REMEMBRANCE TOURISM GUIDE 2018 The Centenary of the Armistice


From left: The Ring of Remembrance at Notre-Dame-de-Lorette; The Taking of Vimy Ridge, Easter Monday, 1917, by Richard Jack, ‘Canada’s Battle Painter’, painted in 1919


THE YEAR TO VISIT This year marks the centenary of the end of the Great War. It is the culmination of a period during which the world has remembered the horrors of 1914-18 and the many millions who lost their lives in the conflict.


Over the past four years, people have travelled to the former battlefields of France and Belgium from all over the globe to visit the monuments, cemeteries and museums commemorating the valour of their fellow countrymen. The Great War truly was a


World War, with more than thirty countries involved in military operations, yet 1918 was the year when the arrival of US troops in force helped the embattled and weary Allies turn the tide against the enemy. For our many American readers, therefore, 2018 is the ideal year to come to Europe to experience first hand the poignant reminders of the role played by the “Doughboys”. This year will see many special ceremonies at US war graves across France and Belgium (and at home in the US) scheduled to coincide with the key moments of the campaign to defeat the Axis powers.


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In particular, Memorial Day weekend (May 26-28) and Armistice Day (November 11) will provide unique opportunities to come to Europe and be part of the centenary commemorations.


THE UNITED STATES IN THE GREAT WAR Although 2017 marked the centenary of the United States entering the Great War, it wasn’t until the early part of 1918, one hundred years ago this year, that US troops were fully deployed on the battlefields of France. Though it had taken time to build public support and organise a draft of servicemen, American involvement was ramped up quickly to the point, in 1918, when more than 10,000 US soldiers were arriving every day to bring support to the war-weary Allied soldiers on the numerous battlefronts of France. Eventually, more than four million US service personnel were mobilised in the war effort, and by the summer of 2018 more than one million soldiers in the American Expeditionary Force were under the command of General John Pershing. The Americans’ first battle saw the US Marines earn their


reputation. In the spring of 1918, as the Germans advanced through northern France with Paris in their sights, there were serious doubts as to whether the exhausted French and British troops could hold out. It became imperative to hold the line at the Marne river. Now was the time for the largely untried US reinforcements to be tested against the Germans.


BELLEAU WOOD Belleau Wood, a densely wooded hillside ridge near Château- Thierry in Aisne département, fifty miles northeast of Paris, was the site of the first significant clashes between American and German troops. During the month of June, the US 2nd and 3rd Divisions, including a brigade of Marines, made no fewer than six attempts to prevent a German advance. The fighting was intense and bloody with troops involved in bayonet charges, hand-to-hand combat and always at the mercy of concealed machine guns.


“I knew those woods were going to catch hell shortly,” reported Lieutenant Colonel Frederick May Wise of the Marines, who was positioned with


his men on the elevated edge of the wood. “Everywhere up and down the line, masses of earth, chunks of rock, splinters of trees, leaped into the air as the shells exploded. Machine gun and rifle bullets thudded into the earth unendingly. But there was worse to come. They had trench mortars in Bois de Belleau, and presently they began to cut loose on us with them. Those aerial torpedoes, packed with TNT, would come sailing through the air and land on the ridge. That whole ridge literally shook every time one of them exploded.” Although badly prepared and poorly organised, the Yanks had one thing going for them: a daredevil fighting spirit. The impact of this “untapped, nervous energy”, as the Germans called it, was huge – it bolstered the morale of the Allies and demoralised the enemy.


FEROCITY AND BRAVERY


US Marines Major Maurice E. Shearer’s understated report on 26 June stating: “Woods now US Marines entirely” belies the ferocity and bravery witnessed during the fighting. Belleau Wood became America’s most famous


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