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A journey of remembrance
By Cathy Stapells
Each evening at 8 p.m., the “Last Post” – a bugle call used to commemorate those who have fallen in war – sounds at the Menin Gate memorial in Ypres. The Last Post ceremony has been conducted here since 1928, and it is no small thing for the people of Ypres to do this every night. But they do unfailingly, with kindness, dignity and appreciation.
Located just down the street from Ypres’ main square, Menin Gate is shaped like a triumphal Roman arch; on its walls are the names of 54,896 Commonwealth soldiers who went missing in action. There are so many Canadian names here, nearly 7,000. On the evening I attend the ceremony, members of the Londonderry Branch of the Somme Association, a group that organizes trips to Belgium and France for relatives of those killed in the war, lay a wreath against one wall of the monument. About 300 people, young and old alike, including a few veterans, listen as the playing of the Last Post is followed by a minute of silence. I look around at the other faces assembled here and feel a connection to these people whom I don’t know, but who, like me, want to remember and pay tribute.
Just a few kilometres away, near
Passchendaele, is Tyne Cot Cemetery, where the names of another 34,984 Commonwealth soldiers are inscribed on a long, curved stone wall of remembrance. It is the largest Commonwealth cemetery in the world, with nearly 12,000 graves; about 70 per cent of them mark the resting places of unnamed soldiers. These stones are inscribed: “A Soldier of the Great War. Known unto God."
From the rows of graves, there is a terrific view of Ypres. The air is sweet and a tremendous sense of peace pervades. Yet if I close my eyes, I can almost hear the roar of guns and the shouts of men echoing across the fields. Again, I am reminded of how real the war still feels here.
The Commonwealth War Graves Commission ensures the cemeteries are carefully tended. Small Canadian flags and paper poppies dot the gravestones, proof that others also feel a need to visit. This is particularly true at the Essex Farm Cemetery at Boezinge, about eight kilometres from Ypres, where John McCrae wrote his famous poem, “In Flanders Fields." They’re evident, too, at the magnificent Canadian Forces Memorial at Sint- Juliaan, about five kilometres from Ypres, which was erected in remembrance of the 3,000 soldiers from the 1st Canadian Division who died after the German chlorine gas attack of April 1915.