The First World War, From Above

18 Replies to “The First World War, From Above”

1. Thank you Kate for the link.

2. Tears in my eyes. That last few minutes of the last clip. Oh man.

3. As much as many prognosticators and so-called experts are saying President Obama is going to have a tough time getting re-elected, the reality of the situation is that President Obama will get re-elected against almost any potential GOP challenger.
   However, one candidate cannot be over-looked. If we learned anything from 2008, we should’ve learned that organization and social media skills are paramount to a campaign. No one is actually going to “come out of nowhere”. To become the most powerful person in the world, you have to build quite an organization. That’s why only one person has a chance to beat President Obama in 2012.
   This will make it all clear:
   http://mittromneycentral.com/2010/05/07/no-apology-song-the-case-for-american-greatness/

4. That’s a heck of a neat song, No Apology. Pretty well says it all.
   Romney/Palin would be unbeatable, and that’s with Romney for President.

5. A two volume history of Canadians in The Great War.
   I. Canadians Fighting The Great War 1914-1916 “At The Sharp End”
   II. Canadians Fighting The Great War 1917-1918 “Shock Troops”
   Author: Tim Cook
   http://www.amazon.ca/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Dca-books-english-tree&field-keywords=At+the+Sharp+End&x=12&y=17

6. Some amazing scenes. The last Canadian soldier of the Great War died just a year or so ago. The last one out of some 600,000.

7. The first and last Canadian soldiers killed in the First World War lie in the same cemetery near Mons, which shows how far the lines moved back and forth. I have flown over Vimy Ridge and the terrain still looks like an egg carton with all the overgrown shell holes. All Canadians should, at some time in the their, lives visit Vimy – it builds patriotism like no other site; it is also a part of Canada, given by the French people in perpetuity.

8. I’m very disappointed with this whole program. It’s absolutely chock full of inventions of fact and I wouldn’t accept anything from it without verification.
   Other than that, thank you for posting it Kate.

9. I’m at a loss for words. Thank you for posting this, Kate.
   One thing that always deeply moves me when seeing these old or new photos, or in this case, this old and very historic newsreel, is the vast size of the military cemeteries in Europe. Acres after acres after acres of fallen heroes.
   May their souls rest in peace and may we always remember their sacrifice, their “last, full measure of devotion”.

10. Very cool – sort of the opposite of the allies in Afghanistan.
    The desert landscape is barren, we drop our bombs and towns and villages appear with schools, discos, and internet cafes.

11. Unbelieveable footage. As I was growing up in Montreal, I was very conscious of the effects of the war. Both grandparents, each a sea captain, killed when their ships were torpedoed. All three of my uncles killed in the war, two in the defence of Hongkong, and the third brutally murdered in a Japanese prisoner of war camp after he was captured in Singapore. My own father horribly wounded when his Mitchells bomber crashed and burned after takeoff.
    All of this occurred before I was even born, which was in 1948.
    But given that we were living in a post war housing development designed to accomodate returning veterans, every kid I knew had the same experience…we were all products of the war, and that was the one thing that we that we really knew about..it was the absolute common bond that we had.
    We were all pretty much impoverished, since our parents had all put their lives on hold to fight in the war, and as a consequence, had nothing financially to show for what would have been their peak earning years.
    I am now financially very successful. I think probably because of what I experienced as a post war kid. My children, both in early 30s, have no conception whatever of what my parents went through and what my generation of post war kids went through. I have probably shamelessly spoiled them, simply because of the fact that I grew up with so little.
    So be it…every generation eventually has to make their way in life.

12. Bruce, Thanks for that I thought I was the only one.

13. We visited the Passchendaele / Ypres area in September of this year, taking a guided tour from Brugge. The day left us wordless and exhausted, proud of the courage and endurance of the troops, and saddened by the futility and waste of it all.
    A trip to the Vimy memorial a couple of days later was, as Aviator suggests above, unforgettable. Find a way. Go.

14. Thanks for this Kate.
    Bruce, exactly and I and the family generation before me can identify with what you say.
    What is sad though is that there are more than a few who want to throw it away for some Utopian dream that does not nor ever can have any basis in reality.

15. Something to remember whenever the topic of French bravery pops up.
    Those people had to brave that level of destruction all through the ‘Great War’, and then reclaim a bloodied landscape alongside those who survived trench warfare.

16. “As much as many prognosticators and so-called experts are saying President Obama is going to have a tough time getting re-elected, the reality of the situation is that President Obama will get re-elected against almost any potential GOP challenger.
    However, one candidate cannot be over-looked…”
    OK Dan, I’ll bite- what in Hell does your blurb have to do with WWI footage?
    And no, Romney can’t win either- he’s a tired old Republican retread.
    The Stupid Party needs new blood and fresh faces.

17. I have to agree with wingwalker above.
    In Part I of the BBC documentary, the presenter implies that he is walking through an Allied trench when in fact the scene was filmed in a German trench in Belgium (Bayernwald).
    Bayernwald is one of the very few trenches preserved to modern times in conditions similar to the original. Moreover, the documentary failed to show (at least in the part I saw) the fascinating cement bomb shelters of this trench.

18. I went to the front line at Ypres more or less by accident. Got off the bus at Hellfire Corner largely because it seemed to be heading too far out of town, and started walking towards St. Julien. It took me a while to realize where I was and what I was seeing. I kept thinking, “There are a lot of gardens in this valley, but what are those curious white flowers?” Then I approached the first one: it was a cemetery. Those were white crosses. That was Passchendaele on the other side of the gulley. I’d wandered into the Valley of the Shadow of Death.
    I’ll never forget it. It was overwhelming.