A party of 20 Cadets and Adult Instructors from B Coy thoroughly enjoyed a week-long educational Battlefield Tour of WW1 and WW2 sites in Belgium and France.

It was organised by SSI Roger Hemp and SI Marc Hope from Southwold (Army Air Corps) Det, B Coy, Suffolk ACF.

The Cadets and Adults came from Leiston (Royal Anglian), Lowestoft (Queen's Dragoon Guards), Lowestoft (Royal Artillery) and Southwold (Army Air Corps) Detachments.

Other accompanying Adults were: SMI John Graham (Leiston); SSI Brian Askew (Lowestoft QDG), Tracey MacAlpine and Emma Wilshaw (Southwold).

Included on the tour were visits to the Ypres and Somme Battlefields, 318 EOD Belgian Army Depot, Delville Wood Museum and the Todt Gun Battery.

At the Menin Gate in Ypres, a wreath was laid at the Last Post ceremony. It has taken place there each evening since 1928. This huge memorial is one of two (the other at Thiepval) erected on the Western Front to record the names of the 55 000 British and Empire soldiers missing in action in the Ypres area and whose bodies were never found.

We all wish to sincerely thank those who gave donations and made the tour possible.

Roger Hemp
SSI
Southwold (Army Air Corps) Det, B Coy, Suffolk ACF

Right: Press Cutting from the Lowestoft Journal, reproduced with acknowledgement.

Additional text and photographs below by Major John L Raybould TD, Webmaster Suffolk ACF

WORLD WAR ONE 1914-1918
Sanctuary Wood at Paschendale
The Front Line trenches are pictured left and right.

No Known Grave
558 979 British Servicemen and women were killed and 1 839 015 were wounded on the Western front in WW1. At the Menin Gate and at Thiepval are massive memorials to remember those who have no known grave.

Over the Top
An appreciation of the terrible waste of literally thousands and thousands of young lives on just one day, when our soldiers went 'over the top' on 1st July 1916 at the start of the Battle of the Somme will stay with me forever. No matter how much you already know or have read about the Great War only a visit to Flanders or the Somme can bring alive the sheer horror of it all.

WORLD WAR TWO 1939-1945
TODT Museum
At Audinghen, Cap Gris-Nez, between Calais and Boulogne, the Battery TODT is fascinating. It houses the Museum 39/45 of the Atlantic Wall. Thousands of British, American and German artefacts, uniforms, weapons, motor-cycles are on display.
Inaugurated on 10 Feb 1942, the walls of the Battery visible from the road are 32' high with 30' below ground. Inside, now removed, there was a 15" (380mm) gun that fired 1800lb shells, 6' long, at Dover during WW2.
Unique in Europe is a 35m long, 280 mm calibre German railway gun mounted on its original locomotive wheels.