10,000 PILGRIMS

Manawatu Standard, Volume XLVIII, Issue 208, 1 August 1928, Page 5

10,000 PILGRIMS

MENIN GATE MEMORIES. FROM ALL PARTS OF EMPIRE. The most solemn and spectacular phase of the pilgrimage of Empire war veterans to the battlefields of France and Flanders this month will be the service of remembrance at Menin Gate, followed by the triumphant march past of the Prince of Wales. These ceremonies have been fixed for August 8. Particulars of the pilgnmago programme, received from London by the Sydney Returned Soldiers’ League, show that the 10,000 pilgrims, rallied from every corner of the earth over which the Union Jack is flown, will arrive on August 5 at Amiens, which will be made the base for excursions to the notable battlefields of the Somme, including Villiers, Bretonneux, Beaucourt, Beaumont Hamel, Grandcourt, Warlencourt, Thiepval, and, Courcelctte. On August 8, beginning at 7 a.m., trains will land the pilgrims at Ypres, in time for the ceremonies at Menin Gate, at 11.30 a.m.

SOME BILLETED IN PRISON

Pilgrims will be billeted in public institutions at Yyres, including the old prison, part of which remains as it was at the end of the war. After wreaths have been deposited at Menin Gate, the parties will march in a great column to the Grand Palace and on the Cloth Hall, where the Prince will take the salute.. Inside the arch on the Menin Gate, and on the steps from the centre of the arch to the ramparts, on either side, are engraved the names of the thousands who fell in the salient but have no known grave. Sufficient space was not available for all the names on the gate, and a further list of those, who have no known graves has been engraved on the memorial at Tyne Cot Cemetery, on the Passchendaele Ridge.