WW1 and WW2 Defences - Suffolk and beyond

As in the last few trips we have made to the Somme, we took the Dover - Dunkirk ferry, allowing us to stop of in the Ypres area on the way down. This year, we concentrated on some of the cemeteries and German blockhouses in the Pilckem Ridge area. As anyone who knows Ypres, the so called "ridge" was merely a slightly higher bit of ground, but as such, in this flat country of huge tactical importance.  On 31st July 1917, the opening day of the Allied Offensive in this area, the British made good progress to the right of the Ypres-Roulers road which formed the axis of their advance. The German lines were penetrated to a depth of nearly  two miles, with bridges over the Steenbeek secured. Several villages were captured, including St. Julien and Pilckem. To the left of the Ypres-Roulers road the British encountered more resistance, perhaps due to the more broken and wooded nature of the country which allowed the Germans to maintain points of resistance.  This post is j...

Another visit to the Somme with my brother this March, with some good finds in the fields. Nearly 100 years on, the so called "Iron Harvest" of relics never ceases to amaze me. These are only the things that turn up on the surface, what must be lying a few feet deep?? A roll of rusting barbed wire A British rifle grenade, that someone has hung up in a bush, like a strange Christmas tree decoration! Back of  Mouquet Farm. German egg grenade, still showing black paint finish. This is the later model with the serrated band around the grenade, improving the throwers grip. Serre.  German ball grenade ( Kugelhandgranate ), Serre Relic British SMLE Rifle, found Leipzig Salient.  A pair of German grenades, an egg and ball grenade, Ovillers Two images of a German 77mm shrapnel shell. Montauban. German HE shell Two images of a remarkably well preserved British Mills bomb, Ovillers.   ...