DAY 1 8TH SEPTEMBER 1997

4am and David arrives to pick me up for out annual trip to France. I live 15 minutes drive away from the Channel tunnel entrance and we had been booked for the 5 AM shuttle. Having go there and did the routine pickup of Whisky we found that as usual the Shuttle was late, this happens every year, but I still think it's tha way to travel. We got into France 8AM French time and headed for the cross country way down. First stop St.Omer. Made it in under an hour, headed for the Supermarket to get the weeks liquid refreshments and eats. Let me explain the two options for getting down to the Somme, firstly at Calais you can dive onto the Autoroute to Peronne, which will cost you about £5 but you get down there in under two hours easily, or you do like we do, take the cross country route and see some of the Western Front on route. From St Omer we headed for Hazebrouck, around this area in 1918 there was severe fighting, David has an interest in the 74th Div which was here and with the aid of trench maps and Blue series maps we wanted to take some photos. We headed through the forest of Nieppe to St Robeque area and found our battlefield. This area is known as the venice of the North, there are dykes everywhere to me it reminded me of the Romney marsh, must have been a sod to fight on with these broken down and an obviously high water table. It was also in this area that a local man to us -Mjr Edward "Mick " Mannock was killed. After photographing it was time to head towards Vimy Ridge, the reason being that as you drive down, you want to avoid Lens if you can so you have to go either in front of it or behind, we prefer heading behind towards Vimy as it also takes you clear of Arras and onto the 1917 battlefield. We go through Bethune and Noux les mines, the famous slag heaps that litter this mining area are obvious, as is Vimy Ridge , you can really see why it was important. We decided to visit the German cemetery Neuville st Vaast . If you have never been to a German cemetery, they are very different, very German, they are well cared for. We were the first visitors of the day, looking through the visitors book most of those lately were British. The number of burials is meant to be about 44000, they seemed to cover every year of the war. Although very different , this is the way the Germans do it, it's quite nice in a way, but they were the vanquished and had little sympathy showed to them and were forced to have large mass burials. From there we went up to Vimy Ridge which is a convienient place to break, to get something to eat and have a slash. This was the third time I'd been there and we had never been down into the tunnels. It was our lucky day as a trip was due in half an hour. To describe the trip in the tunnels is difficult. The guide took us through the subterrainian world with an expertise that was good to see. The guides being Canadian are bi-lingual which is usefull. The tunnels themselves if you get the chance are a must, you have to experience it to get the real picture. The bit thats missing is the sound and shaking of guns, the smells of battle and of course the packed corridors of men. Whilst on the Vimy ridge park we visited Canadian No2 cemetery in the grounds. This cemetery was used in the clearing of the Vimy battlefield hence has many Canadians. The cemetery was openned again in 1931 for many bodies that we found around that area. My interest is the RND, I'm counting up how many unknown RMLI there are to see how many are truely missing or purely just unidentified. There are many RND there, all found after 1931 along with other regiments, many of these are not suprisingly unidentified, the RND bodies could only have come from Gavrelle, there are some Buffs ones as well which came I believe from the Monchy area. We laid a cross on the grave of an unknown man, in rememerance. This is something we do quite often, walk into a cemetery and choose a row and grave at random before we enter and place the cross on it, weird but thats our way. With Vimy finished we drove out and down to Gavrelle, which takes us clear of Arras but through an area that is dear to me. I stopped outside Gavrelle and walked to the site of the Windmill ( see photo). For once the fields weren't under beet, the site of the windmill I have determined from present day maps and trench maps. There is nothing there now to tell you of the feirce struggle in April and May 1917, just a slight hump in the ground. I stood for a moment in thought of those men who died there and then returned to the car. We drove through Gavrelle southwards along the 1917 front line stopping at some of those small battlefield cemeteries in the area. Next stop was Monchy le Preux. Near here about a year ago the bodies of 27 British soldiers were found. These are due for reburial at this time, rumour had it that they were to be buried at Monchy British Cemetery so we stopped to see if the event had taken place or whether the rumour was true. Well the burial hadn't taken place, but there was some truth in the rumour as there were preparations for grave stones there, ie the concrete tramlines, enough for 27 graves(see photo). The general conception is that these men were of the 13th R.Fusiliers, this I have it is basically true, but there is a Highland Fusilier amongst them. Also I have it that 2 are identified, and now the burial is bieng delayed whilst an attempt is made to identify a third is made, apparently the soldier is 7 ft tall and they think that it is possible for him to be identified. Well there you have it. anyway these men are amongst their mates as many of the men buried here are from the same battalion. Time was moving on, it was after 3pm (see how much you could potentially get done in a day trip) so we thought we had better put an appearance in at the guess house via a few cemeteries. So we went for it stopping at a cemetery on the Somme which I can't remember now, only that it had a New Zealand memorial for the missing of 1918. We then reached the guest house and got our usual warm reception and a beer. We unoaded and realised that we had an hour or two to kill before dinner. We decided to finish off an odd chore or two, firstly David has a project on missing E.Kent Yeomen, many were killed with the Sussex Regt and he wanted to visit the Thiepval Memorial to check the registers, me I was looking to go to the Ancre British Cemetery to count the unknown RMLI (40!!) there for my project, also just to sit and contemplate. This duly done we returned for the usual large dinner and to meet the other guests. The other guests usually make the holiday. It's good to swap information and hear everyone elses expertise. Dinner and several bottles of the best red later we David and me decided to show the others the pleasure of the moonlit walk to the Caribu at the Newfoundland Park. This involves walking by moonlight, and believe me it's damn dark across the old July 1st front line to the Caribu which is floodlit . This takes about half an hour, but is really atmospheric. after that it was time for bed.