Bury Grammar School and Madagascar CWGC Cemetery Diego Suarez

[Ian Riley]

Just spotted this link on the CWGC Facebook page. Diego Suarez is a WW2 Cemetery in Madagascar but the relevance is the interest generated in these two students, both from Bury Grammar School, by journeys to the Western Front with their school. An account of their visit is here.

http://www.cwgc.org/...writing_pdf.pdf

The credit for raising this enthusiasm must go to the meticulous planning and research that goes into the Bury ventures on the part of their leader.

Even amongst less constructive and less well-organized tours, even standing amongst those who have not been properly briefed on the significance of the Last Post Ceremony and the Menin Gate (and my observation is that these are often adults) will be school children and students who do take note and, as these students have done, come away with both interest and respect.

[John_Hartley]

Mark will be chuffed, I'm sure.

[Mark Hone]

I am. Thanks for this.

[Mark Hone]

Luis and Caspar, who inspired the visit and wrote the article, have just completed their last school battlefields tour. Luis joins the ranks of our select group of five tour veterans. Caspar is half German and laid a wreath at Langemark Cemetery, as he did at Fricourt last year. His (British) great-grandfather won the Military Cross at Langemark as a FOO with the Royal Artillery. They have been great travelling companions.

[hillgorilla]

Great to see Bury represented, and the fact that you link the tours to the family experiences of the students. An interesting place for them and for a reflection on history is the German Cemetery at Menin. 46,000 men are buried there, though for the most not their original resting place, as many were moved there from German cemeteries through Belgium.

[Ian Riley]

Mark, Thanks for the update. Delighted to hear that Luis has the medal with four bars and of Caspar's remembrance at Langemark. I will be pleased to hear of further exploits of Bury Grammar, only a few miles north of here (albeit in hill country),

By the way I am working of the 2/5th LF diaries at the moment.

Ian

[ShirlD]

Enjoyed reading this, made my day.

Cheers

Shirley

[Mark Hone]

I've not visted the German cemetery at Menin yet, but hope to include it on a future tour. I know that Caspar is keen to visit the one at Vlaadso in the future. One of his relatives from the First World War is buried at a German cemetery near Compiegne.

One thing that I have not quite fathomed yet is how to find men buried at German cemeteries who come from particular places. We have a very long-standing exchange, dating back to the 1950s, with a school in Cologne and it would be nice to discover if any local men are buried at the cemeteries which we visit. Next year it will be La Cambe in Normandy. Unfortunately this does not seem to be possible using the search engine on the German War Graves site, unless you knw a specific name, but maybe that is due to my poor command of German. Our exchange party is going to Cologne soon and I shall ask my friend, our Head of German , to see if he can find anything out at that end.

[hillgorilla]

Have you tried looking at the Denkmal Project? Looking at the memorial in Cologne, there are quite a few, then cross reference the names, with the German War Graves site. I find it useful to use Google chrome, when looking at it, as it gives you the option of translating the page.