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Unearthing Two World Wars On Remembrance Day/Memorial Day you often hear about the sacrifices made by the generations who fought in the two World Wars. The purpose of this trip is to study and try to understand what it was like to be there and to give service to help preserve their memory. It is difficult to imagine the scale of the major battles and the losses taken. In World War I, Britain lost around 703,000 dead and 1.6 million wounded – 44% of those who served – including 19,000 killed on one day (the first day of the Battle of the Somme, July 1st 1916). This is a tour that we operated for an international school from Surrey with the intention of combining community service with visits to sites from the two world wars. On the final night we arranged for two of the students to lay a wreath during the Last Post ceremony at the Menin Gate in Ypres.
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DAY 1 DEPARTURE FROM DEPART FOR BAYEUX (3 nights) Leave for your ferry from Dover to Calais followed by a journey through the landscape of Northern France to the town of Bayeux which will be your home for the next three nights.
DAY 2 BATTLE OF NORMANDY (AMERICAN SECTOR) Visit Omaha Beach and Cemetery, Utah Beach, Ste Marie du Mont and the Airborne Museum in Ste Mere d’Eglise to understand the American contribution to the success of D-Day and the Battle of Normandy that followed.
DAY 3 BATTLE OF NORMANDY (BRITISH AND CANADIAN SECTOR) Visit Pegasus Bridge, Arromanches, the massive guns at Longues-sur-Mer and the Canadian Museum at Juno Beach to study the British and Canadian troops actions.
DAY 4 NORMANDY – SOMME (4 nights) Before heading east to The Somme we will visit Le Memorial, the Peace Museum at Caen. We then head east to our accommodation on the Somme – the famous “Ocean Villas”. It is in the village Auchonvillers but the average British soldier anglicized the name to Ocean Villas. We will discuss World War One en route to help understand what happened and why it happened.
DAY 5 SERVICE DAY There is one original trench and one simulated trench in the grounds of your accommodation and for five hours today we will help as required in the excavation and preservation of these trenches. In the afternoon we will visit the professional excavations at nearby Thiepval Wood.
DAY 6 BATTLE OF THE SOMME DAY Today we will visit the most interesting sites of the Battle of the Somme (July 1st 1916). These include the Thiepval Memorial, Beaumont-Hamel Newfoundland Memorial and trenches, Lochnagar Crater and the Ulster Tower.
DAY 7 SERVICE DAY There is one original trench and one simulated trench in the grounds of your accommodation and, for five hours, today we will help as required in the excavation and preservation of these trenches. After that we will head north to Ypres where will visit Tyne Cot Cemetery, the biggest cemetery on the Western Front and take part in the wreath-laying Last Post Ceremony at the Menen Gate
DAY 8 HOME JOURNEY We leave the Somme today. En route to Calais we will visit Vimy Ridge and tour the tunnel system created by the Canadians for their epic battle in 1917. Arrive back at school late afternoon. |