Goodrich Battlefield Tour 2007

23rd - 25th March 2007

 I am delighted to report that the inaugural Goodrich “Whizz Bang” Battlefield Tour has been a complete success and was enjoyed by all participants. Please click on the thumbnail images below for larger pictures.

After weeks of eager anticipation, the Goodrich “Old Contemptibles” gathered at the Shaftmoor Lane, Birmingham, meeting point in the early hours of Friday morning, 23rd March 2007. Just before 4am, the seventeen-seater minibus, driven by tour organiser “Major” Steve Hemmings, drove in through the factory gates, and we began to load up our kit.

Our bags and cases were placed on board, followed by our first aid kit, food supplies, flasks of tea, and, lastly, the all-important Royal British Legion Standard and poppy wreaths. After a final check that we were all aboard and had not forgotten our passports, we set off on our journey south towards the Channel Tunnel.

Dawn broke to reveal a heavy grey sky and rain. A quick stop to stretch the legs and empty the bladder meant that we caught some traffic and did not get onto the train until 8.50am, but thirty-five minutes later we emerged in France and put our watches forward by one hour.

The Whizz-Bang Tour bus and crew inside the Channel tunnel

 We easily found our way onto the motorway and drove to our destination, accompanied by the rousing patriotic sounds of Alf Garnet singing “Pack Up Your Troubles” and “There’ll Always be an England” on the CD player. Halfway to our first destination, we pulled off the motorway and Steve organised the first morale-boosting feast of the day: hot bacon sandwiches and freshly brewed tea. Although the weather was cold, the hot food worked wonders and we boarded the bus again in high spirits.

Lighthouse at Notre Dame de Lorette

A slight change to our itinerary meant that the first stop would be the high ground of the French National Monument at Notre Dame de Lorette. Looking over the rows upon rows of French graves in the driving cold brought a first real taste of solemnity to the proceedings. We entered the lighthouse to pay our respects to the French dead and visited the small museum display on the first floor, and also paid a visit to the Basilica.

The heights of Notre Dame de Lorette proved to be the ideal vantage point to appreciate the strategic importance of our next stop – Vimy Ridge. We could also see the ruins of Mont St Eloi and, in the murky distance, the slag heaps of the flat mining areas around Loos and Lens, so prized as vantage points for the German snipers, and the site of the first ever British poison gas attack.

Keen to demonstrate the differences between the burial grounds of all nationalities, we travelled back down into the valley and stopped off to pay a visit to the British and Canadian lads in the beautifully kept Cabaret Rouge cemetery - a real credit to the gardeners of the Commonwealth War Graves Commission. The final contrast was made at the German cemetery at Neuville St Vaast, with its rows and rows of stark, black crosses, marking the graves of 44,000 German war dead for as far as the eye can see.

Climbing a lonely country road, shrouded in white smoke from a farmer's fire - reminiscent of the clouds of poison gas that once swirled across this landscape - we headed for Hill 145, the highest point on Vimy Ridge and now the site of the magnificent Canadian Memorial. This white stone edifice dominates the ridge and provides a panoramic view of the flat Douai plain below. The Memorial has recently been completely restored at the cost of 40,000,000 Canadian Dollars, and we were priviliged to be among the first to set foot upon it as the opening date was not scheduled until 9th April 2007, the ninetieth anniversary of the battle.  A tour around the preserved trenches atop the ridge was met with amazement at the close proximity of the Canadian and German front lines.

The first day was rounded off at the infamous Butte de Warlencourt, an ancient prehistoric burial ground that was also to become the final resting place of so many young men of the Great War. A recent shower of rain had washed away the surface earth on the recently-ploughed fields to reveal many shards of iron shell fragments and lead shrapnel balls. Russ Hardy, now totally bitten by the field-walking bug, picked up a British soldier's shirt button, which stood him in good contention for the prize offered for the most interesting battlefield artefact.

By now the daylight was fading and it was time to backtrack slightly to the town of Arras to find our hotel. The Formule 1 is located in Tilloy-les-Mofflaines, just off the main Arras to Cambrai Roman road, and is precisely in the middle of no-man's-land as the trench lines stood on 9th April 1917, Easter Monday.

After a quick shower and a change of clothes, we were all ready to go into the centre of Arras in search of food and drink. We located a very nice pizza restaurant in one of the beautifully-restored squares, and enjoyed a thoroughly good meal along with the usual French specialities such as escargots. We rounded off the evening, and a hugely successful first day, by downing a few beers (and also some vin rouge) in a pub in the Grande Place.

The next morning started with a brisk walk for the intrepid early risers, following the route that the British infantry and armour would have taken up and over Observation Ridge on that Easter Monday 1917. We used photocopies of an original German trench map, laminated against the elements, to ensure our route was accurate. On that day the tanks were thwarted by the heavy snow and sleet that fell, but today the weather was better - but not by much. We progressed on into the wind, finding several pieces of shrapnel, a shovel, and a piece from a machine gun along the way, before stopping for a breather at Bunyan's cemetery, a quiet haven and resting place for a handful of British infantrymen and gunners who fell during the battle. Unlike the offensive of 1917, we failed to reach our objective of the village of Feuchy, and instead turned back to keep to the deadline of our next appointment - the Ulster Tower and Thiepval Wood on the Somme battlefield.

We arrived at the Ulster Tower at 11.30am and had time for a warm cup of tea and a quick look around their display of artefacts before joining the tour with a group of Somme Association members from Northern Ireland. One of their lads was dressed up in the Tommies' uniform of the day, complete with a Lee Enfield .303" rifle, and this led to some interesting photo opportunites. We left the Tower and marched together down the road towards the cemetery - the former sunken road - and our guide pointed out the positions of the Allied and German front lines, the chalky lines of the Schwaben Redoubt still visible nine decades on. We stopped briefly at the Thiepval Cemetery, lined with the graves of those who fell on the 1st July 1916, and then entered Thiepval wood itself by means of a  private track to one side of the cemetery.

Inside the wood, a light drizzle cascaded down, and the commentary of our guide was backed by the sound of birdsong. He explained the significance of the many trenches and dugouts within the wood, and ended up at the spot where young Billy McFadzean gave his life for his comrades, winning a Victoria Cross in the process. The young man in uniform clambered precariously into the trenches to quench the desire for photographs.

After the guided tour, there was plenty of time to walk in the fields beyond the Tower, up in the direction of the German lines. Once again, the rain had washed the surface to reveal many lead shrapnel balls and the odd bullet. Across in the distance, some fifty yards away, Russ Hardy called out and attracted my attention, holding aloft some prized trophy he had just discovered in the Somme mud. As I closed in, the earth clinging to my boots and slowing me down to a snail's pace, I recognised the object he was waving at me: a live Mills bomb, complete with the pin. We dutifully informed the Ulsterman back at the Tower tea shop and he assured us that the French bomb disposal service would be long to pick it up in a week or so - along with the hundred and fifty or so other live Mills bombs they find in the area every year.

After the excitement of this rather dangerous find had died down, we turned our efforts to more solemn matters as we were invited into the Ulster Tower itself to perform the wreath-laying ceremony. Roger Lane paraded the standard of the Olton branch of the Royal British Legion, and the two ex-forces members of the party, Tim Holmes and Paul Hinckley, officiated at the ceremony. Paul recited the famous British Legion prayer to begin two minutes of respectful silence for the fallen: "They shall not grow old, as we that are left grow old; age shall not weary, nor the years condemn. At the going down of the sun, and in the morning, we will remember them".

Next stop was the Thiepval Memorial itself - that huge monument with more than 73,000 names of those denied the honour of a proper burial engraved into its stone walls; the missing of the Somme who were either entombed anonymously in mass graves, were buried alive in bombardments or who were simply blown into unrecognisible pieces.   

Our next stop was to be the most spectacular yet - the giant Lochnagar mine crater at La Boisselle. The product of detonating 25 tons of explosive, this three hundred foot-wide crater is not only breathtaking at first sight, but symbolic of the loss of life on that fateful first day of the Battle of the Somme. This enormous gouge in the chalky landscape was caused by the explosion of a charge laid, piece by piece, by tunnellers who surreptitiously burrowed their way beneath the German front line. Another poppy wreath was ceremoniously laid at the base of the large wooden cross, and whilst Tim and Paul saluted, the party observed a moment's silence in respect of the fallen of both sides.

The short drive to Albert found us at the Musee des Abris, adjacent to the reconstructed Basilica with its famous golden Madonna and Child statue atop the tower. We all paid our four Euros to descend into the tunnels beneath the town, now home to an extensive collection of relics, weapons, photographs, and some impressive reconstuction displays.

After another full day we stopped to quench our thirst in a cafe near the Basilica, where Russ received the prize - an original 1915 War Service badge - for finding the most interesting battlefield artefact. Then it was time to get on board the bus again for the short trip to the Campanile Hotel, in the town of Peronne on the river Somme itself. Another enjoyable evening was had by all, including a good meal and some late night drinking in the Blue Night bar - and there is no truth in the rumour that Johnny "Two Trays" was "confused".

The clocks went forward by one hour that night to signify the start of "summer time"; the weather, however, still told a different story. We allowed ourselves an extra hour in bed, and, after a good breakfast at the Campanile, set off on the final leg of our journey. We crossed the river Somme and headed a short distance west along the riverbank to the small village of Cappy and parked outside the Chateau. In 1918, Cappy Chateau was the headquarters of Jasta II - the famous Flying Circus led by Manfred von Richthofen - the notorious Red Baron. The site is virtually as it was back then, with the airfield alongside the Chateau - site of the Red Baron's final fateful flight.

Crossing back over the river, we headed north and followed the course of the front line of 1916, stopping at our next destination, Mansell Copse. On 1st July 1916, the first day of the Battle of the Somme and the bloodiest day in British military history, this small wood was occupied by officers and men of the Devonshire Regiment. At 7.30am, the whistles blew and the went over the top. As they advanced down the slope and into the valley, they were cut down by machine gun fire from a cemetery just on the edge of the village of Fricourt, a few hundred yards to their front. Later that day their bodies were retrieved and laid to rest in their own trench, where they still lie to this day. A stone inscription at the entrance to Devonshire cemetery simply states: "The Devonshires held this trench. The Devonshires hold it still". Across in the distance we could also see Gordon cemetery, where a group of Gordon Highlanders to the right of the Devons met a similar fate, and joined the 20,000 dead and 40,000 wounded on that first day alone.

Our final stop was to the north again - through the village of Longueval and to Delville Wood, or Devil's Wood as it was known. Today this peaceful site is home to the South African memorial and bears little resemblance to hell on earth that existed here in 1916. We visited the cemetery, and specifically the grave of Sgt Albert Gill, a postman from Birmingham who won the Victoria Cross here when he sacrificed his own life to save his men. Delville Wood also contains the last surviving tree from the carnage of 1916 - a shrapnel-scarred Hornbeam.

One final walk in the woods turned up even more artefacts, and we sat and had bacon sandwiches, hot sausages and cups of tea before we boarded the bus for our homeward journey. DJ Tim provided the music during the ride via his Ipod, and we sang along, mainly in an effort to keep Steve the driver awake! We arrived back at Shaftmoor Lane at around 11pm, unpacked the kit and headed for our respective homes, all of us with a satisfied smile on our faces. A week later, as I write up this journal, the buzz is still ringing around the factory... 

           Lest we forget.