High School pupils visit WWI battlefields
FORTY S3 and S4 pupils from Brechin High have arrived back from a history trip to the battlefields of World War One in Belgium and France.
The following is an account of the trip by High School pupil, Gabriel Calvert, one of those who took part in what was a highly informative and at times a pretty emotional fact-finding tour of the area, which played such a huge part in the conflict of 1914-18.
"The group left on Sunday, May 30 at half past ten in the evening and arrived in Belgium on Monday, May 31.
The first stop was to Hill 62. This is a museum based around First World War trenches. No restoration work has been done to them since the war. The group saw how cramped the conditions would have been.
"Later in the evening they went to the Menin Gate ceremony where the last post is played at eight o'clock every evening.
"Three members of the group laid a wreath, on behalf of the school, at the monument as part of the ceremony. Time was also spent looking at the thousands of names of war dead engraved on the memorial walls.
"All the pupils were given a small cross with a poppy on it to lay at any of the sites they visited.
"The next day the group left Belgium for sites in France.
"A visit was made to Tyne Cott, the largest British war gravesite in the world with 45,000 World War One dead buried in it.
"A visit was also made to Langemarck, a German cemetery of 25,000 dead. It brought home the impact of the war for both sides to all the pupils.
"They also visited the Newfoundland Park Memorial on the site of the Battle of the Somme. The site is where the Newfoundland Division of the Allied army was almost wiped out due to bad planning of the attack.
"During the trip the group visited Paris. They had a boat ride along the Seine, went up the Eiffel Tower and used the Metro system to get to Monmartre.
"They also visited Parc Asterix and a Hypermarket. The group walked a town trail around Brie Comte Robert to practise their French skills.
"The group started to return home on the Saturday and visited Vimy Ridge en-route. This is the battle site where the whole Canadian Army core first fought together.
"The trenches there have had some restoration using concrete for the floor to replace sandbags. There are also tunnels with small locomotives that were used to transport soldiers and ammunitions eight feet under ground to protect them from shellfire.
"The group got to walk in these tunnels and got to experience how cramped they were. The lights were also turned off at one point so that the pupils could see the conditions that men had to stay in for days on end.
"The First World War is one of the topics studied in the Standard Grade History course.
"The trip to these sites is intended to help reinforce the knowledge learned in the classroom.
"All the pupils had a good time and learnt more about the war which was meant to end all wars."
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Friday 25 May 2012
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