DAY 2- WORLD WAR BATTLEFIELDS TOUR - Phil & Jill

A convivial breakfast in the 1st floor of the Hotel Prieure set the atmosphere for the day. Francis had told us he had done considerable homework on personal pilgrimages to go to particular areas for different people to pay respects to their loved ones or people known to them who had fallen or had fought in the Great War. This included Phil whose driving force of coming here was to pay respect to Arthur Harold Ellens who died near Mont St Quentin and whose name is on a plaque at Villers Brettoneux. But that is for later in today's report.

Let me introduce the great group of Aussies pilgrims we have found ourselves travelling with. In no particular order and from a random selection of activities from my photos.

Francis Mullan - our guide extraordinaire

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Steve - our steady driver - English

Bill & Libby - Melbourne

Roger and Judy - Melbourne

Pam - the effervesant one - Banora Point, NSW

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Tilly (partner Ken) and June (wife of Peter) - no photographs together

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Michael - Melbourne

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Denise and Michael - Hyde Park, SA

Ken (partner Tilly) at the back

Peter (husband of June) in the foreground

Cathy and Chas - Echuca (with us)

Villers-Brettoneux was our first call of the day. About 14 years ago, Phil became interested in war records of family members and discovered the Australian War Memorial had gathered together extensive service records for WWI soldiers. They supplied 50 pages on Arthur Harold Ellens - Phil's Great Uncle. He had been killed on the 29th September,1918 bringing up ammunition on virtually the last day the Anzacs broke through the Hindenburg line, the consequence of which brought on the finish of the war. Amongst those papers were letters to his financee in Sydney and to Phil's Grandmother -Ada Bertha Ellens, to whom Phil was very attached as a boy and young man. This stirred deep feelings within Phil and for years he has been emotional when talking about it. You can imagine then the overwhelming feeling he had when we got to Villers-Brettoneux. Francis, our guide, showed enormous empathy and care. He got the register of names from the cabinet which lists every name; found the plaque in the St Quentin area and allowed Phil as much time as he wanted to place his cross and show respect as a former military officer himself. One soldier to another. It was an indelible memory.

The fact that Arthur Ellens has his name on the wall and not a grave is that he would have been known to have died but not enough to identify him. This also adds to the emotional impact. It is ironical that we visited this war cemetry before when Paul and Jodi were young children. We were deeply moved then, particularly reading some of the young 18 year olds who had died a couple of days after the war had been declared over.

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Across the forecourt, the walls of the Australian National Memorial are inscribed with the names of more than 10,700 Australian soldiers missing in France during the Great War.

"There is no spot on the whole of the tortured soil of France which is more associated with Australian history and the triumph of Australian soldiers than Villers-Brettoneux" wrote General Sir John Monash. That is why this location was chosen as the site of the Sir John Monash Centre. The centre is using state of the art multimedia technologies to show archival footage. To enter you go down a ramp, symbolising going down a trench. There are words like 'cobber', 'smoko' and trench signs like rue de Kanga and Wallaby Lane. Inside there is a panel of Australian timbers and an emu statute. Hanging over the reception area is a relatively new tapestry called 'The Morning Star' designed in 2017 by Charles Green (who had a personal connection with his Grandfather having fought here) and Lyndal Brown. It took 4 weavers more than 4,000 hours to make it using over 370 shades of thread. It is a lasting memorial to those who fought on the Western Front and the 46,000 lives lost. It seeks to evoke the experience the men had boarding the ships to come to the war and a pathway through eucalypt trees to the sunlight. A very sombre yet beautiful piece of work

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As you move around the 360 degree theatre many screens tell the stories of the epic battles at Villers-Bretonneux and Le Hamel.

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The people in the village of Villers-Bretonneux remain to this day forever grateful to the people of Australia. So much so they have named their primary school the Victoria school. It is covered in Australian memoribilia.

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In the showcase I was pleased to come across a diary entry by a Tasmanian from the 40th Division which was the same Division my Grandfather David Webster, fought with. My records show that he only went as far as Rouen but he might have known this man.

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