AT PASSCHENDAELE

Dominion, Volume 13, Issue 23, 22 October 1919, Page 4

AT PASSCHENDAELE

THE GItAVES OF THE FALLEN. :■ At the present time many peoplo iii Aew Zealand aro leaving for England with Ihe intention of going over to Franco or Belgium to see the graves of their'fallen onc-s. That it would .bo well to leave such visits until naturo has laid tier healing hand over such torn and desolated lands tho following extracts from, a letter received by a' Wellington lady will servo to show. The description covers tho country around l'asschendaele, where so many brave men gave up their lives, and tlie writer was seeking for tho grave of his brother. Later, the "glory of the deed and not tho sadness" will come home to those who hnvo lost their beloved, if they will only wait.

I After detailing all tho difficulties of | obtaining passports vised by French and | Belgian Consuls, also tho getting of pcr- ! mits and introductions from A.i.F. Headquarters and other authorities ilio ; writer describes his journey: "Alt tlie ' cars (which are very scarce), rollingstock. roads, houses, stations, etc., Me in a dreadful state of disrepair, engines with boiler coverings rusted through, tho carriages containing iiencii, Belgian, and German passewrs. are all pre-war and dreadfully knocked about, windows broken, .window-straps •and of tor. framework gone, racks torn down and windows forced up or down and immovable. Thero is no attempt to repair or redecorate tlieiu yet, and the German notices re leaning out of windows, etc., lemain as of old. 1 did not sea a particle of new paint on my visit. All tho tumbled houses ruined with shells and bombs remain, and some of the hotel visitors are shown mro .rooms to sleep in with holes in tho walls or ceilings. At Calais tho bomb damage was much greater than at fiuulogne, and my window at tho hotel looked out.' on tho remains of ' a bombed house just as it was, with all tho houses throe or four deep oil either side evacuated. One fine building, tho Town Hall of Calais, was hit on tho tower by u shell-or bomb and the. super-structure is now tottering and tho place closed. Many of the shops which were bombed had their. windows blocked np with wood except- for about IS inches at the bottom to show tho nature of the -wares sold. Tho roads are so bad and in such disrepair from labour shortage in France that tho British Red Cross paved tho road from the' station to the hospital, to save the wounded discomfort.

"In Calais my old hotol.where tho boats arrived was so damaged by bombs' that it is not sufficiently repaired to open yet. It faced the boat with the station in between, and both were in the zone most heavily attacked to destroy the harbour shipping.and transport. All around them now are an enormous number of. guns of every description; some of them havo arrived in tho train from tho front. The very largest are accompanied by their motor-lorries . with wheels of enormous width to prevent tlioir sinking on tho roads. From Calais I found I could only book to Hazebruck,and on arrival there got a Written ticket only to Ypres. They could not 'boot mo to Zoiinobeke, which was the fiiation on tho map nearest to my destination, presumably becauso that station was destroyed. An officer on tho train going to Itoulcrs, beyond Ypres on the .same lino, told mo passed what was -.'Zoimebeke, so I remained in the train and got out nt what now represents tho station (two little wooden huts without any platform). I waa thai only .passenger to alight. In my carriage was a party of Belgians returning with many household goods, to reoccupy what was left of thoir homo. There were hundreds of similar parties, but this got into our first-class carriage as the train was so crowded. It was so ivcry sad seeing tlieso people returning looking so sad'and dejected. The country to Hazebruck looked beautiful. It was a loverly day with, at that time of morning,' that misty haze of a hot day covering the beautiful crops of corn, tobacco and oats. For four miles this side of Ypres we began to notice tho difference in the oultivation in tho war area: tho neglect of evacuated farms with an occasional one showing damage from shells, occasional shell holes near the line, or treetops destroyed. There wore also remains of trenches along the. lino with dug-outs and tunnels in the banks, and in tho fields numerous lines of barbed-wiro entanglements and remains of trenches. As we progressed the most noticeable features in the landscape were the broken trees, tho remaining stumps broken off high up with a few • leafless branches. They all boro the marks of shattering, with split tops, from shells, and the remarkable thing was that they were <.11 absolutely dead; 110 signs of a .sprouting one anywhere. In spite of many, inquiries I can't find out why this should 1» so, as largo trew like these can't be poisoned, at. tho roots. The fields with shell holes and trendies and barbed-wire were all covered with long/ grass which Kid a great deal, but many of the shell holes were half full of water, This was tho condition of the country to Zonnebeke, and also as far as one could See to the Passcliendaelo Ridgo beyond. Ypes, where the train stopped for ten minutes, is now absolutely destroyed. It is a big citadel town, and was well forti- . fied since the 16t.h century when taken by-Louis XIV. Beyond the piles of bricks showing the outlines of streets and destroyed houses there are very few evidences of tho more substantial buildings remaining. Here and there, like the Cloth Hall, some of the walls stand up a little more prominently than-their-surroundings At the present time tho Y.M.C.A. hut just erected and the remains of an estiiminet partly restored can give inc a l-oof /it a pinch. "After passing Ypres, all of which is very tlat country with undulating ground pitted as closely as a small-pox patient with large and small shell holes and dotted so far as can see with these dead trees,. one comes to Zonnebeke, seven miles further on. From the triiin oil the right ono sees a large mound (Pdlygon Mound), whore a, large memorial is being oretced to Australians, and beyond on the horizon some three or four miles away is another mound on which the Canadian memorial is being vccted. In tho neighbourhood of these '.re toj. 10 cemeteries in which the bodifs ire to ue interred when collected from mtlying -places where they fell. On retting off the train at the station I 'urned south, and on tho horizon on the left saw the Passchendacle Ridge toniining into BrofwN'xl" and liry.huk I'idges, tho latter of which ran up in the direction of Polygon _ Mound. These ridges liro vorv low with ijentlo slopes ■ipwavds and loir,' undulating ground between. When I turned my back on tho railway to go south along what -vas nice a road, but now is a Smooth cart Irack flattened by service wagons after shell holes in tho old road were filled in with bricks from the destroyed houses on cither ei'de, I could see nothing .save the prisoners of war camp, two mile 3 awav en the Tight, a man in klinkijoining "towards mo and a soldier driving a two-horsed scrvico wagon down the road. The whole rlace, excopt for a pile of bricks—ln te Zonnebekc_ Church—was a wests with no sign of life or habitation of any sort whatever. It might have been the desert with the trees as described standing up nt intervals, or in ono or two places in chimps where a town had been, The rend on the map to indicate tho position I wanted to reach seemed nen-cxistent, and neither the soldier-nor tho corporal driving tlic wagon could make head or tail of the map, so the latter asked me to get anil drove me to the prisoners of war cauip, where ho was going. The C.O. was told, and took me wit.li him into Ins office where lie brought down his map?, carefully compared tiiem with mine, and was able to localise tho spot but knew of no grave with that nanio. Hi.; dunes were to clear up the district of all battlefield leinnins, and ho and his men (MO poilus) were over the ground frequently and knew any grave marked. Though he had no record lie said we would go and look, and wo tramped over the ground for nearly three hours. I he placc was smothered with, shell holo* wi'h long grass,-many half full of wa'.er containing spades and entrenching tooiS, flasks, bludgeons, helmets (English and German), piil-boTCS,- rilles, some with wire-cutting apparatus,, remains of destroyed guns and carriages, shell cases empty and full, tho latter piled for tlr-

ins; lH'-.ir the gun emplacements. The pill-bo.ves were partly destroyed, but the inside,-- in many ease's just as they were, with the steps-down below. The crosses many eases indicating graves were almost hidden by long grass ami invisible whoj in shell holes; but my kind friends seouiert not only to know their position but the names "of tho fallen. The roads indicated on tho map seemed almost-ob-literated by grass after shelling, holes were made, but the labour gang had trumped tracks to the spots.they wero working at, where the smuller roads were almost obliterated. The gangs were taking the steel and wood out ol' the pillboxes as salvage. We went over the ground indicated .as near as wo could thoroughly, and my friend had several spills over tho hidden barbed-wire, cables and telephone- wire. He was rather nearsighted. JLany of the crosses wore isolated, but in. some places, three or four or a dozen wero in a little spot' together with barbed-wire around. Tho largest .number 1 saw like this with men of different regiments was near four pillboxes which wero of concrete and 10 yards from olio another. "I 'aspect the district will iiot bo cleared up before trippers get there in a few months. The C.O. said I was the Jlrst ho had met who/had been to the district, but tho Graves Registration Officer whom I met after at Zoiinobekc slatinn said two others had been and wero unsuccessful. He said that the W.O. maps in several instances had indicated the cross ami burial in quite different spots. One pill-box must have been, hermetically sealed by a shell, as the four occupants 15. months ' afterwards wero found, two in chairs, ono at the table, and I lie other on the. ground, all recognisable, with clothes intact, as if killed by concussion or gas."