Ypres rubble

[roel22]

Last week I was reading some fascinating articles on where the rubble and debris of the bombed german cities was dumped after the war. Many German towns have artificial hills, created this way.

Which made me wonder: what was done with the debris of Ypres?

Roel

[AOK4]

18 minutes ago, roel22 said:

Last week I was reading some fascinating articles on where the rubble and debris of the bombed german cities was dumped after the war. Many German towns have artificial hills, created this way.

Which made me wonder: what was done with the debris of Ypres?

Roel

To be honest, I think most ruins and heaps of rubble were recycled and not just dumped (even after WW2). Bricks etc were cleaned and reused and the remaining rubble was used for foundations of buildings and roads. There wasn't that much just thrown away.

Jan

[brianmorris547]

The WDs of 20 Div Royal Engineers, who were in the Ypres area until late July 1916, make references to infantry employed on reclaiming and the Field Companies were constantly working on the Canal defences and the cellars and billets. As an example 96 FC used sandbags filled with broken bricks and rubble.

As Jan says not much would have been thrown away. I would think that all REs who were there did the same.

Brian

[roel22]

Thanks Jan & Brian!

Roel

[gnr.ktrha]

Hi,
    Interesting topic. Mark Felton did a short film about WW2 British rubble from bombed cities being shipped over to the US to create foundations. There must have been many times when there was just too much rubble to deal with and the quickest solution was to discard it.  Here is a link to the film-

 

[mebu]

Unfortunately I don't think there was a need ship's ballast from Ypres.

Bricks are a valuable resource and as Jan says above, were good for recycling. 

There are RE records of using rubble for defences, road repairs,sand bags etc (see pic below) although I doubt they would have been salvaged and re-recycled after the war, most likely nowadays at the bottom of filled-in trench lines.

Road material was also needed and much rubble would have been used here. Some years ago I was shown/offered a 1920's invoice for explosives and labour from a local contractor demolishing concrete structures in the Salient and depositing for roadworks, unfortunately it was in Dutch and not much use for me. Wish I'd retained it though.

Peter

[roel22]

Thanks, all very interesting!

I know the rubble of the 1940 Rotterdam bombing was used to fill in canals in the city centre and to build a dyke, but bringing the rubble of British cities to New York for road construction... wow.

Roel

[gnr.ktrha]

Peter, 
         I was not for a moment suggesting that they had shipped rubble from Ypres, I was merely showing the lengths that they sometimes went to to remove rubble. The OP mentioned similar things happening and I shared the link to illustrate a proven example. 
           

[mebu]

gnr.k. I wasn't meaning that's what you were suggesting, just saying that they were 2 rather different scenarios.

Obviously there have been many post-war times where disposal of rubble had to be found a solution for.

 

Peter

[Howard]

In Berlin, they made a hill from the 2nd War rubble, the Teufelsberg and some more listed here.

Howard

[Stereoview Paul]

It does seem that some rubble from Ypres went by train - here is an expansion from a 1921 photo.