Western Front Battlefields Trip

Forty-two boys from the Middle School and four members of the teaching staff took part during the October half term in a five-day trip to France and Belgium to see a number of battlefields, memorials and museums associated with the Western Front in the First World War. This year’s trip was particularly poignant as 2016 is the 100th anniversary year of the Battles of Verdun and the Somme. After departing from HABS on Friday 14th October, the group travelled to the Ypres Lodge via the Eurotunnel. The next day was spent touring a number of sites in the Ypres Salient, including the Essex Farm Cemetery and Dressing Station, where John McCrae wrote the poem ‘In Flanders Fields’, Tyne Cot (the largest Commonwealth War Graves cemetery in the world), and Langemark, where more than 44,000 German soldiers are buried. The group laid a wreath and held an act of remembrance at Potijze Chateau Grounds Cemetery for Second Lieutenant Reginald Frederick William Walton (OH) of the 12th Bn., West Yorkshire Regiment (Prince of Wales’s Own), who died on 26th September 1917, aged 25. After some free time in Ypres, the day concluded with the Last Post ceremony at the Menin Gate.

Sunday 16th October was spent on the Somme. The group visited the grave of Second Lieutenant Francis John George Walton (OH), Reginald’s brother, at Serre Road Cemetery No. 1. FJG Walton was killed on 1st July 1916, the first day of the Battle of the Somme, aged 25. It was a very sombre moment to contemplate the premature deaths of two Old Haberdashers, brothers killed within less than 17 months of each other. The boys also went to Newfoundland Park, the huge La Boiselle Crater and the Thiepval Memorial which lists over 70,000 Britain soldiers with no known grave. That evening the group travelled onto Reims and walked at night around the city’s famous gothic cathedral. They received impromptu talks from Dr Courtney on late-medieval religious art and by Dr Gannarelli on the physics of medieval architecture.

The next day was spent at sites connected with the Battle of Verdun. Many British school groups tour the Ypres Salient and the Somme, but far fewer visit sites connected with the bloody battle between France and Germany in 1916. The group received a tour of the awesome mines of the Butte De Vauquois, as well as Fort Douaumont, which changed hands so often a hundred years ago. The group went to the vast ossuary and cemetery nearby, before travelling to the outstanding new Verdun Memorial Museum, opened earlier this year.
Tuesday 18th October was spent travelling back to England, but on the way the group visited the Albert Basilica of Notre-Dame de Brebières and the Musée Somme 1916, as well as seeing the rehearsal for the re-burial of two World War I soldiers of the Essex Regiment whose remains had recently been discovered. Our tour concluded with a visit to Vimy Ridge and the Vimy Ridge Canadian Memorial which bears the names of 11,000 Canadian servicemen who died in France and have no known grave.

The trip was fascinating and moving in equal measure as the boys learned a lot more about the Western Front and remembered the 108 Old Haberdashers who died in the First World War and seventeen million people who perished in the conflict. Many thanks are owed to Alan Reed, our expert guide, and Dr Courtney who masterminded the expedition, for making the 2016 Battlefields Trip so memorable and impactful.