Posts in Tag: WWI
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Gallipoli – A WWI Tragedy Revisited
It’s the third day of the Adventures Abroad tour of western Turkey and we are headed out from Istanbul after seeing some of the most interesting sites in that city including Hagia Sophia which I described in the last post. Today we are headed for two more of the most important sites in the country, […]
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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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Passchendaele Battlefield – Understanding the Canadian Role
In a previous post I described the Canadian role at the battles that took place around the small city of Ypres in 1915 and 1916. We suffered over 14, 000 casualties in those battles, but it wasn’t over yet; after Vimy Ridge, Passchendaele Battlefield is probably the most notable of once obscure places along the Western Front, […]
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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 Trenches & Tunnels – Exploring the Battlefield
In my previous post I described the lead up to and reasons behind the Canadian victory at Vimy Ridge. Alison and I walked the battlefield proper and visited the Canadian National Vimy Monument, but that’s only half the story. In this post we’ll explore the Vimy Ridge trenches and tunnels in an effort to better understand […]
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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 […]