full day of the trip was based in and around the town of Ypres, in Flanders, Belgium. The day started with a visit to Essex Farm Cemetery where the pupils saw an advanced dressing station and heard about the medical care the soldiers received. They also stood on the spot where the Canadian soldier, John McCrae looked across at the nearby cemetery and was motivated to write the poem ‘In Flanders Field’ which inspired the use of the poppy as the symbol of remembrance.

From there the pupils moved to the higher ground to the east of Ypres which was the site of the Battle of Passchendaele in 1917. The pupils visited Passchendaele Trench Museum, which was packed with incredible artefacts and information about the battle, before heading to Sanctuary Wood where they experienced the mud of the unrestored trenches there. A visit was then held to Tyne Cot Military Cemetery, the biggest British military cemetery in the world with over 11,000 individual graves and a huge wall with the names of over 33,000 soldiers who have no known grave. The day finished with a meal out in Ypres followed by attending the last post ceremony at the Menin Gate. This huge monument contains the names of another 54,000 British soldiers who lost their lives in Flanders and have no known grave, and it was a huge honour for Imogen H, Millie S and Thomas S to be a part of the ceremony and lay a wreath on behalf of everybody connected to Ashton.

On the third day of the trip the group travelled south to the Somme, scene of the costliest battle in British history in 1916. The day started with a visit to Lochnagar Crater, created by one of the huge mines that was detonated two minutes before the attack on the first day of the Battle of the Somme. From there the pupils moved to the awe inspiring Thiepval Monument. This incredible monument contains the names of over 73,000 British soldiers who died in the Battle of the Somme and have no known grave, both Mr Fern and Caleb A found the names of their own relatives on the monument.

The pupils then walked the preserved battlefield at Beaumont Hamal where the soldiers from Newfoundland were tragically slaughtered on the first day of the Battle. The visit to the Somme, after a brief stop at the Ulster Tower, ended with a visit to the Sunken Lane at Beaumont Hamal. This was where the Lancashire Fusiliers attacked from, famously they were filmed minutes before the attack, on the 1st of July 1916. The group heard the tragic story of what happened to these soldiers as they emerged from the Sunken Lane that morning before moving to the nearby cemetery where many of these soldiers are buried, where they held an emotional remembrance service and laid a wreath in memory of all the men from Lancashire who died in the War.

The final day in France saw the pupils have some well-deserved downtime with a visit to Parc Asterix near Paris before returning to Britian the next day. The pupils’ behaviour on the trip was excellent and they were a real credit to the school. They behaved with great respect at all the historic sites visited and hopefully they will have gained a far greater appreciation for the sacrifice made by a generation of British men in the trenches of the First World War.

World War One Battlefields Trip