The first stop of the day brought us to Cabaret Rouge British Cemetery. As the name suggests, the soldiers buried her are chiefly British but there are also 49 Canadians interred here. In addition, Cabaret Rouge is the cemetery from which an unidentifiable soldier was removed and relocated to Ottawa to be buried in the tomb of the unknown soldier. This move was certainly controversial then and still is today, especially since the idea of being buried with those who fought and died with you was central to the mourning and healing process of those at home. “He is with his boys.”
The next stop was on Lorette Spur where Notre Dame de Lorette is located. 40 000 French soldiers are buried in this cemetery, the largest military cemetery in France.
At the location opposite of the French cemetery, overlooking the area to the south of the hill toward Arras, a new memorial, L’Anneau de la mémoire or Ring of Remembrance”, was unveiled in 2014 on the 96th anniversary of Armistice Day. The elliptical shaped memorial bears the names of almost
580 000 men of all nationalities who died in the area of Nord-Pas-de-Calais between 1914 and 1918.
The last cemetery stop of the day was at Neuville St Vaast German War Cemetery which is the largest German war cemetery in France with almost 45 000 men being buried here. Over 8 000 of them were never identified. The majority of these men had died in Artois, chiefly on Lorette Spur and Vimy Ridge. Unlike the Allied war dead who each received their own head stone with sometime detailed information, this cemetery is marked by metal crosses bearing the names of four men, two on each side.
Shortly after 10 am we reach the central location of the day, if not the entire trip, Vimy Ridge.
Vimy Ridge for over 100 years has played a pivotal role in Canadian history. Historian often interpret it as Canada’s “Coming of Age” moment. Our visit included a few briefings from our Juno Beach Centre guide Marie-Eve, a walk up to the Memorial and then finally a guided tour by a Parks Canada Summer student that had participants walk through a section of an underground tunnel as well as the trench close to the first German trench. No Man’s Land only consisted of a few metres in this area. The section between the visitor centre and the monument is surrounded by electric fencing and warning signs state that the area behind the fence has not been cleared of unexploded munitions. As a result, the area is maintained by sheep.
After Vimy the bus made a short stop in Amiens to allow the tour participants a quick coffee break and also to visit the cathedral, a beautiful example of a Gothic church.
Endpoint for today’s part of the tour was the port town of Dieppe. While Day 5 will be entirely devoted to the Dieppe Raid of 19 August 1942, the complexity of the event with its different landing sites resulted in the visit to Blue Beach in Puys (to the north of Dieppe) already taking place on Day 4. Here on this section of the beach is were the Royal Canadian Regiment suffered casualties that amounted to 80%.
Those images speak to some of the difficulties encountered, the high cliffs and the large pebbles that make up the beach in this area.
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