Known Unto God

Our trip around the Somme today started in the Musee Franco-Australien in Villers-Bretonneux which is in part of the village school. The Victoria school was rebuilt after the war with money raised by the children of the state of Victoria in Australia.

Visits to the Lochnagar bomb crater, Pozieres, Colincamps and Thiepval filled the remainder of the day.

The Thiepval Memorial, the Memorial to the Missing of the Somme has the names of more than 72,000 soldiers engraved on its walls. These men, from the UK and South Africa have no known grave and had died in the Somme sector before 20th March 1918.

Below the memorial are graves of Commonwealth and France soldiers. This image is of one of these but has not been identified. The flowers are Geums which I also have growing at home.

Tomorrow I take my friends to Paris then head home. As expected it has been an emotional but very rewarding trip.