Cycle touring the Western Front from the Somme to Ypres in Flanders. Visiting the memorials and battlefields of where by own ancestors saw action, places visited in part 1 include Red Baron crash site, Albert basilica, 1916 somme museum, Lochnager mine crater, Birch Tree Wood, Shelter Wood, Fricourt woods.
Lincolnshire regiment, trenches, CWGC, Gordon Dump Cemetery.
Camping, Bike Touring, Cycle packing, Bike packing, cycling France.
[Music] well this will be the start of the journey I’m in DOA it’s pouring B with [Music] rain from C I took myself and my fully assembled Bike by train down to Amon there was no need to book this I just waited for the next available Regional te service and hopped on then from Amon I planned on taking a week to 10 days to cycle back to Dunkirk passing through the quiet lanes and Villages where once many of the battles of the Great War took place [Music] right well here we are first glimpse of the river Su so I’ve just arrived well and left Amon really just used the station it’s been pouring down the rain today so it’s not too bad right now so I’m going to make a a bit of a make up some ground I think oh look poppy first Poppy so I’m heading for I’m heading east along the river to um a place called Corby not booked anything but I’ve seen there’s a campsite there and I think that would be perfect I thought I’d treat myself to a slightly shorter ride and just get settled into the campsite and get into the rhythm of cycle touring again it’s I’ve not done it for a few years and kind of like all over the shop at the moment so but so far so [Music] good but there’s some good fishing to be add In this River and all the little lakes that feed from it look at that wow it’s just not a single River the the sun seems to spread far and wide either side it feeds all these like I don’t know where they call them lakes or what I don’t know no amon’s got quite a name for they call them floating gardens or something and uh if I had more time I I would have spent um a little time looking around you can hire a boat and move around these islands but perhaps for another day I don’t know I’ve had to stop and uh record some of the footage of these l absolutely beautiful look at that I mean it really is very quiet but then I suppose it is a wet Tuesday [Music] afternoon come up here and notice this a lock didn’t realize the SED locks on it soon after the Heavy Rain setting so feeling quite tired I headed to the campsite to bring what felt like a really long day to an end right morning of the next day uh it’s been quite a wet wet uh night um dry at the moment but um unfortunately not long enough to uh dry the tent out so that’s been packed away quite wet out at the campsite no complaints in fact it’s been quite nice with decent facilities and lovely hot showers this site I thought was pretty good value at just €1 so anyway on to uh Al bear or the El Bear area um whilst it’s dry just fingers crossed it holds out [Music] [Music] stay [Music] here I just uh just come out of Corby couple of miles outside of town I’ll just straight across this information board it tells me all about the Red Baron this is where he was shot down in 1918 where he died shortly after manred Von RTO then the Red Baron 80 [Music] kills I think that in distance is uh Mary Cor [Music] so this cycle tour really um it’s got a bit of a World War I flavor to it I wanted to kind of combine things I like to do which is cycle touring military history and also family history too so what I’ve done I’ve I’ve strung together like a 9 or a 10 day tour based on the Western Front the idea is to cycle all the way along broadly speaking that is along the western front from the Som area all the way back up to the channel now I’m never going to be able to do it all but I’m going to the idea is to focus on areas where members of my own family uh F back in the first World War [Music] of Australians buried here 1918 these guys would have been in a thick of it in the middle of the um the German spring offensive in amongst all the normal headstones I noticed these that from behind look slightly different and uh just checking them out actually Germans buried here too oh all ended up in the same place a is it horse’s a chal is it chal in French really must uh learn more French no i’ order food bread order here my camping requirements but that’s about it so V Su anra and a couple of other places that we’ve just pass through true Mary cor and we coming to duracore also these places are all mentioned in the Battalion Diaries and and this is what a lot of the um battalions used when they were pulling the soldiers back from the actual Front Line the front line as it was in 1916 around the uh albear area so you know my old great uncles and great grandfather might well have marched up here I’m sure there’s a small station here either used to be or still is that’s the station they used for then moving further on further behind the rear lines to to W on Amon to the West so you know the ancestors were here this is where they were [Music] amazing Pavilion the Adelaide there’s a lot of dedication dedication to the Australians around here as well for what they did in [Music] 1918 okay we’re just coming into Al be now far distance there you can see the Basilica [Music] well there we go this is a decent lunch sure M and a point what a basite in El bear cheers [Music] right so I’ve just had lunch um really nice cro mure and a pint of beer um it’s not what I plann but actually it looked good somebody else is having I thought well yeah I I’ll try that as well anyway here I am at El bear it’s um just passing through really today um there’s a there’s a great museum over there by the Basque it’s in the basement um I came here before and it’s absolutely Ram Jam full of you know uh artifacts and uh memorabilia from the first world war in particular 1916 I dare say it was blown to Pieces back in the first world war but it’s a lovely town now should be coming to uh a rather large hole in the ground [Music] is a seriously big [Music] hole this was a result of her um a mine directly underneath the German front line and that mine being detonated signaled the start of the the attack on the 1st of July the opening day of the battle of the song just noticed that around the perimeter around the edge of the crater itself there’s a wooden walkway well what I’ve actually noticed is that each plank is got a dedication it’s got a soldier’s name on there look there lots of these um sort of stories by people that were there at the time soldiers mainly really is so peaceful around here complete contrast to what was happening back in those days [Music] so this is a photograph which started it all for me really um it’s where my journey began in discovering my own family ancestry and it’s the reason why I’m here making this journey now we found it amongst many other family photos and had no idea who it was after putting together what little information we had and researching using online World War I War forums and the Commonwealth and Graves commission website the soldier was identified as John Thomas noes who died on the 3rd of July 1916 and was buried in a cemetery near over years’s label John was my great grand Uncle he was my great-grandfather James’s elder brother both brothers were serving in the Army for years before the outbreak of War James was a sergeant in the Royal field artillery whilst John was a private serving with the first Battalion Lincolnshire regimen so in order to discover more I purchased Battalion Diaries and researched the freely available trench maps and from that Jon’s last place of action was identified so the battle of the sun began on the 1 of July 1916 however the first Lincoln shers were not involved but were moved up the next day to occupy ground that had been captured into a new Frontline position in the evening Brigade orders were received that the Lincoln shers were to lead an attack the next morning at a place called shelterwood and birch tree wood a mostly shelled and splintered Woodland just north of the village of freeor we can only guess just what must have been going through the minds of those soldiers such as John who would have seen the slaughter of the opening attack on the first day and now we’re about to go over the top themselves right here I am at birch tree and shelter Woods this is what they look like today um they look like one continuous long wood I suppose but they’ve all grown in together birch tree is the smaller one I know it’s hard to pick out really but the one in front of us that’s a lighter color that’s birch tree wood and on the right the in the far far distance that’s shelterwood it goes back a lot further the objective was to capture the trench running along the northern edge of the woods as far as a German held light Railway to the right the 10th Yorkshires were to provide Fire cover on the right was the 12th and 13th Northumberland fusiliers would provide further support if required at 9:00 a.m. after a 20-minute bombardment the Lincoln Rush forward into heavy machine gun fire from birch tree wood on their left and they were also met with strong German resistance at the tree line of shelter wood it was around this time that the Battalion Commander Lieutenant Colonel Grant was severely wounded the attack had ground to a halt and also with reports of German reinforcements coming from contel Mazon prompted the Brigadier General to commit all reserves to the fight after several more hours of hand-to-hand fighting the woods were finally secured at 2:00 p.m. the woods were captured along with 700 German prisoners but the price paid was 243 casualties of which 37 had been killed with a further nine missing John Thomas noakes my great uncle was one of those killed age 31 this brought to an end the life of a devoted soldier who joined the military aged just 15 John Now lies at rest in a nearby military cemetery that cross over there marks a cemetery where John NOS is buried a great uncle let’s go down and say hello shall we not sure if I can ride down there I’ll give it a go the cemeteries really are beautifully looked after the Commonwealth and Graves commission do an amazing job really and in each Cemetery there’s a register where you can check out who’s here here we go in this register there’s my great uncle here Private John o first Battalion Lincoln regiment he was 31 when he died sah lies and Oaks with his mother and that’s the reference that’s where we can find [Music] him here he is laid alongside all his linoln ch regiment friends hello John there you go mate [Music] well the weather’s not too clear today it’s uh it’s raining not heavily but um enough for me to change my plans around a little bit so I decided to shove the bike for this morning I’m going to walk back into Al bear and uhhs check out the museum okay so we’re in the AL Museum now the sun Museum the whole thing is in the basement underneath the Basilisk I know these displays are somewhat made up but they are done using sky1 artifact that’s correct and it really is quite claustrophobic I think just standing here looking into this trench and and realizing just just know awful the conditions were artillery and machine gun fire cause terrible wounds to the soldiers this panel shows some of the facial injuries sustained and is of interest to me as my own great uncle Len suffered a facial injury at passionale he underwent years of surgery under the care of the pioneering plastic surgeon sir Harold Gillies the scene depicted here shows how a captain Neville of the eth esari regiment came up with a novel idea to encourage his men forward by handing out footballs for them to kick across no man’s land on the opening day of the psalm I find this particularly interesting as my own great uncle jack served with the eth esar regiment [Music] [Music] there you have it the albar museum 1916 S fantastic if ever you’re in the area definitely give it a go it’s only 8 to get in and it’s worth every cent um it looks like it’s stopped raining now which is a result so I’m going to try and get back to the um well I’m going to get back to the camp and um pick up me bike and go for a bit of a ride see what we can see and just hope the weather stays dry this afternoon although that might be wishful thinking unfortunately we shall see well I hope you’ve enjoyed the video so far feel free to check out part two as I continue my journey North [Music]
1 Comment
Nicely done Fella !