Strange Occurrences on the Western Front

[ianw]

Great job Scott. I felt chuffed when I "found" my Great Uncle who had been "lost" due to name mis-spelling. You did a lot more than that but with a bit of guidance from on high , I think.

[At Home Dad]

That's a fascinating story, Scott, even without

the added element of otherwordlyness, thanks.

Kind regards

[elle72]

Wow Scott....the hairs on my arms were standing up as I was reading your post. Thats an incredible story. Im so glad your uncle was found and that at last 'he is home' in a sense because now his family know where he is.

Im also rather glad that Im not the only one who has had that 'unfinished' feeling

I can remember exactly where I was when I first found out about my great uncle. I was about 14 or 15. My mum had taken us to the war memorial in Perth (we were up from the country for the day so it was a pretty big deal at the time) which is located right on the edge of Kings Park and looks over the city and the river - its really a spectacular place. While we were there walking around she just mentioned in passing that pop's brother had been killed on the war and his name was written on the plaques which sit under the memorial. We went to look for his name and there it was. Mum said he was only 18 when he was killed and he must have been blown to bits because they never found his body.

At that moment, I turned around and when I looked over the city and the river it was like I was seeing it through a different pair of eyes, because all I could think about was that boy only a few years older than me who never got to see the city grow, who never got to stand in this spot and see this view, who never got to come back home. Ive never forgotten that moment because it was only then that the first world war actually meant anything to me. Before that, it had seemed like ancient history.....now I realised it had actually impacted my life. My great grandmother had lost her eldest son, my pop had grown up without his brother.

I didn't know then that thousands and thousands of other young men just like him had never been found. I still find it difficult to comprehend the vast numbers involved. Since then I have travelled, married and had my children and finally now I have been driven to try to find out what happened to him. I don't know if I will ever find out, I don't know if he will ever be found, but I will keep trying because as your experience shows - sometimes that 'feeling' is there for a reason. And along the way I am finding out about a whole bunch of other young men just like him so its an exciting journey.

Cheers,

Elle

[Scotty]

Thank you for your kind comments. I forgot to mention at first that I was extremely sceptical of that sort of thing before I took that book of the shelf . But the amount of uncanny things that have happened over the past ten years have changed my views a bit. It sometimes felt as if clues were finding me instead of being the other way around. Without doubt the thing that stopped me in my tracks was unearthing an Australian Official Photograph of my uncle and his mates with captured German prisoners. The image was taken the day he was killed in action. I tingle each time I glance at it (now on my lounge room wall and avatar). I'm sure many of those things will puzzle me for the rest of my life. Scott.

[AlanCurragh]

Hi Scott - glad to see your Uncle's story on the forum. We'll be at Bray Vale over the weekend so will pay our respects then...

Alan

[Scotty]

Hello Alan,

Good to hear from you. Thank you for visiting Will's grave. It's a fine gesture. Things are in better order at Bray Vale thanks to your timely last visit. As you know, my post above only skims the story. Perhaps one day we could share with the forum how you make an appearance in the closing chapter of my 10 year quest. But then again, maybe not, eh?

I hoped to be over there to meet you and be present on the 90th anniversary of his death, but it wasn't to be. My son will be in that part of the world in a few months and intends to be the first family member to visit Will's grave. Thanks once again mate, and have a safe trip. Kind regards, Scott.

[emired]

I have never been to the Western Front so could not comment on strange occurances there. However, it wouldn't surprise me if people felt or saw certain things.

I will try to explain this as best I can so please bear with me!

I'm a sceptical person, but I do believe in "ghosts". I don't believe that these are white sheet ghouls as many people seem to make out or people back from the dead

More realistically, I believe these to be apparitions of the past, almost like a replay of what has gone before, projected through an unknown energy. They are not actually there, as such. There is nobody in this apparition looking at you, no feelings, nothing left... it is merely an energy of the past.

In the same way, many people have experienced dread around Memetz, or nausea in certain places. I sincerely believe that we all have a sort of sixth sense, but some people are more perceptive than others in this respect. In these feelings of nausea and dread, people could indeed just be picking up the remaining energy of those soldiers, who would also have felt those feelings when they fought and died there all those years ago.

It's almost like when you walk into an old house and we call it atmospheric, because of the history of the place... the energy that still remains. I feel the same thing about the western front: we may very well pick up on snippets from the past because the energy, the emotion all those years ago was so strong.

Hope that makes sense!

Chris

[Le_Treport]

Just back from a tour of the 1918 battle areas, and visited many, many sites & cemeteries.

We would pile out of the coach, visit the cemetery, back on the coach, on to the next cemetery etc.....

All felt the same - tranquil and beautifully maintained as ever.

However, at the Highland Cemetery, for some reason, my attention was continually drawn to the field of corn on the opposite side of the road. No feelings of 'being watched', or hearing 'voices' or anything - but I kept having to look over there...... Not chilling or scary , just very, very odd.....

[zippy.72]

I have just discovered this thread and have found it to be the most interesting on the forum.

Firstly, I am not easily spooked and don't really believe in ghosts. I do however believe that if you have some knowldege of a location, this can influence your feelings about it. I am always sceptical about certain B&B owners on the Western Front who tell guests stories about supernatural happenings. Afetr all, their business is to make money and their motives can be questioned. However, despite the fact that I consider myself to be 'rational', I always feel a sense of unease, particularly on the Somme. This has been particularly been true of Mametz (I always find an excuse not to go) and the area around Beaumont Hamel. I would do many things before walking around the latter at night by myself. Theonly place I have felt peace is at the cemetry next to the Sheffield Memorial Park. I felt happy enough to fall asleep in the car whilst my chums wandered. I would never do this at Flatiron!

Having said this, I am drawn back ever year and truly love the place. I would love to live there, but would hesitate to walk around at night.

[stripeyman]

I have just discovered this thread and have found it to be the most interesting on the forum.

Firstly, I am not easily spooked and don't really believe in ghosts. I do however believe that if you have some knowldege of a location, this can influence your feelings about it. I am always sceptical about certain B&B owners on the Western Front who tell guests stories about supernatural happenings. Afetr all, their business is to make money and their motives can be questioned. However, despite the fact that I consider myself to be 'rational', I always feel a sense of unease, particularly on the Somme. This has been particularly been true of Mametz (I always find an excuse not to go) and the area around Beaumont Hamel. I would do many things before walking around the latter at night by myself. Theonly place I have felt peace is at the cemetry next to the Sheffield Memorial Park. I felt happy enough to fall asleep in the car whilst my chums wandered. I would never do this at Flatiron!

Having said this, I am drawn back ever year and truly love the place. I would love to live there, but would hesitate to walk around at night.

!981 Flatiron Copse cemetery, I was on my own having walked all the way round Mametz Wood. I went into the place and had a walk round the graves.

It was dusk, no bird song, silence and I started to talk to the dead/gravestones whatever..... and there was NO reply !

I was out of there at the double I probably spooked my self but it was very real at the time.

Bob Grundy

[KevinBattle]

Newcomer to the forum but found this thread quite interesting as it mirrors some aspects of what I have experienced.

I first noticed an "atmosphere" when I visited Culloden, it was as if a bubble had covered the battlefield. It was an autumn day and the guide shop was closed, which I thought unusual, but had the entire place to myself, just lost in the reverie of the story of the battle. I got a feeling of immense sadness, not surprisingly but when I "came out" of it after criss crossing from end to end and side to side noticed that although traffic was passing by quite close, there was hardly any sound, as if totally muffled. When I returned to the car, the road noise was noticeably louder, as if a door had opened.

Anyway, some years later, I was working with a chap who was into war gaming, detailed painting model soldiers and attending conventions, really into it. As I've always had a penchant for military history we got talking and moved from Napoleonic battles to WW1. He said he'd always wanted to go to the Somme as a relative (GF I think) had been killed there. We decided to go on a battlefield trip. he thought his relative had been killed near High Wood, but we first visited Serre Road. I seem to recall that we remarked on the way the cemeteries echeloned out over the fields from what we deduced was the start line. We walked to the one in the middle, then back towards a Pals (Accrington) monument and remains of a light railway. I recall that a farmer was ploughing but stopped while we were there (appreciated, don't realise they still care). Somewhere between the cemetery and the monument I recall there being something of a redoubt area, trenches etc and thats where I started to feel very uneasy. Glad to get away.

We then moved on eventually getting to High Wood about mid afternoon. Getting out of the car, High Wood was over to our right forward and I recall walking along to the cemetery with the Wood on the right. The cemetery entrance was on the left, but all the way along the road we both started to feel increasingly edgy, definitely centred on the Wood. Like the heaviness before a thunderstorm.

We went in to the cemetery, looked his relative up in the Book and went off to find him to pay our respects. That done, I wandered off as you do to give him some privacy and wandered over to the "back" from where I could still see him when he was ready to leave. Imagine my surprise when I looked down at the headstone to find the same surname, but a WW2 grave. When he had finished I called him over and he was dumbfounded to find that it was another relative but one he'd not thought to research. Neither of us could recall noticing another name when we first looked in the Book, but when we checked, there it was.

This was twenty or so years ago now, and having looked up my friends surname, I cannot trace a relative for both wars with that name, and I cannot recall any other name. I just remember the amazement we both had of finding a second relative for him in the same cemetery. What I do recall was that the WW2 relative had a date of death as sometime in JULY 1940. I thought by that time all the troops had either got back or had been captured.

Having read this long winded thread (sorry, but I felt some background required). I've now looked up for High Wood cemetery but believe it must be London. It was on the crest of a ridge with what I took to be High Wood on the right. Does anyone recognise this description so I can try to find the names, one in each war? Any suggestions as to why a death (mid July '40 as I recall) occurred when the BEF should have been out of the area? Perhaps a straggler, but how did he die rather than be taken prisoner?? Sorry, realise that's gone into a WW2 category, but thought I'd add to the thread.

[peterhogg]

Newcomer to the forum but found this thread quite interesting as it mirrors some aspects of what I have experienced.

I first noticed an "atmosphere" when I visited Culloden, it was as if a bubble had covered the battlefield. It was an autumn day and the guide shop was closed, which I thought unusual, but had the entire place to myself, just lost in the reverie of the story of the battle. I got a feeling of immense sadness, not surprisingly but when I "came out" of it after criss crossing from end to end and side to side noticed that although traffic was passing by quite close, there was hardly any sound, as if totally muffled. When I returned to the car, the road noise was noticeably louder, as if a door had opened.

Anyway, some years later, I was working with a chap who was into war gaming, detailed painting model soldiers and attending conventions, really into it. As I've always had a penchant for military history we got talking and moved from Napoleonic battles to WW1. He said he'd always wanted to go to the Somme as a relative (GF I think) had been killed there. We decided to go on a battlefield trip. he thought his relative had been killed near High Wood, but we first visited Serre Road. I seem to recall that we remarked on the way the cemeteries echeloned out over the fields from what we deduced was the start line. We walked to the one in the middle, then back towards a Pals (Accrington) monument and remains of a light railway. I recall that a farmer was ploughing but stopped while we were there (appreciated, don't realise they still care). Somewhere between the cemetery and the monument I recall there being something of a redoubt area, trenches etc and thats where I started to feel very uneasy. Glad to get away.

We then moved on eventually getting to High Wood about mid afternoon. Getting out of the car, High Wood was over to our right forward and I recall walking along to the cemetery with the Wood on the right. The cemetery entrance was on the left, but all the way along the road we both started to feel increasingly edgy, definitely centred on the Wood. Like the heaviness before a thunderstorm.

We went in to the cemetery, looked his relative up in the Book and went off to find him to pay our respects. That done, I wandered off as you do to give him some privacy and wandered over to the "back" from where I could still see him when he was ready to leave. Imagine my surprise when I looked down at the headstone to find the same surname, but a WW2 grave. When he had finished I called him over and he was dumbfounded to find that it was another relative but one he'd not thought to research. Neither of us could recall noticing another name when we first looked in the Book, but when we checked, there it was.

This was twenty or so years ago now, and having looked up my friends surname, I cannot trace a relative for both wars with that name, and I cannot recall any other name. I just remember the amazement we both had of finding a second relative for him in the same cemetery. What I do recall was that the WW2 relative had a date of death as sometime in JULY 1940. I thought by that time all the troops had either got back or had been captured.

Having read this long winded thread (sorry, but I felt some background required). I've now looked up for High Wood cemetery but believe it must be London. It was on the crest of a ridge with what I took to be High Wood on the right. Does anyone recognise this description so I can try to find the names, one in each war? Any suggestions as to why a death (mid July '40 as I recall) occurred when the BEF should have been out of the area? Perhaps a straggler, but how did he die rather than be taken prisoner?? Sorry, realise that's gone into a WW2 category, but thought I'd add to the thread.

[peterhogg]

Sorry, I think I messed up my first effort to reply. I am new to the forum though I have been reading it for years. I can contribute with a couple of odd experiences I have had during some of my visits to the Somme region. In November 2005 when I was staying at the lovely B & B at Bernafey Wood. I stayed there three nights and every night at around 3 am or so I was awoken by this odd sound coming from outside. The best way of describing it would be the sound of someone raking or scraping something along the gravel. Each time I looked out my window but it is so dark I was not able to see a thing. I am a sceptic and did not feel any sense of foreboding and I wonder, perhaps, if it might have been pheasants or other game wandering about. It just seemed like such an odd noise. It never lasted more than a few minutes each night. I was the only one staying there at the time so i could not compare notes with any other guests. Just as well, they may have put it down to a few too many quaffs at Le Tommy.

The other experience I have had repeatedly when I have stayed in the Somme region is that of noticing the remarkable silence of the cemeteries. I never feel uneasy or uncomfortable, but the silence in many sites, such as those on the Redan Ridge or the Ancre River cemetery near Hamel is, too use that over-used term, deafening. The "odd" thing is that on certain visits I have made to various Somme sites, it is as if all sound has been hushed, not just traffic but even the sounds of birds or the wind and any sounds one does hear, like your boots on the grass or the rustle of your jacket seem somehow amplified.

[Repulse]

Hi all.

We visited our first WWI sites last weekend, already posted elsewhere on this forum.

Like the majority probably here, I do not believe in ghosts, supernatural wot-not etc. For me seeing is believing, and I have never seen !

However - when I was standing in Essex Farm Cemetery taking some snaps, my camera started messing about. It's a modern digital zoom affair, Fuji. And I wouldn't mention this if I didn't think it odd.... I took pictures of the hospital bunker, the monument and an overview of the actual headstones. When I was trying to take these photos the camera zoomed into whatever I pointed it at. I had to 'stand' on the zoom out button with zeal to get it to operate correctly.

Every time I tried to take a snap it kept doing it. Zooming in and finding it very difficult to get it to zoom out. My first thoughts were "B*gger - I can't afford a new camera - bloody typical" ! I persisted and took the photos fighting the camera to get it to un-zoom.

We left the cemetery and went on to France to get the vin rouge and the train. The camera is fine. It hasn't missed a beat since and is operating as normal. I know what you're thinking... but the camera has never messed about before (and was a decent piece of kit which cost me some decent £).

Spooked ? No. Intrigued, yes.

[Ozzie]

Cemetries and noise.

It seemed no matter what cemetery we were in, both in Belgium and France, there would be doves calling, and yes, other than their call it was very quiet.

It got that way that I would pause while entering, to wait for their call.

[equusv]

I forgot another experience I had in Poelkappelle British Cemetery in March 2006. I'd been in the Salient for two weeks doing my research on John McCrae and staying at Varlet Farm. It had been cold, cloudy, windy. The day before I was to leave, I realized that I had not visited Poelkappelle British Cemetery even though it was very close to where I was staying. I walked through the entrance and the first thing I was moved to do was to say a prayer for all those spirits. As I finished it, I could feel the heat of the sun on my head and as 'woo woo' as it sounds, the clouds had literally parted and it was the first genuinely warm weather I experienced in those two weeks.

I walked straight to the back of the cemetery and an idea possessed me once there. I decided to walk every row and to say the name of every Canadian soldier there, because I thought that maybe no one had said their names aloud in a few decades. After half an hour I stopped and looked at how far I'd gone and was shocked to realize I'd only gone about a quarter of the way. Nothing has ever given me such a keen sense of the numbers. It took me an hour and 45 minutes to finish.

Bonfire

[Moston]

Kevin W4

The cemetery you're looking for is London Cemetery & Extension - Longueval - right opposite High Wood.

[Moston]

Admittedly this hasn't happened on the Western Front...but...

We all know just how tricky it is to really get any meaty detail about a random 'Other Rank''s movements etc.

I'll cut this story VERY short.

Met a guy 5 weeks ago for the first time. Once he knew of my interest in WW1 he states his Grandad won a DCM in 1916 - that's all the family knew.

He found me the name & date - within 10 days (mostly thanks to you lot on here!) I'd got a copy of the grandfathers citation, the Btn War Diary, worked out it was at Thiepval on 28th Sept 1916 with 10th Essex.

The war diary is very quiet for 28th Sept except for a sortie out into a trench where the only 'detail' given matched the citation of the blokes Grandad to the letter (although the diary is silent as to the name). It quoted a grid ref - but that was just one step too far for me as the only trench map I had of the area was not detailed enough.

We agreed to visit the site - which we will do on 31st Oct.

On clearing out my room I discover an A3 p-copy of a trench map - it's only of Thiepval - with the WW1 grid ref's marked on it. I use the Ref's given in the diary.......

So - from knowing nothing...the family now have the full story and I can take them to within 50 yards (ish) of the spot in Bulgar Trench their grandad won his DCM.

This is all a bit freaky to me !

[chrissielew]

Hi Everyone,

This is my first post though I have been a spellbound lurker for a number of months and thank you, I have learned lots about WW1 through reading many of your posts. I had a feeling it would be a subject such as this that would inspire me to add a post.

My Auntie Myra died in August '07 at the grand old age of 91 years. She never saw her father; he was killed fighting in the battle for Flers/Courcelette on 15th September 1916. (I have just ordered 2 of TP's books to learn more). He is at rest in Bulls Road Cemetery, Flers.

Myra was not my blood relative, she was my mother's best friend then she became mine and learning of her father Rifleman Arthur William Armitage, 18th KRRC, I researched him to the best of my ability without Kew. (a trip is a must in the near future)

Myra and I intended to visit his grave when I found out where he was from the CWGC site but we didn't ever make it there together with Myra becoming increasingly frail and less able to travel. I promised her that I would go and I made it this August in a tour van with the help of Geoff the tour guide. Being at this soldier’s graveside and those of so many others who gave this sacrifice was a beautiful and humbling experience and a privilege, though I did not have long enough and I desperately need to go back to have private moments there.

My family has a special tune 'The Sunshine of your Smile'. My grandmother had it as kind of a signature tune and she would sing it sweetly, I am told, in the tap room of the Wagon and Horses pub on Bradford Road in Huddersfield with my Auntie Gwen playing on the 'Joanna', with Myra, hubby Bert and all the locals joining in. The title phrase is engraved on my mother’s gravestone. The song was played at Myra's funeral.

On our way back from the Somme to Lille in the van, Geoff had stopped spouting knowledgeably and had put a CD on of war tunes. I had nodded off as had most of the party when I woke up suddenly. Then Sunshine of your Smile came on.

I realise this song must be from around that era but I don't think it's known as a war song particularly. I could be wrong but the best thing is I don't care.... because this meant so much to me.

I realise I have laid myself open to sceptisism here yet I felt so compelled to share this experience!

If you have got all the way through this story without a scoff or eyes raised to the ceiling then cheers chuck we must be on the same, (I think) very special wavelength.

Keep smiling!

Spellbound of Rothwell

[cockney tone]

Spellbound,

a really lovely post, thanks for sharing it with us. For your info I was in Flers on Wednesday!

The picture is great, she looked a bit of a character!

Regards,

Scottie.

[Rodge Dowson]

I am constantly taken a back by the posts on this thread.

For most of us who have more than a passing interest strange and unexplained happenings become a part of 'what we do'. There have been so many uncanny things that have happened to me since starting to research in more depth subjects on the great war than I can recall.

I have seen objects physically move in front of my eyes (and I used to be a solid sceptic) in two places on the western front, and I still don't walk across Newfoundland Park or walk down the track past Mametz Wood to the Dragon from Flat Iron Copse. I have also seen several unexplained and vivid photographs!

Some serious study of this subject seems to be awaiting, and I did intend to do something when I started this thread but other studies are mounting up.

thanks to all who have shared their own stories on here.

Rodge

[shawnt63]

Quote taken from Spellbound -

My family has a special tune 'The Sunshine of your Smile'. My grandmother had it as kind of a signature tune and she would sing it sweetly, I am told, in the tap room of the Wagon and Horses pub on Bradford Road in Huddersfield with my Auntie Gwen playing on the 'Joanna', with Myra, hubby Bert and all the locals joining in. The title phrase is engraved on my mother’s gravestone. The song was played at Myra's funeral.

On our way back from the Somme to Lille in the van, Geoff had stopped spouting knowledgeably and had put a CD on of war tunes. I had nodded off as had most of the party when I woke up suddenly. Then Sunshine of your Smile came on.

Spellbound, I think that is an awesome story and would like to believe that it was more than just coincidence. I have had one or two situations myself that make me go hmmmm. Your story is very uplifting and you can't beat that!

Cheers,

Shawn

[auchonvillerssomme]

And Ian did you have to rebuke Shawn quite so publicly.

Mick

[KIRKY]

Agree Mick, not all of us are completely Ok with the "ways of computers" and sometimes make mistake!

Fascinating stories, hope we hear of more.

Tony

[shawnt63]

Shawn - I quite agree that Spellbound's story is most interesting but did you really have to quote the entire thing inc the picture! This is unhelpful to the bandwidth that the Forum consumes and makes the thread unwieldy and cumbersome.

Ian, you are absolutely correct and I meant to edit it right away but got drawn off, I thought I had removed the picture but obviously missed

Situation now rectified

Thanks to those who supported my error, I appreciate the thought.

Cheers all

Shawn