Passchendale...........

[targetman]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=De8NimBUBww

Nice song from a very good film.....

[Jenks]

And on the edge of Passchendale village is the legacy of the Battle. Tyne Cot CWGC. Cemetery home to the remains of 12,000 British and Commonwealth soldiers. A very sobering place to visit.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8zooEAvh ... re=related[/youtube]

also in the video is Dud Corner CWGC. Cemetery On the outskirts of Lens. where the dead of Loos are buried. My Great uncle being one of the 20,500+ killed but never found who's names are memorialised on the cemetery walls

Jenks

[Jenks]

This film caught my eye. The first episode promised much, but the story deteriorated somewhat and became more than a bit fanciful, However the last few episodes that covered the battle, portrayed, trench warfare (whilst a piece of fiction) in all its awfulness.


[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tyHgS2H8 ... re=related[/youtube]


Jenks

[Jenks]

I forgot to add that in the vid of Dud Corner cemetery, at the end the camera passes by the two slag heaps and starts to zoom in on some high ground in the distance. I'm pretty certain that this is 'Vimy Ridge.'

Jenks

[Chuck]

That movie lost its way a bit but the hand to hand stuff was pretty gruesome..as was bayonetting the machinegunner in the head. and as for sitting in a water filled trench EEEUUGH!

[Jenks]

That movie lost its way a bit but the hand to hand stuff was pretty gruesome..as was bayonetting the machinegunner in the head. and as for sitting in a water filled trench EEEUUGH!

Chuck..

I had a 'talking book' from the library, the name escapes me. It was about ww1 from the German perspective. There was many a description of the horror of close quarter fighting. According to the book, one of the favourite trench fighting weapons was a sharpened spade! can you imagine :shock:

Jenks

[Chuck]

Yes, a very effective weapon is a sharpened entrenching tool (spade0..used in Ww2 and other conflicts where hand to hand took place...also saw what looked lke a hammer shaft with a gear cog stuck on it...modern equivalent of a mace???/ Given the choice I'd stick to a .308 at 700 yards.

Did you know that the phrase "same to you with knobs on" apparently originated in the trenches..seems that when soldiers were using clubs someone had the idea of making them with "bumps" on the surface which would fracture the skull more easily...OUCH!