DAY 2: MONDAY 6th SEPTEMBER 1999
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| Having retired early the previous night, we managed
to get up at a reasonable time for breakfast, and then a short wander round
Audinghen, before packing everything back into the car (something we would
become very adept at over the next fortnight!), and heading South again.
We stopped in Ambleteuse to visit the Musée 39-45, which houses
a comprehensive collection of WW2 material. |
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| German "Goliath" explosive tank, remotely operated by either
a command wire or radio control. In the event of the expected Allied invasion,
they were intended to be driven towards attacking troops and detonated, but
eventually none were known to be used operationally. |
Collection of German small arms. Apart from the familiar MP38/40
machine-pistol [centre], the Karbiner 43 [top] and Fallschirmjaeger Gewehr
("Paratroop Rifle") 42 [bottom] were significant steps towards the modern
assault rifle. |
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| Anti-tank weapons: American 2.36" M1 Bazooka with rocket; German Gewehr
98 rifle with grenade, and Panzerfaust ("Tank Punch") disposable rocket
projectile; and British PIAT (Projector Infantry Anti-Tank) mortar. |
Diorama of Allied uniforms and equipment used on D-Day. Other displays
at the museum show all the other theatres of the War, as well as an
evocative recreation of a street in German-occupied France. |
| South of Boulogne, we reached what was actually the real impetus
for the whole holiday. The town of Etaples was a concentration point for
British forces during the First World War, where troops were trained under
brutal conditions (leading to the mutiny which inspired The Monocled
Mutineer), while casualties from the frontline were treated in sixteen
military hospitals there. My great great uncle - my maternal grandmother's
uncle - Joseph Carr, a driver in the Royal Army Service Corps, died of wounds
on 8 July 1917, and is buried in the Etaples Commonwealth War Graves
Cemetery. In that respect, our family is fortunate when one considers that
half of those who fell in WW1 have no known grave. The Cemetery contains
nearly 11,000 1914-18 casualties, and over 100 from the 1939-45 War. |
| The graves of Commonwealth service casualties, with their
distinctive white headstones, can be seen in virtually every graveyard in
the UK, but this was my first visit to an actual War Cemetery, and - to the
best of our knowledge - this was the first time any members of our family
had made this journey. Even when one has no such personal connection, it
is impossible not to be deeply moved by these places. To describe them as
immaculate would be an understatement, and the contrast with civilian cemeteries
is both striking and poignant. Awash with a myriad of colours from the
perfectly-nurtured flowerbeds which bisect the rows of headstones, what is
evoked is a kind of tranquil vibrancy, peaceful yet retaining a sense of
life continuing after death that one can almost touch. |
| These cemeteries - administered by the Commonwealth War Graves
Commission - have no staff on-site, so it is rare to see anyone else around,
barring the occasional visiting maintenance team. The paths leading into
the cemeteries are almost always grassed, a subtle yet necessary psychological
device: once one has unavoidably walked on grass to go onto the cemetery,
subconsciously one is not inhibited by then walking on the grass between
the graves. At first glance so uniform in appearance, the headstones imbue
a real sense of individuality upon closer inspection. In addition to name,
rank, and serial number, each is engraved with either the appropriate regimental
badge, service insignia, or national emblem (e.g. a Kiwi for New Zealanders,
a maple leaf for Canadians, etc.), as well as a religious marker, be it a
Cross (two designs dependent on placement of regimental insignia), a Star
of David, Sikh, Hindu, or Muslim inscription, or nothing at all. |
| Perhaps most importantly, the base of the headstone frequently
carries a personal inscription from family or sometimes friends. Often one
sees other individual remembrances left by previous visitors: poppy Crosses
or Stars of David, wreaths, messages, photographs, pebbles on the headstones,
flags of nations, or provinces, or towns. Some seem new, many have weathered
many summers and many winters, respected by those who tend these places because
they must be, whether someone came ten miles or a thousand to leave them.
To clear them away is not an option. At first glance, what appears merely
a mass of impersonal stone, gives way to real individuality and a true sense
of loss and remembrance. |
| Within the Cemeteries there is also a national inclusiveness
which may surprise many first-time visitors. Amid the predominance of
Commonwealth headstones, one can easily pick out the appropriate designs
for other countries. Just as the Commonwealth markers reflect the individuals
they commemorate, so there is an acceptance of other national identities.
Thus, for example, a Pole, Italian, or German, perhaps visiting purely by
chance, will be able to find the graves of their compatriots, tended with
the same care as the rest, be they ally or enemy at the time of war. The
Commonwealth War Graves Commission web-site
(http://www.cwgc.org/) now contains location
details of all graves the care of which falls within its remit, as well as
the memorials bearing the names of casualties who have no known resting place.
Virtually all the Commonwealth Cemeteries also have a Register on site -
usually in a small lockless "safe" (which also contains the Visitor's Book)
near the entrance - with details of all those there commemorated. |
| Unlike some other nations, which choose to concentrate most
of their casualties in a small number of large cemeteries, the Commonwealth
practice is to leave the graves where they were buried, except when regular
maintenance cannot be assured. Thus, while there are a number of very large
cemeteries like Etaples all over France, one can also see many much smaller
sites - some with as few as twenty casualties - as well as individual graves
in town and village churchyards and cemeteries, the principle being to allow
them to remain within the communities which originally took them into their
care. In addition, most WW1 sites were later used for WW2 burials, whether
for downed air-crew, or Allied casualties of fighting in the immediate vicinity. |
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| Etaples Cemetery. |
The grave of my great great uncle, Joseph Carr. |
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| A WW1 Belgian grave - unusual in this part of France. |
WW2 Czech grave . |
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| WW1 graves of soldiers of the then-Undivided India. |
One of Etaples Cemetery's two German sections. |
"The interest of official British war cemeteries is quite different from
that of country churchyards back home. There is no variety in craftsmanship,
no curiosities of the monumental mason's art, no charmingly naive or vulgar
effigies. All is uniform, and disciplined by an austre conception of
architecture, humanied by nature and by subtle landscaping. Sentimentality,
and the over-emotionally figurative in art, were rigorously suppresed by
common consent... But, above all, the unique quality of the British cemeteries
comes from the repetition of standard, secular headstones. Here the Commission
prevailed over the wishes of distressed relatives, for it was established
that no bodies would be taken home for reburial (a principle betrayed by
the Prime Minister after the Falklands War), that all ranks should have stones
of equal size, and that this standard headstone should not be in the shape
of a cross (although a cross, or other religious symbols, together with
regimental badge, could be carved on it).
Such a secular character seems appropriate in commemorating
mass, mechanised slaughter. It was also necessary after a war in which British
casualties included Hindus, Muslims, Buddhists and Jews in addition to all
denominations of Christians and none. So in the British cemeteries there
are not those painful moments when the repetitive sequences of crosses is
broken by the shape of a Star of David. Equality in death was maintained
'irrespective of creed or caste' as [Sir Edwin] Lutyens [the leading Commission
architect who designed the London Cenotaph] wished...
The irony is that, for Britain at any rate, some of the finest
artistic expressions of the period in terms of architecture and landscape
gardening are to be found in France and Belgium and on other far-flung
battlefields in cemeteries and memorials. The purpose of these was to commemorate
the dead; now, they also serve as a memorial to the civilization that engendered
such quality, and which was yet so damaged in the conflict. Surely no one
with an eye and a heart and a tragic sense of history can fail to be moved
by these places."
[Gavin Stamp, Introduction to The Fallen by John Garfield, Leo Cooper
Books, 1990]
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