HISTORIC PLACES

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume LX, Issue 18235, 2 November 1933, Page 11

HISTORIC PLACES

BATTLEFIELDS VISITED MENIN GATE MEMORIAL Mr. and Mrs. R. Watson, of Nelson, who have returned to the Dominfcn, visited battlefields in Belgium and France, and they gave an interesting account of these in an interview with a Wellington Post reporter. It was marvellous, they said, the number of tourists who vipite<! thesOj historic fields. “We visited Messines, l’asschendaele, and IJill 60,’’ said Mr. Watson. “Hill 60 was. one of the most deadly places, I think, in the war. We went into the trenches our boys were in. With the exception that the passing years have played ja hand, they are little different from when the boys walked out. There are rifles and rusting machine-guns there, pointing in the direction of the German trenches. There is water underfoot, and conditions in this respect are frightful. There are helmets and bayonets lying about, and pieces of tunics. The field all around is just one mass of metal, and people take stones and cartridge cases away .with them as mementoes. I myself brought back a cartridge case.” Continuing, Mr. Watson said they went down the Menin road, which was 26 miles long, to Ypres. Since the war rows of trees had been planted on each side of the road, and these were now about 9in. through. Mr. Watson, described the Menin Gate, on which lie said were carved the names of 56,000 missing men. It was an everlasting and very fine memorial. At Messines they saw a huge mound of earth. It was British soil, sent from Britain, and under it British soldiers were buried. They saw also the wall which bore witness to the shooting of Nurse Cavell, and then they went on up to the field of Waterloo. There was a house there where Napoleon spent bis last night, and in a little village close by there was a house where Wellington stayed Another striking spectacle, which was described by Mrs. Watson, was a monument 300ft.‘ high, built by Belgian women, who carried the material in theTY'ise and it rose up like a pyramid. At the top there was a representation of the head of a British lion. The monument was erected to celebrate the victory of the Battle of Waterloo. Mr. Watson said they saw hundreds of cemeteries, particularly in Belgium, and all were beautifully kept. The names of well-known places in the war, such as, for instance, Hellfire Corner, were still to be seen posted up. Another interesting place visited by Mr. and Mrs. Watson was Che Cloth Hall in Belgium. “They have rebuilt on the outside of the remains of the old walls,” said Mr. Watson, “and a quarter of a million has been spent on the work up to now. Belgium is a new country, with new houses and new streets, and the streets are. up-to-date.”