Vimy Memorial google street view

[g-one]

Today is the 100th of Vimy Ridge and it's a very big deal here.
One thing I found very interesting is that it has now been mapped for google street view. It's one of the few preserved battle fields from the Great War and you can see into the trenches as well as the memorial.

https://www.google.com/maps/@50.3796686 ... 312!8i6656

https://www.google.com/maps/@50.371557, ... 312!8i6656

https://www.google.com/maps/@50.371605, ... 312!8i6656

[Lance]

The first link wouldn't open for me but the second one, wow. Thank you for sharing it.

[Heid the Ba]

It doesn't open for me either but it is this. The memorial looks out over the valley and dominates the vista.

The whole ridge is a memorial site with preserved trenches and a visitor centre. Areas of it are still fenced off and cratered as they have never cleared all of it of unexploded munitions. I was there about a decade ago and there was a coachload of Canadian teenagers there, all in matching hockey tops, of course. They were showing various degrees of interest in the whole thing (because teenagers) with one couple tucked away behind the bus with their hands down each others pants. I couldn't help but think that the squaddies would have approved.

[g-one]

Areas of it are still fenced off and cratered as they have never cleared all of it of unexploded munitions.

Apparently for this reason they do not cut the lawns, but rather, populate the area with sheep. (til PETA finds out)

[Lance]

sheep

Do they ever become fragmented?

[Enzo]

Fragmentation sheep? Assault voles?

[Lance]

I wonder if they are the Flying Sheep Monty Python spoke of.

Watch on youtube.com

[g-one]

sheep

Do they ever become fragmented?

It's sort of like the slap-chop of haggis.

[Lance]

It's sort of like the slap-chop of haggis.

[Heid the Ba]

Got the link to open now, they must have used a drone for some of it.

[Lance]

Have the trenches been restored? And would they have been stone lined originally?

[Heid the Ba]

They have been re-instated with concrete filled sandbags rather than earth. Trenches tended to have to be redug or repaired on a regular basis in part due to artillery and in part due to rain. I think the first day of Arras/Vimy was fought in a snowstorm just to add to the shittiness of it all. At least the BEF had the wind at their backs while the Bavarians on the ridge were staring into it.

This view shows the craters etc. which are still there from 1917, the fence and red "Danger" sign are to keep the unwary out of trouble. The area that is now restored trenches would have been as undulating, muddy and without the trees in April 1917. The BEF had its act together by then and could lay down very accurate, very effective barrages which would trash most things.

[Lance]

I've never seen anything like this. It's really something. It must have been terrible to have been there.

[Lianachan]

I've never seen anything like this. It's really something. It must have been terrible to have been there.

Aye, not great. Trench warfare tends to be associated with WW1, but was used a fair bit in the US Civil War. I don't know if there are any preserved or restored sections to visit, though.

[Scottish aside]There are quite a lot of WW1 trenches in my area, dug to protect gun emplacements or as training for troops. Scotland has more length of surviving WW1 trenches than Belgium. I'm involved in the Home Front Legacy Project, and have been out surveying and recording WW1 sites in the Highlands.[/Scottish aside]

[Arneb]

I visited a few Alsatian memorials, and it is terrifying and heart-wrenching, imagining what went on there in a landscape that today couldn't be any more peaceful and serene.