1959-10-08 — Page 4

Page 4.

THE CHINA MAIL, THURSDAY, OCTOBER - 8, 1959.

They never forget in this town of tragedy

On the branches of fruit AM standing in the back garden of a cafe.

trees are strung decaying mess-tins, old gasmasks, tin helmets (some with bullet holes), mouldering bayonets, and water bottles. Against a fence, rusty rifles with rotting wood are piled. guns are angled crazily at the sky.

This is Hill 60 on the outskirts FROM-

of Ypres, the small Belgian

anaricet town where the First

World War has never been for-

gotten.

"מיני

town 10 which men

continue to return

want to remember, cannot forget.

men who

men who

its name, standa starkly today

In the minds of those who fought there as it did four decades ago. Ypres

scene of horror and humàn suf- foring at Itx most appalling. But also place where" a nation won honour. And to which the warriors stil! return...

were," Old-fashioned machine

BRIAN GARDNER

was tapestries on which famous mill- greatest tory landmarks are woven, and

book tours of the battlefields,

I turned right at Hell Fire corner (which

was sheiled by the Germans almost continu- curly for four months).

Yures here nt For fought ORC

the of battles in history 12 years ago this autum

an advance of four In 1917 miles, from the ancient ramparts village of to the of Yores Passchendaele, Wis made by British and Dominion troops was intended to take three

inct it In porrisly four days. took nearly four months. About 150,000-men dled in taking this ground

Cake-shops

It

ur

During the four years of World War One 2,000,000 British soldiers come here to fight on the Salient, as this part of the Western Front was know About a quarter of them never returned.

I walked through the cobble- There stoned streets of Ypres.

and were few people about, Jitte

trafie, Despite Its memories, it is a peaceful place nowadays.

But at every step there is n The very reminder of the past. fact that there is not a building a village for in Ypres, or in miles around, or in the country side, that is older than 1917 is of the a constant reminder city's tragle history. After World War One the lown had to be entirely rebuilt; the town hall is still uncompleted.

Every autumn hundreds of the diminishing band of survivors who fought here revisit Ypres, A small industry has grown up catering for them and also for inquisitive tourists.

At souvenir shops you can buy postcards

of

the battlefields,

visitors

YPRES

the trench disappeared Into a feld, A few miles away the front line, appears in another commercial enterprise like this, at H 02.

In the

T

Old Kent Road Tea met

busload of Signposta 10 English direct Room I

who had fought to various landmarks ex-Servicemen

Front They and cemeteries. The whole on the Western

were touring their old battle- coveted

urmed now of Belds,

only with landscape, in fact. is

ordnance survey maps

and It is with cemeteries, great seas white headstones.

binoculars, One of them. York fantastic, awe-Inspiring sight.

Not far from liell Fire Corner Rickard, who had served in the Civil Service Rifles, had actually I turned right again up a slope, and I was at Hill 60, one of the fought on Hill 60 for 11 months. bloodiest sectors of the whole

war,

2

And there was the Old Kent Road Tea Room with its sign: "Drop in for a cuppa-just like mother makes,"

whether

ho sold,

"We

WCTC

This is where the Germans down there, They always seemed to be on top of a slope and us at the bottom. My main feel- I wis one of amazement

that we ever got up here. This place was almost impregnable."

100

Concluding the story with an impact on the Election The morning after

and 'What will the voters say?'

THE morning after the Labour Party's disastrous dinner to Khrushchey and Bulganin at the House of Commons, Mr Morgan Phillips arranged with Mr Malik, the Soviet Ambas- sador, for the Russian leaders to meet the four top Labour men at Claridges. But Khrushchev was still boiling.

For half an hour he threw recrimination and abuse at the four missionaries.

"Who is this George Brown?" asked Khrushchev. "I never

for 30 years.' knew such people existed. We haven't seen them in Russia

later, that

"the

bear always

One Angry

Night

CHAPTER IV

"The Labour

as a hay of 17. I actually wanted "I came out here under see to get here before it wER Jate. I thought the war might

ever got into it. Then, suddenly, it appeared had become just this: What what struck him most about the leaders at their dinner with the'

leaders Russian be over before

was their 'Russian statesmen." 1 got in the true, as one of the leaders said harm, if any, had been dono "errible tumorance." crico Of course,

He went on: Salient, I realised my mistake. "As far as you can see from here, away over the fields and woods, was just a wilderness of There was not one brick mud.

a tree to be on another. Not

Not a blade of grass, seen.

"It was madress sending us to night in it."

"Last Post”

of the

the

That caused опе explosion leaders threw away their God- miles in the end." Big smiles to their electoral prospects?

inside the party. I may have given opportunity to offer

Russians friendly co-operation For the next 15 minutes Khrush- The fears were spreading.

The leaders of the National caused another in Moscow. they pumped the hands Socialist.

Executive and

Shadow the

Sir Charles Trevelyan, who by the next Labour Government Cordial farewells, Another in Cabinet were evenly divided in was a Minister in the first two in banning the hydrogen bomb. Labour Governments of 1924 and "Their deplorable failure will, 1929, and who at 35 had wif I am certain, their views.

diminish the nessed the entire growth of the chances of Labour winning the Labour Party, wrote

to the next election." Manchester Guardian,

vitation

And

to visit Russin. the Secialists Jef: beaming. All Morgan except the shrewd Mr Phillips, who whispered to Mt Gaitskell: "You know, he's not forgiven us really."

still

In Mr Phillips's pocket rested a copy of the list of 120 This Social Democrats believed gaoled in Iron Curtain countries. was the list which Khrushchev had spluttered over and waved aside al the dinner.

Tension

hnd taken

it

Remembered

The more optimistic held that the toughness in standing up to would capture "Aoaling" volers. Khrushchev

The others, including the most sensitive, thought that the dimourtesy shown al the dinner by British hosts would be 13- membered, anyway.

The biggest memorial at Ypres is the Menin Gate, which lowers over the cast side of the "Every day, just about now, town, with huge lion on top Then gazing toward Germany. It is with the names of we would start strafing. we would have to sit tight and covered wait to

here The nearly 60,000 who died Germans would return it. They with no known graves. It is an rsually d.

Incredible and moving sight. I pald Ave francs to go into

"This was one of the worst Every night at nine the "Last

But, more important, the Con- Mr Phillips and stand at the places to its garden

be 011 the whole Post" is rounded at the Menin

a servatives would be bound This

in the hope of Gate.

is a spontaneous along exige of o dut.

Apart from he relies hanging

tribute by the Belgian towns- friendly and natural interlude. declare at the next election that over only the Tories could talk easily people

has He was going And themselves. all around like the fruit of

But, de enough in the Russians some nightmare orchard, there

nothing to do with the British pretty nonchalantly.

world was nothing much to say that

authorities at Ypres, I went to

spite the pump-handling, he sure world stability and a great battle had been fought

sensed that the tension was still peace. hear it here.

the distatice Home

there. sheep were bau-ing. Over the fence I could see the washing of the cate owner hanging out to dry.

The trench

A few yard from the treneis, in which 42 years ago men hed denfened by guns and heen suffocated with explosive fumes, was a noisy chicken run.

I walked

Irunt."

Pillbox

From Hill Go I went to Tyne Cot cemeter probably the largest British cemetery in the pillbox, the largest on the Salient, has world. A German been preserved in the middle of it. By the pillbox is the grave of Sergeant L. McGee, the Australian V.C. who died help- ing to capture it.

Two young Belgians carrying bugles arrived on bicycles a few minutes before the hour. They removed their trouser clips, and took up position in the middle of the main read which teneath the enormous archway. Two policemen appeared and stopped the traite at both aides.

runs

As the cathedral bells boomed One of the officials of the War out the hour, the "Last Post," Groves Commission who was was played. The notes from the Tyne Col painted two bugles echoed under the with me at away across the fields of arch and drifled out across the

down on an old pair of Flanders,

the slope ramparts and battlefields

shattered food Container. ground After a few yards of zig-zagging, fought in 1917.

pass it

to

gift'

to

10 -

of the

It was decided to Await a "favourable opportunity"

Moscow That view was shared by Mr forward the list to

Mr Malik. through

Nobody Harry Pollit, leader thought it funny to speculate British Communists, who said in into which of the Kremlin a rage that Transport House had waste-paper baskets it might be "already made a gift of the next

election to Eden." hurled,

As Bulganin and Khrushchev salled away in their cruiser, the rexdlers Socialists lossed their private thoughts into open de-

of bate,

Was

Mr Galtskell, however,

Jie went all for toughness. straight on to commercial TV to declare that George Brown's

joke, that Khrushchev was a Communist," and

Army boots and stumbled across towards Ypres. This was the Yores. The small party of And the main discussion, interventions were acant as a

over which he had British and Belgians stood

attention.

ما

overwhelming

لام

others, "fanatical

He attacked the "deplorable of the Labour performance

THE END

(London Expréax Service).

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