Above is Villers-Bretonneux Memorial, an Australian National Memorial, located across the back of the Villers-Bretonneux Military Cemetery. It commemorates the 10,796 Australians who died in France and have no known grave. We left Ypres and this is where we are now, making a few stops before arriving at Amiens, France.
From a distance 
Cemetery 
We also stopped at Beaumont-Hamel Newfoundland Memorial. Now Newfoundland-Labrador are a province in Canada, I just finished blogging about this province as we traveled there last year. But during the time of WWI, Newfoundland was not yet a province of Canada, it was a dominion of the British Empire. Newfoundland, at the time, had a total population of approximately 242000 people and more than 12,000 would serve in uniform. In case you’re curious, Newfoundland joined Canada as it’s 10th province in 1949.
The Newfoundland Regiment was a unit of the British Army and saw action in Turkey before being sent to France’s Western Front for the battle of the Somme. On one day of the battle, in less than 30 minutes, the Regiment had over 700 killed, wounded, or missing. This is the largest memorial, out of five, recognizing Newfoundlanders.
Beautiful walkways throughout the site 
You can see trenches throughout the site also 
Bronze caribou 
Walkways throughout the site 
51st Highland Division Memorial 
Undetonated explosives, all fenced in of course.
On to Ocean Villas and the Thiepval Museum………..next post………..
Trums Travels 
Oooh, there is still live explosives down there, best to stay on the path. The monuments are very nice yet how sad war is. I thought New Foundland and Labrador were two separate provinces?
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They are one province combined but Newfoundland is an island and Labrador is at the north end of Quebec on the mainland. I often wondered why they are one.
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Yeah, that’s a bit confusing… 🤭 To an American…
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It is amazing just how many military deaths there were and it’s always sad when they have deaths but no grave – the many horrors of war. Interesting that there are still undetonated explosives in this large field. Every so often on our local news there will be a story how a former veteran will pass away and the family cleans out the house to put it up for sale and in the basement or garage they find something that warrants a visit from the bomb squad to determine if that “souvenir” is still live or not.
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