On the 3rd of September I visited the World War 1 battlefields surrounding the small Belgian town of Ypres. This town was never captured by the Germans, however the front line was only a few miles away for the duration and so by the end of the war the town was completely destroyed by German artillery. This area is of particular importance to NZ as we played a major part in the Third Battle of Ypres in 1917. This battle had the aim of straightening the British lines and hopefully providing a breakthrough towards the town of Passchendale and the German held Dutch sea ports. Passchendale was eventually captured after many months of fighting and many lives lost but there was no break through. This battle became synonymous with the wasteful and futile nature of trench warfare.
There are many cemeteries and memorials in this area however due to limited time I only concentrated on the NZ memorials.
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