Just over a century ago, the guns ceased firing in the deadliest war that the modern world had seen, the First World War. The military casualties were on a huge scale; in the region of 900,000 British died and there were 1.7 million military wounded. German, French, Austro-Hungarian and Russian losses were each even greater. All of us will have learnt about this at school, but another level of appreciation is gained by visiting some of the locations of the battles, which now have huge cemeteries and memorials to those whose graves were never found.

Those of us fortunate enough to take part in Paul Bennett’s Battlefield Tour of 2025 had a deeply memorable experience, not only through observing the vast scale of the cemeteries and memorials but also by hearing the personal accounts of some of those on the tour whose antecedents had fought and died. Paul made time in the schedule for several of us to do that: Jeremy Harrison, Walter Burns (71-78), Jonathan Shorer (63-71), Ian Tate (77-79), Christian Carver, Will Treasure (74-79), Andrew Beckett (62-69), and Paul Bennett.

Very touching too were the inscriptions on some of the tombstones. Families of the fallen were able to add a few personal words, some of which are deeply poignant and reveal the depth of grief felt by the families at home.

Our tour lasted just three days across the Channel, yet we took in almost twenty locations, cemeteries and battlefield vantage points, mostly from the First World War but including the La Coupole Museum and the Dunkirk beaches from the Second World War. We began at the Wimereux military cemetery on the coast, where the dead were largely casualties evacuated to the military hospital there who did not survive; these included Hugh Lipscomb, one of several OPs serving with the Canadian Army, who is buried close to the grave of John McCrae, author of In Flanders Fields.

The next morning we visited the Sheffield Memorial Park and Railway Hollow at Serre, in the Somme battlefield. There, and frequently later on the tour too, I was most grateful for the background explanations provided by Callum Braidwood-Smith and Hugh Richards, respectively Heads of History at Pocklington and Huntington Schools, as well as by Paul. At Sheffield Memorial Park they explained how British artillery unknowingly used the wrong type of shells in the pre-battle bombardment, attempting to obliterate the German barbed wire. Tragically, the fragmentation shells that they used had little effect on the wire, but the troops – largely pals battalions who had joined up enthusiastically at the start of the war – were ordered to advance nevertheless, at walking pace. Few survived.

At the Schwaben Redoubt we arrived just in time for the arrival of a Northern Irish marching band making their salute to the Ulster Tower.

We went on to the enormous Thiepval Memorial and Cemetery, the massive Lochnagar Crater at La Boiselle and the cemeteries at Hermies Hill and Villers Bretonneux before our second night at Arras. At Villers-Bretonneux are the Australian National Memorial and the Sir John Monash Centre, both of which we visited. They stand near the site of one of the decisive battles of the war, when the Germans were ejected from the village that stood in their path to Amiens. The Australians, under Monash, were crucial in the battle. Monash was arguably the most imaginative and gifted general of the war. His tenets of meticulous planning and deception of the enemy were recognised and followed up by other allied commanders.

After a ‘run ashore’ in Amiens, we boarded our coach again on the Sunday morning for a visit to Vimy Ridge, where the towering Canadian National Vimy Memorial stands. The capture of Vimy Ridge by the Canadians (9-12 April 1917) was a major achievement that has been attributed largely to meticulous planning, innovation, heavy artillery support and extensive training. As with the Australians at Villers-Bretonneux, the effort helped to forge their nation.

Our day continued with visits to the cemeteries at Lijssenthoek and Poperinghe, the In Flanders Fields Museum in Ypres and the German cemetery at Langemarck. Finally, that afternoon we visited the Tyne Cot Cemetery near Passchendaele, the largest cemetery for Commonwealth forces in the world. It is on a sobering scale. As with the other Commonwealth cemeteries that we visited, it is meticulously kept by the Commonwealth War Graves Commission.

In the evening we returned to Ypres for the Last Post Ceremony at the Menin Gate, which takes place every evening at 20:00. We were greatly honoured that Tony Morris (52-55) of our party, wearing his own medals and his father’s Military Cross (Poelcapelle 1917),  was chosen to deliver the Exhortation and the Kohima Epitaph that night.  Led by Christian Craver, father of the current Head Boy, nine members of our party drawn from OPs as well as current and former parents, governors and staff, laid three wreaths.

On our final day we visited the La Coupole Museum, which is housed in tunnels under an escarpment that were intended to form an impregnable base of the assembly of V-2 rockets in the late stages of the Second World War. It can be regarded as one of Hitler’s follies, as it was constructed at great cost, in the lives of slave labourers as well as money, but was so comprehensively bombed by the Allies that it was never used. From there we proceeded to the Dunkirk beaches, with an opportunity to stretch our legs in the walk across the dunes.

As one of the thirty-odd on the tour, I remain deeply impressed by the experience, bringing home to me the sacrifices that were made generations in our recent past. Thanks to the erudite commentary provided by Callum, Hugh and Paul, I learnt much about the war and how it was fought, how the allies developed their tactics as the war progressed and how innovations such as tanks contributed to eventual victory. If you have the chance of a similar visit in the future, don’t let it pass!

(Andrew Beckett, 62-69)