The 52 Places Traveler: A Pilgrimage to Ypres

Thank you for the article. I visited Ypres a few years ago and was so impressed with how lovingly everything is maintained. What is so touching is that people have not forgotten their dead. My father as a very young man just out of the Belgian army, In the early 1920’s made a living driving people to visit the graves of their sons. He never forgot the pain and tears, but also the great love. I think he would be very pleased that people continue to visit.

Belgium paid a unique tribute to Australia's soldiers of WW1. At the entrance to the Australian War Memorial in Canberra are the two Menin Gate lions, donated by the Mayor of Ypres in 1936: "In 1936, two large stone guardian lions were donated to the Australian War Memorial by the burgomaster (mayor) of the Belgian city of Ypres. The lions, carved from limestone, were given to the Australian government as a gesture of friendship. In exchange, in 1938, the Memorial gave a bronze casting of C. Web Gilbert’s sculpture Digger on behalf of the Australian government. The inscription on the casting of Digger reads: In assurance of a friendship that will not be forgotten even when the last digger has gone west and the last grave is crumbled. The lions had originally stood on plinths on either side of the Menin Gate at Ypres. This gate was one of only two entries into the medieval fortified city. It was through this gate that allied soldiers, including Australians, marched to the battlefields of the Ypres salient between 1914 and 1918. " Sources: (1) https://www.awm.gov.au/articles/encyclopedia/menin/lions and (2) https://www.awm.gov.au/articles/blog/the-menin-gate-memorial

I spent the better part of a week in Ypres in the Spring of 2016. I stayed at a small hotel, the Hotel Ambrosia, run by a young couple. It was within two or three blocks of the downtown. It is a sobering experience to see the battlefield craters, some now filled with water as ponds, and British cemeteries everywhere. There were at one time many German cemeteries as well, but the Belgian farmers objected to so much of their land being used for the graves of an invader. So many graves were dug up and the German remains relocated to mass graves. One, as I recall, held remains of over 30 thousand soldiers. Be sure to visit some of the field hospitals, and try to imagine them occupied with shattered wounded with 1916 era battlefield medical care. It must have been a nightmare. And outside each hospital was usually a cemetery for those who did not survive. I spent a day around the Menin gate in quiet contemplation of those who simply vanished off the face of the earth. A few dozen bodies are found annually, and if possible, given a military funeral. The author is correct. The guides are full of knowledge and enthusiasm. My guide was a member the party that participates in giving decent funeral rites to bodies that are still being found. My view of WW1 is that the technology to make war got well ahead of the Generals ability to use it effectively. The result was carnage.

I think Harry Patch was closer to 111 when he died.

Jada, Thank you for including this in your world tour. I made the pilgrimage last summer, touring with the same company, Flanders Battlefield Tours. This was a highlight of my life. I was struck by the warmth, the generosity of the guides (passionate and knowledgeable and charming as you describe) AND the other tourists. We honored the soldiers--and animals--of all combatants. It's impressive the WALLS of names from all over the British Empire (including the Menin Gate). Those interested in this history should also take the seven-minute train ride from Ypres to Poperinghe, a nearby beer-making town. They should visit--for tea or for the night--Talbot House, founded during the war as a rest-and-recreation stop for soldiers. Philip Clayton, the hyper-active padre who started the house, created a respite from the rigid British class system as well as from the war. So genuine and popular was the brotherhood that soldiers experienced at Toc-H (as they called it in Morse code) that it started a movement active through WWII (and still doing good deeds today). A generous board has bought and renovated the house, where you will find an answer to the ugliness that currently characterizes our society. Thank you for your excellent article on a most important part of the world. In Flanders, the war is never over and the soldiers never dead. Sacred ground indeed. Harriet

My grandmother came from Ypres. The whole town was destroyed by the war. There was nothing left. It was rebuilt to very nearly the exact way it was before afterwards. The reason that was possible is because they had plans saved that enabled the rebuilding. They had those plans because over the course of a thousand years the town had been destroyed by previous wars many times. They kept those plans to rebuild the place every time. Out side the town there is a lone tree by the many graves called the 'crying tree' in Flemish. They say sometimes you can hear the screams of the dying under that tree. Never forget.

I'm grateful that in places like the Westhoek in Flanders (WWI) and Normandy in France (WWII) the vast graveyards of fallen soldiers and memorials are kept in impeccable condition. I had teary eyes as well during the Last Post in Menen, such a wonderful and genuine daily tribute to the fallen soldiers. The hommage currently draws a large crowd with the WWI centennial, but the men from the Last Post Association have been doing it for years, in the cold and rain too, when almost no one was watching.

There are places like that in the world. The gate where the 60000 unfound dead are memorialized is overwhelming. I have stood inside the walls of the Citadel of Hue, in 2006, and I swear I heard the ghosts....I had to leave. The wounds never heal.

Incredible story. Such vivid memories. Thank you.

I wonder if this pair of before and after photos of Passchendaele will post, from the Imperial War Museum website. You'll have to zoom in to see the absolute and utter destruction. https://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/205021933 I had at least two relatives, that I knew, who served in WW1. My grandfather and an uncle. I have no idea what they did. They didn't talk about it and I didn't ask. My grandfather did say his hearing was damaged in one ear when someone fired a rifle near his head. My uncle was a pilot but his military service was never a subject of conversation when we visited. I found an old photo identification of him wearing a uniform. It's like something from a history book. It seems no one in my family liked to tell war stories. Not even my father said much about WW2. I discover details after they are already gone. He had written a few pages describing his experiences but he left out the unpleasant bits and only related the fun and happy times. As for me I would like to explore those battlefields with a metal detector. Does that make me a bad person?

I read the article about Ypres, it was spot-on. Thank you for describing this special place in Belgium so beautifully. Visiting Ypres and surroundings makes you grateful and humble. Attending the last post at the Menin gate leaves a deep impression and creates a connection with the victims and those who still remember them 100 years after the end of WWI. Do not forget to visit the Memorial Museum Passchendaele 1917 in Zonnebeke, 2.5 km on foot from Tyne Cote cemetery. We will remember them.

Interesting to note that the UK came to defend 'plucky little Belgium' , which had just completed the greatest genocide in modern history - 10 million dead in the Belgian Congo.

How many still remember the red paper poppies that were distributed in grammar schools in the 30's and 40's?

Superb article. Thank you, Ms. Yuan. I have enjoyed all of your posts to date, but this one resonates with me in particular, because my father was an infantryman in the Third Infantry Division (US) in 1918. He sometimes told lighthearted vignettes about the French and the Belgians he encountered. But he never spoke of the darker sides -- the trenches, the battles, the mud, the slaughter. Someday I will visit Ypres and pay homage to all those on all sides who fought and died. Including the Asians and Africans whose service is regrettably excluded in the memorials (thank you for bringing that to our attention). Perhaps someday, the powers-that-be will correct this horrible omission.

A lovely story. And lovely that the people of Ypres, and of the former British Empire, do not forget. Remembrance is the best hope that, someday, mankind may learn that war is always folly.

Not only here, but many villages in Eastern France, when they find out you're American, are so eager to help find sites and graves of our loved ones. Thanks for mentioning that wonderful poem "In Flanders Fields".

Thank you for this. Travel is the best way to learn history.

my paternal grandfather fough2 at ypres, survived and died in 1983. he was also in the artillery at vimy ridge, Passchendaele and several other major battles Canada fought in during ww1. I've visited vimy twice, culloden, Dresden, Hiroshima three times, Nagasaki, the plains of Abraham in Quebec city, yad vashem in Israel, dachau……. my grandfather's oldest son was killed at the age of 20 in 1944 in northern france. we are, too often, a disgusting species.

This is the first of these dispatches I've seen. I will definitely check out the others. Thank you Ms. Yuan for a beautiful story and the accompanying images and thank you Belgium for your loving remembrances. I cannot stop the tears.

World War I. What a waste of human life. All it did was set Europe on the path to the Holocaust and World War II.

I did a house exchange in Ypres nine years ago. Until that time I had not thought much about World War One as my focus had always been one World War Two, as my father served in that one. But as one walks around the town of Ypres and the numerous cemeteries which surround it and observe the many trenches which are still present you can feel the presence of history, as if the war is still going on. Being there had a strong emotional impact on me. There now hangs on the wall of my den a copy of the poem " On Flanders Fields" and a map of the Ypres Salient. It is still possible to buy artillery shells, dug up by local farmers, in the gift shops in Ypres. I was tempted to do that but figured I could never board an airplane with it.....If you have any interest in the history of the First World war, I highly recommend a visit to Ypres.

This is a wonderful story. My English grandfather lost nine first cousins in World War I, several are buried at Tyne Cot. In 1977 I cycled from Arras to Calais: hill after hill of graveyards. The real cost of arrogance and stupidity can be seen in the graveyards. And even in death, arrogance persisted. The Chinese workers, and soldiers from across Africa and Asia, are not commemorated.

And pile them high at Gettysburg Pile the high at Ypres and Verdun. I am the grass, I cover all. We don’t learn.

We visited last year. It was sobering. It is interesting that unexploded bombs and bullets are still being found, and occasionally a body. The day of our visit a farmer dredged up two artillery shells that were over 2 feet long, and probably still live. There were a couple of German cemeteries, that were on our tour that were essentially unmarked. After our visit I will never look at a poppy the same way. Another note, Europe seems to fight a lot of its wars in Belgium. Belgium is a wonderful country and its people are more than a delight. Go there for the battlefields that educate and revel in the beer, chocolate and waffles that are superb.

While from a different war and in a different place, this article reminds me of my only experience in a European cemetery, the Cambridge American Cemetery and Memorial in England. I am certain the feelings and sentiments are much the same, of loss, of young men who gave their lives and never returned home, all over in an instant. So many brave souls from so many places; it can seem overwhelming, that we so willingly as governments rush to sacrifice our young, sometimes for too little, many times for so much. I have read about Ypres different times, Ms. Yuan does a wonderful job writing this article, with a mixture of fact and right amount of sorrowful emotion...a beautiful tribute.

I had a relative killed just south of Ypres in August 1917, though I have not been able to get over there yet. I visited the battlefields of Normandy a few years ago and the stillness and sadness I felt standing in Hermanville CWGC cemetery at 0730 on a grey day, much like the time and weather it had been on Sword Beach just up the road from the cemetery, on D-Day, still fills me with shivers. Tyne Cot must be overwhelming - the word ‘Passchendaele’ in the UK still evokes a feeling of futility and waste in those who know of it, a word that speaks of pyrrhic victories attaining mere metres of smashed, sodden trenches, and of men drowning in mud or corpse-filled shell holes. “It would be more correct to say that the cemeteries marked the perimeter of the salient, for the salient itself is a graveyard.” - Lyn Macdonald

This was very moving and informative. I'm a 40something who often wonders if the two world-shaping wars fought last century, which killed so many people, will be remembered a little better than wars past. Perhaps technology such as holograms can help us remember the people, the sacrifices, and the horrors so we can better learn from them.

Thank you for educating me about the role of the Chinese in the war effort. Until today, I had no idea. Lest we forget.