Page 5 of [VIDEO] They Shall Not Grow Old (Peter Jackson's WW1 colourised footage)

Quote:
marksparks999 says...
"I was privileged enough to go on a battlefield study of Flanders in November 2017"
On my wish list is a battlefield tour of Monte Cassino which is the one major battle I know my dad was in and that he ever even mentioned.

On that specific subject it's well worth going back to iPlayer and watching Garry Lineker. My Grandads war which covers the Italy campaign.


Snaps

---

My new Flash Fiction blog. All my own work
500ish

---

I am not young enough to know everything.

This item was edited on Monday, 16th November 2020, 19:25

Me and my footie chums go over to the Somme and Belgium every year (we use Ypres as our base) so I've been to many battlefields and cemeteries. My great uncle - killed at High Wood but remains never found - is commemorated on the mighty Thiepval memorial.

You can't help but be moved by the bigger cemeteries/memorials such as Tyne Cot, Thiepval, Vimy Ridge (Canadian), etc, because of the sheer numbers but I find the small cemeteries tucked away in the middle of nowhere to be the most poignant.

Give me a week of driving/walking through fields in the Somme over a fortnight in the sun all day long.

We were booked in to do a week in Normandy in July but Covid obviously put paid to that.

This item was edited on Wednesday, 18th November 2020, 13:49

They say farmers are still digging up possibly live ammunition to this day with their tractors in the killing fields. (Explosives and muster gas shells). They are collected and taken away by the military for safe destruction.

Mans inhumanity to man is mine fields: I was watching a documentary on mine laying history, where forgotten or unmarked mines can be as dangerous after battles as before, especially to civilians. The UK military showed their latest fast laying mine tank that could throw mines in a pattern across an entire area. And the laugh was they said it was humain as they had a timer that exploded them after a timed period of days or months, to self destruct and no longer be a danger. Mind you laying loads of mines all with self destructs. How many due to a fault would not self destruct 1%? 2%?, it would only take one to be a danger there after. I suppose the military mind works on a certain number of acceptable casualties.

Munitions turning up on the Isle of Wight coast is a regular thing, still.

Editor
MYREVIEWER.COM

My Flickr Photostream

I read last week that the last minefields from the Falklands War were only declared safe a couple of weeks ago.

Quote:
Mix Man says...
"I read last week that the last minefields from the Falklands War were only declared safe a couple of weeks ago."

They were in deed, a very good friend of mine currently serving down there.

There's a sunken wartime wreck off the Isle of Sheppey (Kent) that has so much ordnance they reckon the explosion would be bigger than the Beirut disaster. They don't really know what to do about it.

https://www.kentonline.co.uk/sheerness/news/bomb-ship-explosion-could-be-bigger-than-beirut-blast-231916/

Quote:
alfie noakes says...
"There's a sunken wartime wreck off the Isle of Sheppey (Kent) that has so much ordnance they reckon the explosion would be bigger than the Beirut disaster. They don't really know what to do about it."
Isn't that the site of Boris Island which was proposed as an alternative to expanding Heathrow?

---------

Si Wooldridge
Reviewer

http://synth.myreviewer.com

Quote:
Si Wooldridge says...
"Isn't that the site of Boris Island which was proposed as an alternative to expanding Heathrow?"
Yup, in that approximate area. I think the boat was pointed out at the time as a problem.

SS Richard Montgomery.
My Mum was from the island and they used to do trips round the wreck when I was a lad.
Never knew it was full of whizz bangs till years later.

Snaps

---

My new Flash Fiction blog. All my own work
500ish

---

I am not young enough to know everything.

This item was edited on Friday, 20th November 2020, 13:01