Flanders Fields Weatherman Walking

This is a different kind

of Weatherman Walking.

I'm crossing the Channel to follow

in the footsteps of those

brave Welshman who fought

in the First World War.

I'm going to Belgium,

to Passchendaele in Flanders Fields,

places I've always wanted to visit.

This is a guide to the battlefield.

It's not that far away,

and I'm going to try and find out

what it was like for Welsh soldiers

in that terrible war.

This programme has

brought me to Belgium.

I'm in the historic town of Ypres.

Thousands of Welsh soldiers fought

here during the First World War

and sadly, many died.

The most famous was the poet

Hedd Wyn, and I will be

visiting his grave, along with other

places with a Welsh connection.

To get to Ypres, you travel

from Wales across to the channel

ports and then over to Calais

by ferry or in the tunnel.

Then it's across the French

border and into Belgium.

Then on to Ypres, or "Leper",

as it's called in Flemish.

It's a drive of just over

an hour from Calais.

My guides are Tonie and Valmai Holt.

They've been visiting

the area for over 40 years,

and publish acclaimed guidebooks

to the battlefields.

Tony and Valmai, so

pleased to meet you.

Nice to see you.

Oh, Derek, the famous

Welsh weatherman!

Now, you're going to show me

around First World War

battlefield sites around Ypres,

especially those

connected to the Welsh.

We are indeed.

Valmai was a Williams,

so she's really Welsh,

and I'm only a proxy Welsh person.

Well, that'll do.

Looking forward to it.

Let's go.

Ypres was a battleground

for over four years,

as it stood right in the way

of the German advance.

I'll be visiting places mostly

within a few miles of the town

where Welsh troops saw action.

The first is five miles

to the east of Ypres

in the village of Gheluvelt.

When the First World War

started in August 1914,

the German army drove

through neutral Belgium

to attack France.

The British stopped the Germans

at Ypres, and Welsh soldiers

were in the thick of the fighting,

right from the start.

Our first stop is the

chateaux at Gheluvelt.

Here, on October 31st 1914,

a small band of Welsh soldiers took

part in a last ditch defence

against the might

of the German army.

If they'd lost, it could have

changed the whole course of the war.

Well, this is a lovely spot.

Why have you brought me here?

Well, we're at the beginning

of the war and it has

been a very mobile war.

The Germans who invaded

Belgium were pushed right

down nearly to Paris.

And then we pushed them

back to this area.

They were trying to get...

the Germans trying to get

to the Channel ports.

If they could get to the Channel

ports, maybe the war would be over.

Now, General French,

who was commanding the British

forces, was about a mile down

the road and he said there was one

hour in that one day,

that was the critical hour.

And that hour was between two

o'clock and three o'clock.

And within that hour,

the action that mattered

was the action of the Welsh,

and where were the Welsh?

They were around here.

Just tell me what you see when you

look at that chateau, Derek.

Beautiful.

Calm building, lovely setting.

This is how it was

during the battle.

And here is already

a poor dead German.

And here's a wounded man.

And you can see that the chateau

is being disintegrated as well.

So that lovely building you see now

was rebuilt after the war.

And the bayonets here

belonged to the Worcesters.

The Worcesters had been the reserve,

and Sir John French was so worried

about things here that he called up

the reserve who were about half

a mile away in woods over there.

They had to come half a mile under

German fire to get to the chateau,

and then at the chateau they did

a bayonet charge and the bayonet

charge, combined with

the Welsh resistance,

stopped the German advance.

Gave us time to breathe,

time to defend Ypres,

maybe save the day, maybe

save the war.

It's hard to imagine a battle taking

place in such a tranquil setting.

But just up the road

is a reminder of the human cost

of this brutal encounter.

of this brutal encounter.

Here we are at the memorials

to those men who fought

and died on the 31st

October, 1914.

Here's the memorial

to the Borderers.

They had about 200, 220 survivors.

And the 2nd Welsh, they were down

to three officers, 93 men.

Such is the price of glory.

Such is the price of glory.

And what summarises this

all is a little treasure

that we were so lucky to find.

And I'm going to ask you,

if you would be so kind, Derek,

as to read this letter

from the commander-in-chief

of the area, Sir John French,

which I find very moving.

"The gallantry and tenacity

of the men in the trenches in that

"memorable battle in face of vastly

superior numbers, "barred the way

to the Channel ports,

"and thereby saved England

and the Empire from

a great disaster."

Such bravery.

By Christmas 1914, the British

and German armies faced each other

across lines of trenches.

You may have heard the famous story,

the Christmas truce,

when soldiers from both sides put

down their weapons and some of them

even played a game of football.

One of the places where

Welsh soldiers took part

in the truce is south of Ypres,

in the town of Freilingen.

So we've just come across

the border into France.

What exactly happened here, then?

This is the front line

at the end of 1914.

The British on this side,

the Germans on that

side, come together.

So that extraordinary thing that

happened here was a truce

between the two armies.

So it is not a myth,

it really did happen.

It really did happen.

And we know that because it was

extraordinary well-documented,

by a private soldier

in the Royal Welch Fusiliers.

Name of Frank Richards.

Extraordinary because it is normally

officers who do the memoirs,

but Frank Richards described how

they came out of their trenches

and they met the Germans.

The German company commander

asked if he'd accept

a couple of barrels of beer,

and assured him they would not

make his men drunk.

They had plenty of it

in the brewery.

And at the end of the evening,

he described - "the two

barrels of beer were drunk.

"And the German officer was right.

"If it was possible for a man

to have drunk the two barrels

himself, "he would have burst before

he got drunk.

"French beer was rotten stuff."

"French beer was rotten stuff."

The Christmas truce was brief,

and both sides went back

to the war of the trenches,

which soon stretched from

the English Channel to Switzerland.

Just outside of Ypres,

at Sanctuary Wood,

is a surviving example of one

of these trench systems.

It was left untouched by the farmer

after the war and although it has

been repaired over the years,

it gives an authentic idea

of what it must have been like to be

part of trench warfare.

You've got to watch

your head, haven't you?

You have to watch your head -

much more than just your head

if you were here during the war.

I mean, each side had

different types of trench.

The Germans produced quite different

trenches to the British,

but as the war went on,

particularly in a position something

like Ypres, the same ground,

the same ground was fought over

for anything like four years,

the trenches began to be filled up

with sandbags and dead bodies.

Dead bodies?

Bodies, because of the number

of people killed.

It was impossible sometimes to clear

the battlefield of bodies.

I mean, it's the apocryphal story,

I think, probably, but of a hand

that stuck out from a dead body

and as the soldiers came

in and went out of the trench

they would shake the hand.

And one observer commented

upon the fact that one

of the fingers had a ring on it

and the ring stayed there.

Nobody stole it.

Comradeship grew out

of the trenches.

You relied upon the man next to you.

He relied upon you.

He relied upon you.

And I'm surprised in coming here,

Valmai, that the trenches,

they're not in a straight

line, are they?

But in zigzags.

Why is that?

It is a very practical

reason, Derek.

Imagine if you're in a trench,

a long straight trench.

A German managed to get

to the trench with a machine gun,

he could mow the whole row

of men down.

So this is for their protection

or if a bomb was thrown

into a trench, a whole section

could be put out.

So really it is for

the protection of the men.

As well as the trenches,

there's also a small

museum at Sanctuary Wood.

It's well worth a visit,

as it's packed to the rafters

with First World War memorabilia.

It really is an amazing collection.

So many different things to see.

Yeah, it is extraordinary, isn't it?

You've got the shell cases up there.

You've got Picklehaube helmets,

you've got figures.

Don't forget the rum jars there,

that's very important.

Oh, the rum jars, yes.

Very important.

Oh, yes.

SRD.

The letters SRD on them, which means

"seldom reaches destination".

And what about these things here?

These wooden boxes?

What are they?

Ahh, now, Derek, come and sit down

here and all will be revealed.

Now, these are machines

like What The Butler Saw, in a way.

And they give you the most

incredible 3-D impressions,

of the actual reality of war.

Some of them are quite horrific.

Well, I can see into

one of the trenches.

With the high sides,

a couple of soldiers.

And some machinery.

Some of the pictures

are really shocking.

Dead bodies, devastation,

destruction.

Must have been awful.

Telling, isn't it?

It really makes you

think, doesn't it?

Yeah.

It does, and I think it adds

a dimension to a battlefield tour,

the dimension of time.

There it is.

Dead bodies.

You don't see those

on a battlefield tour, but you do

when you look through there.

when you look through there.

It was really shocking looking

at those photographs.

It brought home to me

the sheer scale of the war.

Welsh regiments fought many famous

battles around Ypres,

including the defence of Frezenberg

by the First Monmouths.

There are still signs

of the war everywhere.

Tonie and Valmai took me

to an old German bunker which Welsh

soldiers captured in 1917.

There's a plaque here

to the Welsh division.

It's a German defensive bunker.

It's a German defensive bunker.

In 1917 the Welsh attacked across

this field in what became known

as the Battle of Passchendaele.

And there are lots of interesting

things about this bunker.

And the Germans literally built

hundreds of them on the ridge,

the Passchendaele Ridge,

towards which the Welsh

were heading.

So, they took them and a couple

of other bunkers as well,

together with help from

other regiments but then

they proceeded that way.

And just around the corner

was a rather nasty surprise.

What is that?

It's not a shell, is it?

It's a shell.

And whatever you do,

Derek, do not touch it.

It's not safe?

It's totally unstable.

It's what they call

the iron harvest.

This happens all the time.

Every time a farmer ploughs

a field he'll find some,

and stack it at the corner

of the farm, and the Belgian army

come round, collect them and then

have a controlled explosion.

This bunker was really

built to last.

It is now being used

as a farm building.

Oh, wow.

Almost certainly a command

or telephone exchange, I'd say,

judging by the structure.

It's not very comfortable, is it?

No, it's not designed to be.

But you see it's probably built

round a very early structure.

You see the size of those bricks?

They are very small.

They are very local bricks.

Not much good if you're

six foot tall.

No.

But in those days they weren't quite

that tall, were they?

Difference in height.

We're talking 100 years ago.

People didn't eat as much, didn't

have such good food, did they?

A mile or so from the bunker

is a site of huge significance

to all Welsh visitors.

Elis Evans was a soldier

from North Wales, who was killed

near this spot on July 31, 1917.

Just weeks before he was awarded

the main poetry prize

at the National Eisteddfod.

He wrote under the pen

name Hedd Wyn.

Derek, I'd like you to look

at this memorial here.

It is to Hedd Wyn.

It was put up about 24 years ago.

This is become the centre of Welsh

commemoration in this area.

And I'd like you to look

at the bottom plaque

and to read what's on it.

Yeah, it is great, isn't it?

Yes.

BOTH: And poetry in your soul!

How true is that!

Yep.

We're going to take you to see yet

another memorial, Derek.

A national Welsh memorial.

And you're going to meet some very

special people there.

I had a dream, knowing what happened

here. Many soldiers lost their lives

and I decided to do something with

my neighbour. This is it, just here.

I know that headwind is very special

to you all. Can you tell me why? --

Hedd Wyn.

He's a special poet for

Wales and he's a role model for the

Welsh in the war. All of the Welsh

regiments were a mixture of the

territorials. It really stands for

the nation of Wales and their war

effort.

And the daffodils are

absolutely beautiful, why did you

plant them?

We planted daffodils for

each dead soldier. 40,000 Welsh

soldiers lost their lives and we did

that too, married them.

Thank you so

much for helping to keep the memory

of all those soldiers that died in

the First World War alive.

Hedd Wyn died of his

wounds on 31 July 1917.

He's buried about a mile up

the road from the memorial,

at Artillery Wood Cemetery.

We're looking for Hedd

Wyn in the cemetery.

He is buried out here

amidst all the others.

And the way we find him is to look

in the register box,

which you'll find in most

Commonwealth War Graves

Commission Cemeteries,

and here you'll find a register.

So, what you do is you look up

the name in the register,

although if you looked up Hedd Wyn

you wouldn't find it.

Why is that?

Because his name is

Elis Humphrey Evans.

So we have to look him up.

So you find him, alphabetical

order, of course.

And at the end of the entry

you'll find Roman numeral

two, letter F, 11.

That means we go to block two,

Row F, and grave 11

and that will be Hedd Wyn.

Well, here he is.

Hedd Wyn.

Well, here he is.

Hedd Wyn.

Hedd Wyn.

It's a long way from North Wales,

but a very peaceful spot.

It's lovely, isn't it?

So a little Welsh tribute for him.

Hedd Wyn was killed at the beginning

of the Battle of Passchendaele,

one of the bloodiest encounters

of the whole First World War.

It's estimated that nearly a quarter

of a million British soldiers

were casualties during the four

months of the battle,

which took its name

from a small Belgian village

on the outskirts of Ypres.

We are standing on the

Passchendaele Ridge.

This was German territory.

In fact, if you look that way,

you can see a couple of spires.

That's the centre of Ypres.

That's the centre of Ypres.

We Brits were down there for three

and a half years trying to get up

here on the ridge where the Germans

are, and the Germans

on the ridge were trying to get

down there to Ypres,

where we were.

And why we remember it

particularly, is because of

the weather, oddly enough.

Because the weather

in October of '17...

well, what was the weather

in October of '17?

It was very wet.

There was much more rainfall

than usual, so this whole area

turned into a swamp.

Exactly so.

And Derek, I've got a photo to show

you the results of that weather

you were talking about.

That's appalling.

Absolute quagmire.

Thick clay, Flanders mud

in which men drowned.

Huge pools of water.

Yes.

Yes.

If you can imagine what it must have

been like coming up there.

We did it for 16 weeks.

Before the Germans finally withdrew

from Passchendaele village,

it was taken by the Canadians.

It's that length of time

that we kept going through the rain,

and the mud, and the gas,

and the guns that

people find fault with.

That is the battle of Passchendaele.

That's why we remember it.

It's hard to imagine

the horrors of Passchendaele

and the huge loss of life,

but near the village is

a Commonwealth War Graves Cemetery.

The scale of which simply

takes your breath away.

Well, I've never been to a cemetery

as big as this before.

I'm not surprised, Derek.

This is Tyne Cot Cemetery.

It is the biggest Commonwealth War

Graves Cemetery in the whole world.

And how many soldiers

are buried here?

We do believe 12,000.

That many?

It's horrific, isn't it?

You can't really take it in.

And you know, of the 12,000,

about 8,000 of them

were never identified.

And, if you look around,

I'm sure soon we'll see a headstone,

a soldier of the Great War,

and at the bottom it

says "known unto God".

And we give a stone like that

to every unknown soldier.

And that's why there

just are so many.

Visiting Tyne Cot is an experience

I will never forget.

Alongside the 12,000 gravestones

is a wall with the names of another

35,000 soldiers whose bodies

were never found.

But sometimes, it is the individual

stories that really give

you pause for thought.

Oh, Derek, look,

there's a Welsh grave.

Drummer G Brown,

Royal Welsh Fusiliers.

Yes, that's very interesting,

actually, that he is a drummer.

So he's probably a member

of the regimental band.

And in warfare the band

become stretcher-bearers,

so the chances are that G Brown,

Drummer Brown was probably

stretcher-bearing

when he was killed.

And he was of course

killed during the Battle

of Passchendaele itself,

October 1917.

German casualties at Passchendaele

were even higher than the British,

with half a million

killed or wounded.

The largest German

cemetery is at Langemark.

It has a very different feel

to the Commonwealth War Graves.

This large stretch in front

of us, it's a mass grave.

How many are we talking?

25,000 men.

It's hard to take in, isn't it?

Incredible number.

And in the whole cemetery,

there are well over 44,000 soldiers

in this small space.

Staggering amount, isn't it?

It is absolutely extraordinary

when you consider that Tyne Cot,

which is our largest cemetery,

we're talking around 12,000.

Yes.

Plus the commemorative on the wall,

but I mean 12,000 headstones.

But there's a very practical reason

for that, of course.

After the war, the Belgians were far

more willing to give land

in perpetuity to their allies rather

than to their old enemy,

and therefore they had to compact,

and in the flat headstones that

you can see around you, most of them

will have up to 12 names.

There will be 12

people under that one.

It's an amazing cemetery,

because it tells so many things.

It remembers...

It remembers...

..and maybe a cemetery

should say that.

I mean, this does say,

"War is not very nice."

You go away saying, "We remember,"

but you go away saying,

"I'm uncomfortable."

"I'm uncomfortable."

The town of Ypres suffered

terribly in the war.

To finish my journey,

Tonie and Valmai take me

back there to find out

about the destruction of the town

and how it recovered.

and how it recovered.

So, Derek, what are your

impressions of this town?

I really like it.

I really like it.

It's a lovely old medieval town.

You certainly would

get that impression.

But I think I'm going to shock

you now, because that's how it

looked just after the war in 1919.

Completely devastated.

You see the tower up there?

That's all that remained of it.

Churchill decided that he'd

like to see the whole town

preserved as it was,

destroyed as it was, as a memorial

to all those who died there.

But the local population decided,

"No, we're going to look

for our houses," and that's

what they did.

Build it back brick by brick.

Yeah.

Yes.

Absolutely.

And we're now going to take

you to the very first building to be

rebuilt after the war.

And the benefit to you, Derek,

is it's a chocolate shop.

Sounds nice.

Sounds nice.

Your family has owned this business

for five generations, yeah?

I believe it was ruined in the war.

Did anything survive?

Yes, indeed, something survived.

Yes, indeed, something survived.

It was this statue of the Virgin,

the Madonna, who was found between

the ruins of the house in 1919.

the ruins of the house in 1919.

So it was burnt, it didn't

have the white colour,

but it was restored

as it is now today.

It's wonderful that it survived.

Yes, and it's a symbol

of the surviving of our house,

but also of the rebuilding

and the surviving of

the whole town after the war

and during the later period.

But the most famous symbol

of the First World War in Ypres

is on a much larger scale,

and it's an unmissable part

of any visit to the town.

Well, here we are at the Menin Gate.

A very famous landmark, of course.

Yes.

Can you tell me more about it?

This is probably one of the most

emotive memorials in the whole

world, because it bears

the staggering figure of 55,000 men

whose bodies were lost,

completely unfindable.

They have no grave.

But this is their memorial.

Their name is inscribed

here forever.

I think that emotion carries

through to the ceremony that's

held here every night,

because it's a ceremony

for the people, the population.

It's not for the bigwigs,

it's not for the chaps

who are the ambassadors.

Of course, you get the ambassadors

and you get the royalty coming,

but every single day,

you get the people coming,

and they come from all over Europe,

all over the world, to be

here for the Last Post ceremony.

And that's the ceremony we're

going to see tonight.

Every night at eight o'clock.

Every night at eight o'clock.

Yeah.

It's an increasingly popular event,

so make sure you get there early.

It begins with the Last Post,

played by members of

the local fire brigade.

LAST POST

I had special permission

to lay a wreath in memory

of all the Welsh soldiers who died

during the First World War.

When you go home, tell them of us

and say "For your tomorrow,

we gave our today."

we gave our today."

The Last Post ceremony

of the Menin Gate was a fitting

place to end my journey around

Ypres.

If you want to find out more and go

there yourself, there are details

about all the places I visited

on our website, at

bbc.co.uk/weathermanwalking.

bbc.co.uk/weathermanwalking.

Tonie, Valmai, thank you so much

for taking me on a fascinating

and very emotional journey.

I've learnt so many new things.

It's been an experience

I'll never, ever forget.

Well, Derek, it's been

a great pleasure for us,

because we have felt just how much

you were getting out of it,

and that means a lot

to us, too, so thank you.

Thank you, Derek.

Enjoyed your company

and your interest.

Keep up the good work.

Thank you.

We'll do our best.