Armentieres, A Time To Remember

We arrived this afternoon the 15th August, in Lille, Northern France. Lille is 14 km, from the small French town of Armentieres, where my Great Uncle, William Hobson is buried.

William is my grandfather's oldest brother, who died on the 7th July 1916, seven days into the battle of the Somme, at the age of 27. He is laid to rest in the Armentieres military cemetery only 3 km from the Belgium border with France.

Tomorrow we plan to visit the cemetery, and my hope is to find the place where he has been laid to rest and spend some time there.

I have prepared a few things to take along with me. A photo of his family, mother, brothers and sister, his first world war medals and his name tag that was taken from his body the day that he died.

As far as I know, I am the closest and only relative that has visited his burial site in the 97 years since his death. I think that this will be a pretty meaning full time.

A few memories of William Hobson's life and family

I'll let you know how we get on......

Well how do you describe the day that we have had today?? Not sure, so I will start at the beginning....

We found the cemetery 

Photo's of the Family together

We left the hotel in Lille at about 9-00am and had a bit of a look around central Lille on the way to picking up the rental car. 

We were on the road by 11.00am heading to Armentieres and the Cite Bonjean Military Cemetery in the hope of finding the resting place of William Hobson.

We were not disappointed, I will let the photos here tell the story....

William's "dog tag" back together after 97 years

A little time to reflect and remember

William's mates in the Auckland 12th

We discovered that the row of men to the left of William's Grave, under the tree (his is the 3rd on the right from the tree), were pretty much all from William's 12th Auckland Regiment, who became part of the 1st Auckland Division. I counted twenty eight men in his regiment who died on the 3rd of July 1916.

( I have just been onto the web to see what happened that night, and here is a quote).

"1st  Auckland went routinely into this L’Epinette sub-sector on 21 June 1916. On the night of 3/4 July heavy German artillery fire preceded a raid in strength on their forward localities. Although this was seen off, the unit suffered 102 casualties, largely from the bombardment, of whom 33 were killed.

Great courage was shown by 5 personnel of a listening post who threw 80 bombs at the raiders before being overwhelmed. This dispersed the raiders who failed to enter the Auckland trenches in force. The Aucklanders’ behaviour was said to be stout and resolute in the face of this first German raid on the divisional sector. Not a man left his post."

William died, along with the two men alongside him, on the 7th of July. What must those four days have been like for him!! Lest we Forget. It was a very moving time, a few tears I have to admit!!

Ruth signing the visitors book

We then moved on to the NZ memorial at Messines Ridge (Click on the link for more details)

Enter to the NZ Memorial 

A small section of the Cemetery

The memorial lists 827 officers and men of the New Zealand Expeditionary Force with no known grave who died in or near Messines in 1917 and 1918.Very impacting!!!

We visited the "Fields of Flanders" Museum at Ypres next, a beautifully created interactive Museum that describes the events leading up to 1914, and the four year period to 1918.

Display at the "Field's of Flanders" Museum

Our next stop was the Tyne Cot Memorial Museum  at Ypres. (Click on the link for more details)

Tyne Cot Cemetery

NZ Memorial at Tyne Cot

The Tyne Cot Memorial, Cemetery and Museum, was opened in 1922 by King George V and is the resting place of 11,954  commonwealth soldiers, who died on the battle fields of Passchendaele. There are 520 grave sites and 1,166 names on the Memorial of NZer's. 

Of the 10 million who died during the 1st WW, the Tyne Cot Memorial is the most important reminder of the battles at Passchendaele. During that British offensive from July till November in 1917 almost 500,000 soldiers died in the immediate area over just 100 days, gaining barely eight kilometres. That is 5,000 a day, if my maths is correct, unbelievable.

As large and impacting, as this Memorial and Cemetery is, the thing that amazed us is the number of smaller sites that are scattered around the countryside. As you drive down the road you regularly come across similar, but smaller, sites of rows and rows of grave sites, all beautifully manicured and maintained. The people of Belgium definitely have "not forgotten" !! In fact you sense that they are still very grateful. 

The day can be summed up for me, by the above statement that was made at the opening of Tyne Cot by King George V in 1922, I hope that you can read it. We don't seem to have learn't the lessons yet....