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History Trip to Ypres

On the 13th June, Friday morning, we set off to Belgium for our History and English Trip. After the three hour bus journey, we finally approached our first destination at twelve o’clock .  Ypres is a small city in Belgium and there are numerous historical sites which were left after the wars.

Our first destination was the Hooge Carter Museum, it was a small private museum which displayed the things that had been used in the First World War, for instance, letters, containers and artillery and it also explained how the soldiers survived during the war. There were a lot of used shells, guns and hand grenades. I was shocked by the amount of weapons which had been used during the First World War. They were once deadly weapons which killed millions of young soldiers. On the opposite side of the road, there was a military cemetery from the Great War. Even though I did not enter the graveyard, I could still feel the sadness and the complicated emotions which were left behind by the dead soldiers.

After having our lunch, we went to the ‘In Flanders Fields’ Museum in Cloth Hall. It was a huge museum which had a lot of artefacts that had been used by the solders in the war. They were on display in the museum. I was pretty depressed when I was watching a video about the life of the soldiers in the war. A huge number of soldiers were killed by enemies’ snipers, some of the soldiers were screaming because of the pain and children were left behind on the streets, crying helplessly for rescue. Everything was totally dreadful in the clip.

After that, I went to Essex Farm Cemetery which lay by the canal that linked Ypres to the coast and formed part of the front line in the Salient. We first went to a casualty dressing station which is the place where the injured would be taken first from the front line trenches. Dr. Triffit explained how the dressing station worked during the war. I was surprised by the fact that some of the soldiers had been left behind outside the dressing station as they were said to be incurable. The only thing they could do at that time was to wait to die quietly, suffering all the pain on their own. We then went to the cemetery nearby. There were 1199 graves there all tended by the Common Wealth War Graves Commission. There was also a memorial to John McCrae the Canadian military doctor who wrote the poem ‘In Flanders Fields’ when he was working there. He was sad, as a friend of his had died and been blown up by a shell. He was blown into so many pieces that parts of his body had to be packed into sand bags and then the sand bags were buried into the shape of a man. It was a really sad story. I then noticed that there were lots of graves that were stuck together as the people were unable to identify which body belonged to which soldier since they had been blown up and turned into an unrecognisable corpse. I found it really depressing as the young solders were killed violently by gun fire and shells and turned into a piece of unknown squashed dead body. We were later asked to look out for the grave of Private Valentine Joe Strudwick. He was a really young soldier who died at the age of 15 which is the same age as me. Lots of visitors and his relatives put flowers and poppies near his grave, hoping that God would have mercy upon him. I think it was sad and cruel to die at his age. He knew nothing about the world and the horrors of war. He died because of the idealised image of the glory of war that the government was giving the public.

We soon went to another cemetery, Langemark in Soldatenfriedof. It was one of the four German war cemeteries in the area. 24000 young solders were buried in a very compact place. They were not buried separately but were cramped together in the same tomb. Thousands of names were carved on one grave as there were too many German soldiers who had died in the war. Compared with the British cemeteries I had seen, there were a lot more bodies in a single grave since the Belgian Government was reluctant to give land to Germans for military cemetery.

After the visit in the German cemetery, we went to Tyne Cot Military Cemetery and Memorial. This is the largest military cemetery in the world. It contains nearly 12000 graves, of which 8400 of them were marked ‘a soldier at the Great War, known unto God’. This means the remains buried could not be identified. At the back of the cemetery is the Memorial to the missing listing British soldiers killed on the Salient between August 1917 and November 1918 with no known grave. This was the largest cemetery I had ever seen. I think the layout of the cemetery is stunningly beautiful. There were rows and rows  of names of missing soldiers on the memorial. Also, soldiers from different countries were buried there as they all wanted to stay with their companions and friends. Generals and ordinary privates were treated in the same way. They had the same size grave and they were buried in the same place. I think they should be treated equally as all of them had devoted themselves to their countries and fought hard for their countries' dignity.

Afterwards, we arrived at Yorkshire Trench. This front line trench was rediscovered by archaeologists in the 1990’s, rebuilt and put on display. I think life in the trench would have been very boring and uncomfortable. It was narrower and longer than I had thought. It would have been freezing down there when the trench was all flooded. I could imagine how miserable and dangerous it would have been to live in the trenches.


After that, we returned to the centre of Ypres and had some supper in a fast food shop. Also, we went to a chocolate shop and I purchased a lot of chocolate for my friend and my family.

By the end of the day, we walked to the Menin Gate for the Last Pot Ceremony at eight o’clock. The Menin Gate is a Memorial to the soldiers of the British Empire who served and died on the Ypres Salient. When the trumpeters traditionally played in military barracks, everyone went absolutely silent and stood still for the ceremony. I could feel the respect that bystanders had for the brave dead soldiers, the soldiers who dedicated their life to their nations, trying to protect their country’s freedom.

To sum it up, despite how depressing the cemeteries were, this was a really interesting and an enjoyable trip and I leant a lot from it.
Joey Cheung