World War 1 Blog

Posted on 19th Jul

Day 1)

We got the chance to handle and work with some really interesting WW1 artifacts. These included, rifles, banners, grenades, shrapnel bombs, medals, solider spoons, rum bottles, button cleaners, Christmas presents, bullets, Helmets, and army knives. We were shocked at how similar some of the artefacts were but also how basic some of the equipment was like the helmet, we could not believe that at the beginning of the war men were expected to go and fight without a Helmet, we were shocked to hear that when the metal helmet was introduced head injuries went up! However we quickly realised that this was because men were now being injured but not killed!

We then got the chance to research two Hackney Soldiers whose graves we would visit within the trip. It was interesting to see that we could find their exact houses in Clapton on google maps and realise we went past these places regularly. One of our soldiers were called A Lodge and the other was called H Chennells.

Day 2) How did the First World War affect ordinary people?

We first went to the visitor centre and listened to audio footage of soldiers’ life stories and searched for some of the soldiers in this Cemetery. Along the walk to the Cemetery we saw lots of metal poles which each had a date on the marks for the amount of people buried that day. We were shocked to see that so many of the days have lots of people buried on. We were also able to see the difference between some dates having lots and some having only a few. From this we were able to kind of track the dates of the big battles from the dates where there were lots of burials.

Once we entered the Cemetery we looked at the head stones and we learnt how to read the stones and find out who the solider were, the regiment they fought for, the age and date they died at, their name and their religion. We found it sad that only some of them have inscriptions but theirs was because families could not afford to do it. We were also sad to see the unknown soldiers’ graves and to understand that the bodies would be so badly injured that they would not be named. We were however pleased to see that there was a sense of equality to the headstones (apart from the inscriptions), no matter your rank, religion, wealth or it your identity is not known you have a very similar headstone and are all seen as equally Important.

The first grave we looked at was a lady called Nelly, 10,800 men are buried in the cemetery and Nelly is the only woman. Nelly was a nurse in the army and was working in a hospital and this hospital had to be close to the front line because the injuries had to be treated quickly because they would get infected.

Before the war, women were seen as home makers and if any were in work they were expected to do "men's jobs" however after the war women were given the right to vote and more women went to work as they were now accepted as being more capable. We discussed that one of the positive outcomes of post WW1 for Britain was that there was a smaller sense of division and entitlement and that some sort of equality was beginning to emerge, with both women and working class men being given the vote.

The second grave we looked at was a solider called Baker, his story was unique because he volunteered to go to war but then did not want to do it anymore and went AWOL, during this time he tried to give false names to work in less dangerous positions and to get home. He was arrested numerous times and was arrested, however he kept escaping. Finally on her capture was charged with treason and was shot dead by 6 of his regiment comrades. His family would have been informed that he had died but not that he had deserted the army, however work would get back as the family would not receive a pension after his death and his name would not appear on any local war memorials. However his grave on the Cemetery looked no different to any of the others. We debated if we believed that Baker should have been shot dead or not. We agreed that he should not have been shot because war is horrible and scary and if he did not want to do it he should have been allowed to go home. We could not imagine being forced to go to war and not having a choice in it. This would not happen now and we are very happy about that.

It was sooooo cold in the Cemetery, the temperature was down to -3 and we were very, very cold as the land was very flat without any shelter. We imagined how awful it must have been for the soldiers to have to sit out in the cold waiting to fight!

We then visited The Memorial Museum Passchendaele and learnt all about the battle of Passchendaele. We got to experience the dug outs and the trenches, it was interesting to see how small these really were, one of the pupils’ hit his head numerous times and had to bend over the whole way around otherwise he would either hit his head or get it shot at! It was also interesting to see all of the weapons and artillery, we got to see the difference between the German and British rifles, the solider had told us that the British one was better because you did not have to lose eye line to reload and this was obvious to see when you saw them both together. We also saw lots of different grenades, we had learnt about the day before, the standard pin grenades, the ones with levers, ones on wood and ones that were shot in the air.

We also got to go inside one of the flat pack houses that Canada sent over after the war, Passchendaele was completely destroyed in this awful battle, where over 2,700 soldiers died. The people of Passchendaele that did survive had nowhere to live and so Canada sent them over flat pack houses that they could build themselves to live in.
 

Day 3) Was the Battle of the Somme in 1916 really a disaster for the British Army?
Battlefields site

Our first stop was Beaumont Hamel Newfoundland Memorial Park. We visited the visitor centre, where we were able to read and understand the experiences of the Canadian soldiers. We were able to see the vast scale of loss within each village.
We then walked up the Newfoundland Memorial and hills where the trenches were. This was a difficult task, as the weather was terribly cold and the winds felt like they were cutting through us, as we fought them to climb higher up and reach the top of the memorial.


We then visited Sunken Lane, it was a fascinating experience to walk the paths of the soldiers that were once there, and see the exact spot they were seated on the 1st of July. We took photos in the exact same spot that the soldiers were allocated that day. A director was also present, filming the soldiers and the explosion. This film was later viewed by people at home, for propaganda purposes, however the tragic aftermath was not included in the video. We were able to visit the Cemetery where those soldiers were buried. The bomb exploded 10 minutes early, giving the German soldiers time to re-position themselves ready to attack the British soldiers. This was a painful learning experience for the British.
We had to walk through squelching muddy paths to reach the front line where all the soldiers had lost their lives. It was tragic to hear that the plan to bomb the German army did not go to plan.

Our next stop was Lochnager Crater Memorial, at this site we learnt about how the British army used the great depth of mining skills that the volunteer soldiers had from our coal mining industry. They tunnelled under the German defences and blew in their trenches and dug outs. This particular exercise was extremely successful and as a result created the largest mining explosion and as a result it created largest crater of any tunnel of exercise in WW1.

We then visited Caterpillar Valley Cemetery, here we were able to explore the battlefields of the Battle of the Somme. We explored the strategy and tactics that the Army used and the mistakes they made that led to the battle taking 5 years. When we were stood in the battlefield it was obvious for us to see why the Germans evaded us for so long, it was such a wide open space and they had the high ground and so could see us coming. We discussed how the Army finally developed better communication between different areas such as the Calvary, the air force and the ground force to finally win the battle. This made us realise that although the battle of the Somme was an awful exercise as so many people died, over such a long time for a relatively small piece of ground the Battle forced the army to develop new weapons such as the tank and develop new tactics which have enhanced our battle knowledge and improved our operational forces going forward.
We also found the grave of a soldier from New Zealand that had died in the war and had been buried in the Cemetery, but in 2004 his family came to collect the body as it was his parents dying wish that he we buried in their country. Now there is a memorial stone for him explaining his story and keeping a place of remembrance for him where he died.

Our final visit of the day was to Thiepval Memorial where we found the memorial name of our Hackney soldier, Chennells. Whilst we were there we wrote our own remembrance cross for our soldier and we decided to write "Thank you for fighting and dying for us", we thought this was a nice message to write as it sums up how we felt about the sacrifice that all of those soldiers made for us to live a free and happy life. We also looked around the museum and saw lots of artefacts that have been rug out of the ground since the battle of the Somme, there were shells, guns and armour with bullet holes. The scale of the memorial was overwhelming, especially when you know that all of those soldiers died during the war, but were not able to have their own graves because their bodies were either destroyed or never found. The whole experience was important because we were laying our cross to remember a soldier who fought and died for us who lived in Clapton.


Our first activity of day 4 was to visit the Coming world: Remember me sculpture project. Whilst we were there we made clay sculptures that symbolised one of the victims of war. The sculpture was in the shape of the victim bent over reflecting on war, the figures spine represents strength. We engraved both of our fighters with our initials and NRC. Once the clay figures have been fired they will turn red and will be added to the memorial monument.

Our second visit of the day was to Langemark Cemetery, which is the German Cemetery. It was interesting to see how different the Cemetery was to the Commonwealth Cemeteries we had been to. The whole place was darker, with Yew trees to represent the German emblem. Another major difference was that many of the soldiers were buried together with one head stone flat on the ground or in a mass tomb of 25,000 soldiers. This was done for two reasons, Belgium were reluctant to give more land to the German’s after fighting to keep their land from the Germans throughout the war. The other reason was that the Germans believe that it is an honour to fight with your comrades and therefore be buried with them.

We also found out that the German cemetery is oppressive, dark and not many Germans visit because the German’s view the First World War as history that they do not talk about. This is mainly because Hitler told the public that the German army was not defeated, they were stabbed in the back by communists and Jews. He told them that they did not lose, that they were all hero’s that were stabbed in the back.

The last stop on our trip was Tyne Cot Cemetery, this is the largest Cemetery in the world. In the visitor centre we found a school report of a young man from East Ham, who was one of the best in his school. We then saw photos of him in the war just a few weeks after this and a medal was given to him by his school to reflect his excellence as a student. He died just 2 weeks into war. Whilst we were there we found the grave of our other Hackney soldier from Clapton, A Lodge. We wrote a message on our remembrance cross that read “never forgotten” because this trip has helped us to understand how important remembrance is. If it was not for those many, many men giving their lives for us and winning the war our lives would be very different today. They died for our freedom.