2006 exhibition traces of the war in the landscape

[Bert Heyvaert]

Dear pals,

I wrote something about this before, but as some people suggested, I will give some more details on my current research. I am one of the lucky few who managed to turn a passion for the study of WW1 into a job. 2 months ago, I started working for In Flanders Fields museum as a researcher for the 2006 exhibition 'traces of the war in the landscape'. As the title points out, the exhibition will deal with the last real surviver of the war: the landscape of the Saliënt. Both the history and archaeology of significant places will be dealt with, and digitalised modern ordnance survey maps will be available for the visitors, with digital overlays of WW1 trench maps and WW1 aereal pictures. My part of the research is the creation of a d-base on the fightings between may 1915 and 31th of july 1917, between Steenstraete and St. Elooi (that is most of the Saliënt, withouth the Messines Ridge). The idea is to create two documents: one very extensive d-base intended for researchers that visit the IFF documentation center, and a summarised version for the exhibition. The idea is to give for every day the units that saw action, and a summary of the action and a testimony if possible. This will be linked to the GIS d-base with the aereal pics and trench maps, so the visitor will be able to see the exact location of every action.

So, do you have any info on the fightings in the Saliënt in this particular period? A testimony, a diary... pretty much anything...I would be more than happy to hear about it. You can contact me on stedelijke.musea@ieper.be

I will post a copy of the exhibition's flyer as well, once our scanner is back to work.

many regards, and I hope to welcome many pals on the exhibition next year,

Bert

[Patrick @ IFF]

Anyone who provides Bert with invaluable information, will get a free drink from him

Good luck, Bert!

[zijde26]

To Bert,

Some months ago, there was at ' Raversijde ' an exhibition of photos showing traces of the first world war. I cannot judge if these photos are helpful, I hope so.

Gilbert Deraedt