PTSD Is My Life
The internal medal for the wars I still fight
WW1 sparked my interest as a youngster and it has never left me. During my 3 years living in Belgium I visited Ypres and the surrounding areas many, many times, the nightly ritual of the Fire brigade playing the Last Post at the Menin Gate is something to be seen (and to be part of) as each evening since 1928 (bar a few years through WW2) the Ypres Fire Brigade have carried out this procedure at 2000hrs (8pm) every evening and they have promised to carry this out in perpetuity.... If any can go, I say its one of those acts of respect to those who who not only gave their all, but went through horrors untold before death gave them peace. When you see the size of the Menin Gate and then realise the walls inside and out are covered with over 54,000 names, a tremendous number of dead. Especially when you realise these are bodies that where never found, alas even this huge memorial was not enough for those who where never found as more are remembered on various memorials around the town of Ypres. I was there during for many of these moving services including 2 on the 11 November first on 2001 then 2002. I was fortunate to meet Harry Patch when he was there and even managed to buy him a drink (a dark rum). A great old boy and now, there are none of these men left the living history has gone, but we must never forget.
Anyone traveling to Belgium and/or France cannot fail to be moved or shocked by their first sighting in person of the sheer size of some of the larger Commonwealth War Grave Sites. They are not all so "impressively/shockingly" large there are also a great number of smaller sites, some containing just a few graves and these can feel personal, very personal indeed.
I was not the only one of "our group" who used to visit on a regular basis and meet up in the "Shell Hole" a small Cafe/Bar come B&B who said that they felt they could actually "feel" the men talking in certain places, especially so in a couple of these very small and personal havens.
I was directed to a small cluster of graves by a farmer who I had started renting a room from for my weekend visits to the Ypres area. This was in the middle of a wheat field and contained around 20 graves.
The group consisted of 2 machine gun teams an Officer and troops from a mixture of regiments, which baffled me completely. That evening as I joined them for their evening meal (get to know people over there and you literally have to force them to take the money for the room, they welcome you in to the family, you eat with them and I used to sit in their main room with them until time to sleep) I asked him about the mixed group and the story he told me was that the Allies and the Germans fought repeatedly over the same patch of land back and forth. during one such attack the Allies had taken a pounding and the word to retreat had not reached this group of men who had met up in a in old trench system area that was more often than not in no-mans land as the they believed they where still where to hold the line, that is what they did, very effectively as they had two complete machine gun teams and the trench system had enough caches of munitions stock piled by both sides to keep them going.
The Germans took around 3 days to rout them out having to resort to a night maneuver to move a force of around 100 men to end this murderous pocket of what they assumed to be over 100 men and even after all the fighting they expected there to be at least over 50 left. Come the morning the Storm Troops charged and being so close the machine gunners where soon over run, the group was killed and the ST's ran past them looking for the rest of the force that had held them at bay so long and cost them so many men.
When they realised that the group had never been larger that about 20 men they where stunned and requested permission to give them a military funeral with full honours, and so it was they where buried in a semi circle in part of one of the old trench systems, the graves where marked with simple white crosses.
All the vital information including the locations of the burials marked on a very detailed German Machine Gunners trench map of the area along with, the order of burial (they had been afforded a Military Burial with full honours including a rifle salute) their personal effects (Bibles, notepads, trinkets, shave kits etc and most but not all letters and photographs as the Germans like to be buried with at least some of theirs), where all gathered up along with their identification* tags where delivered by a German Medic to the British lines.
Because of the Ceremony and Official Status of the Burial and the respect afforded to the area in the remaining few of the war (it became a refuge for injured men of both sides and without any agreement no-one apparently fired upon the area, nor did anyone fire out from the area either. It was also used as an unofficial exchange post for injured men picked up by the medics from both sides.
Because of this he felt it should stay where it was, he had prepared legal and financial security for the Cemetery for the future maintenance out of his pocket as he felt as the land owner the history of his land should not be moved to a distant field where many people would walk past but never read the names of the men and wonder why the mishmash of Regiments, whereas where they where, is where they actually died and although they did not get that many visitors, he said you could guarantee they would read every world on the gravestones read the memorial plaques and probably sit (like I did) in one of the bench seats and "ask them" what happened.
The saddest part is that the story had been written out and a brass plaque had been commissioned and placed by the farmers father, this fairly large bronze plaque had been stolen 6-7 times, for the scrap value of the metal.
It was fortunate that the foundry that made the original plaque in the 1960's had kept the original castings so the reproduction was relatively easy and as he said it kept the link, to his father had made the plaque and his Grand Father had covered the cost of the gravestones for these men, who he said had died fighting for his families farm. (He claimed to have the original wooden markers in the store barn but I never actually saw them)
He told me it was one of about 4 little cemetery's still remaining in the area, sadly most have been closed with bodies have been transfered to the large Commonwealth Cemetries, as sadly life must go on, it was almost 100 years ago, and it is farming land and farmers need this well fertilized land as it grows a tremendous amount of Europe's wheat and vegetables .....after all it has some huge levels of fertiliser in the soil......... This was back in 2002/3 and I hope he has still managed to keep "his men" as he called them safe and secure where they are cared for (to the point he has a ceremony held on Christmas Eve, where all his family gather at the farm and go down and place flowers and a lighted candle at each grave....I hope they are still with their extended family
* Back then the British ID tags where made from a very durable compressed wax/asbestos/paper. which had proven to stand the test of time in various tests back home in good old Blighty. Alas these didn't stand a chance in the waterlogged ground of the battlefields of WW1 and it was (and still is) the reason they had such great difficulty identifying bodies when they are found, resulting so many men remaining unidentified and "Known only unto God".
The annoying part to the ID tag saga is that up until August 1914 our troops where being issued with a new and more durable tag made from aluminium, which does decay over time but not as quickly as the replacement ones which where introduced "to save time"*
I hope this makes readable sense as I am a "little" medicated at the moment, prescription medication I may add but powerful enough that people take it for pleasure damned freaks!
Anyone traveling to Belgium and/or France cannot fail to be moved or shocked by their first sighting in person of the sheer size of some of the larger Commonwealth War Grave Sites. They are not all so "impressively/shockingly" large there are also a great number of smaller sites, some containing just a few graves and these can feel personal, very personal indeed.
I was not the only one of "our group" who used to visit on a regular basis and meet up in the "Shell Hole" a small Cafe/Bar come B&B who said that they felt they could actually "feel" the men talking in certain places, especially so in a couple of these very small and personal havens.
I was directed to a small cluster of graves by a farmer who I had started renting a room from for my weekend visits to the Ypres area. This was in the middle of a wheat field and contained around 20 graves.
The group consisted of 2 machine gun teams an Officer and troops from a mixture of regiments, which baffled me completely. That evening as I joined them for their evening meal (get to know people over there and you literally have to force them to take the money for the room, they welcome you in to the family, you eat with them and I used to sit in their main room with them until time to sleep) I asked him about the mixed group and the story he told me was that the Allies and the Germans fought repeatedly over the same patch of land back and forth. during one such attack the Allies had taken a pounding and the word to retreat had not reached this group of men who had met up in a in old trench system area that was more often than not in no-mans land as the they believed they where still where to hold the line, that is what they did, very effectively as they had two complete machine gun teams and the trench system had enough caches of munitions stock piled by both sides to keep them going.
The Germans took around 3 days to rout them out having to resort to a night maneuver to move a force of around 100 men to end this murderous pocket of what they assumed to be over 100 men and even after all the fighting they expected there to be at least over 50 left. Come the morning the Storm Troops charged and being so close the machine gunners where soon over run, the group was killed and the ST's ran past them looking for the rest of the force that had held them at bay so long and cost them so many men.
When they realised that the group had never been larger that about 20 men they where stunned and requested permission to give them a military funeral with full honours, and so it was they where buried in a semi circle in part of one of the old trench systems, the graves where marked with simple white crosses.
All the vital information including the locations of the burials marked on a very detailed German Machine Gunners trench map of the area along with, the order of burial (they had been afforded a Military Burial with full honours including a rifle salute) their personal effects (Bibles, notepads, trinkets, shave kits etc and most but not all letters and photographs as the Germans like to be buried with at least some of theirs), where all gathered up along with their identification* tags where delivered by a German Medic to the British lines.
Because of the Ceremony and Official Status of the Burial and the respect afforded to the area in the remaining few of the war (it became a refuge for injured men of both sides and without any agreement no-one apparently fired upon the area, nor did anyone fire out from the area either. It was also used as an unofficial exchange post for injured men picked up by the medics from both sides.
Because of this he felt it should stay where it was, he had prepared legal and financial security for the Cemetery for the future maintenance out of his pocket as he felt as the land owner the history of his land should not be moved to a distant field where many people would walk past but never read the names of the men and wonder why the mishmash of Regiments, whereas where they where, is where they actually died and although they did not get that many visitors, he said you could guarantee they would read every world on the gravestones read the memorial plaques and probably sit (like I did) in one of the bench seats and "ask them" what happened.
The saddest part is that the story had been written out and a brass plaque had been commissioned and placed by the farmers father, this fairly large bronze plaque had been stolen 6-7 times, for the scrap value of the metal.
It was fortunate that the foundry that made the original plaque in the 1960's had kept the original castings so the reproduction was relatively easy and as he said it kept the link, to his father had made the plaque and his Grand Father had covered the cost of the gravestones for these men, who he said had died fighting for his families farm. (He claimed to have the original wooden markers in the store barn but I never actually saw them)
He told me it was one of about 4 little cemetery's still remaining in the area, sadly most have been closed with bodies have been transfered to the large Commonwealth Cemetries, as sadly life must go on, it was almost 100 years ago, and it is farming land and farmers need this well fertilized land as it grows a tremendous amount of Europe's wheat and vegetables .....after all it has some huge levels of fertiliser in the soil......... This was back in 2002/3 and I hope he has still managed to keep "his men" as he called them safe and secure where they are cared for (to the point he has a ceremony held on Christmas Eve, where all his family gather at the farm and go down and place flowers and a lighted candle at each grave....I hope they are still with their extended family
* Back then the British ID tags where made from a very durable compressed wax/asbestos/paper. which had proven to stand the test of time in various tests back home in good old Blighty. Alas these didn't stand a chance in the waterlogged ground of the battlefields of WW1 and it was (and still is) the reason they had such great difficulty identifying bodies when they are found, resulting so many men remaining unidentified and "Known only unto God".
The annoying part to the ID tag saga is that up until August 1914 our troops where being issued with a new and more durable tag made from aluminium, which does decay over time but not as quickly as the replacement ones which where introduced "to save time"*
I hope this makes readable sense as I am a "little" medicated at the moment, prescription medication I may add but powerful enough that people take it for pleasure damned freaks!
