Posts in Tag: cemeteries
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Tyne Cot – The Largest Commonwealth Cemetery in the World
For the past two days Liberation Tour 2015 has been based in Ypres, Belgium where no less than five major battles were fought in WWI, encompassing a period from October 1914 to October 1918 – in other words, the whole bloody war. Canadians were involved from April, 1915 when they were victims of the first gas […]
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Ypres – Five Battles and the Canadians Get Gassed
We just finished up visiting one of the largest war cemeteries in the world at Notre Dame de Lorette as well as Cabaret-Rouge Cemetery where many of the Canadians who died at Vimy Ridge are buried. Liberation Tour 2015 now prepares to roll into the small Belgian city of Ieper, which to Canadians has and […]
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Cabaret Rouge Cemetery – How to Stay Sane While Visiting
Liberation Tour 2015 started the day with a visit to the Vimy Ridge Monument after which we visited the trenches and tunnels of the battlefield. Despite the cool damp weather, I think most people felt pretty good about visiting the monument and learning about Canada’s most famous WWI battle. From here we got on the […]
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Vimy Ridge – Why All Canadians Must Visit at Least Once
Liberation Tour 2015 has now completed two of the most important segments of the journey – the WWII sites at Normandy and the WWI sites at The Somme. On our last stop we visited the Thiepval Memorial to the Missing which frankly was shattering as we struggled to comprehend the enormity of the casualties suffered […]
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Thiepval -The Memorial to the Missing Will Leave You Shattered
After visiting Thiepval woods where modern archaeological techniques are being used to uncover stories from the Battle of the Somme, Liberation Tour 2015 continued our journey at Courcelette. It was the site of a major battle in the campaign where Canadians played a pivotal role in one of the very few successes of the summer […]
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Battle of the Somme – Two Stories out of the Million Who Died
After a very emotional morning at Beaumont Hamel, Liberation Tour 2015 moved a short distance away to the Ulster Memorial Tower which commemorates the more than 1,850 Ulstermen who died on July 1, 1916 the first day of the Battle of The Somme. It’s a handsome building which is a replica of Helen’s Tower, a well known […]
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Beaumont Hamel – Newfoundland’s Darkest Hour Must Not be Forgotten
Liberation Tour 2015 continues its tour of Canadian WWI sites at a place that is both deeply important to all Canadians and at the same time a memorial to those who died fighting, not for Canada, but for Britain. In 1916 Newfoundland was still a British colony with no political affiliation with Canada and the events […]
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The Dieppe Operation Part II – Visiting the Sites at Puys and Pourville
In the last post I described the planning and failure of the Dieppe Raid from the perspective of the assault on the beach that fronts the small city of Dieppe. If that were the only attack on Dieppe then it might fairly be called a raid, but in fact the there were attempted landings at […]
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Abbeye Ardenne – German Atrocities and the Bayeaux Tapestry
The Bayeux Tapestry After three wonderful days based in Bayeux visiting the D-Day sites, Liberation Tour 2015 headed out for the port of Dieppe, but not before we had a chance to see the Bayeux Tapestry and stop at Abbeye d’Ardenne where the Germans murdered twenty or more of my fellow Nova Scotians. Mark did […]