Wednesday, June 25: Ypres and West Flanders, Belgium

Another beautiful day, weather-wise, and are ouplans are to visit one more WWI museum called the Paschendaele Experience.  We drove through the countryside,   In addition to a museum about the battle of Paschendaele, they have reconstructed trenches and underground tunnels used by the British and German troops. We learned that the Battle lasted 100 days and there were 500,000 casualties to gain about 5 miles of ground.

The poppies grow everywhere here and especially poignant here at the trenches

The British began building underground because the field of battle was just mud, craters and dead stumps of trees. The bunkers were used for sleeping quarters, medical facilities, kitchens and toilets....

One of the American items in the museum talked about although we entered the war late, we were crucial in helping them rebuild after the War.  One of the things we provided were wooden houses so the refugees could return to their homeland.  This was billed as an "original wooden American home."  Wood is very rare here - everything is brick.

We had to get through a lot of odd names before we saw the American Cemetery sign near the bottom

After the museum we, stopped for a quick lunch and a nap next to a quiet soccer field. Then we backtracked a bit so we could visit the American Flanders Field Cemetery. It was spotless, serne and beautifully landscaped. The U.S. Entered the war in the spring of 1917 and this is the only WWI American cdmeter in Belgium. Most of the gravestones were dated October and November 1918, only weeks before the end of the war. 368 headstones, 43 missing in action and 21 unknown are buried here.

As we were leaving, a man walked towards us and introduced himself as the manager of the cemetery and an American from Virginia. He knew we were Americans because we had no front license plate on the RV and we had a nice talk. We told him we had just visited Paschendaele and that there were busloads of high school students from Britian. He explained that to the British, Pascheldaele is probably The most important historical battle ever fought partially because of the huge loss of life. The museum had identified the different nations that fought and their casualty rates. The British, New Zealanders, Canadians and Australians suffered around 70% casualties, while the German were 15%. I will have to do some more research to understand those huge differences, but no matter, what a total waste of humanity just so nations can claim more land.

Back again to our sports complex campground as it is on the way to France – next on our agenda.