On Friday 23^rd June, the U4 set off on a trip to the Battlefields in France and Belgium. We woke up early to take a shuttle across the channel to Calais. We then drove to Ypres, in Belgium, to begin our tour of the cemeteries there.

Firstly, we stopped off at the Lijssenthoek Military Cemetery. We learnt that, in this cemetery, there was one woman buried out of the 10,800 men. This was Nellie Spindler, who was a staff nurse in the war from 1915 until 1917. She was killed by a piece of shrapnel (shell). She was chosen to be buried here because people recognised the risks that she had taken to help the soldiers as a front-line nurse. She is the most visited headstone in the cemetery.

Next, we went to the Bayernwald German Trenches, a restored section of an original German trench system dating from 1916. When walking through the trenches, we were given a perspective on the cramped and extremely unpleasant conditions that the soldiers had to experience.

We then drove to the Tyne Cot cemetery and memorial. The memorial was established around a captured German pillbox used as an advanced dressing station. It bears the names of almost 35,000 officers and men whose graves are not known. With the sun setting on the cemetery, we got back into the coach and drove to the town of Ypres. We walked through the lively town square and bought delicious Belgium chocolate from Leonidas. That night, we stayed in our hotel and on Saturday, had a lovely French breakfast of croissants and baguettes.

On Saturday morning, we visited the Beaumont Hamel Newfoundland memorial. It commemorates the Newfoundland force members who were killed during the war. The grounds that surround are where the Newfoundland regiment made their unsuccessful attack during the first day of the Battle of the Somme. We found it fascinating to see the craters where the shells had exploded and the dips where the trenches used to be.

Our final stop on the tour was the Thiepval memorial. It is a war memorial to the 72,337 missing British and South African servicemen who died in the Battles of the Somme. There are many different interpretations of the structure of the arch, but one that resonated with me was that it had pieces taken out, to signify the soldiers that were missing from many people's lives.

To close our trip of the cemeteries, we had a last-post ceremony. We placed a wreath to represent the school and read war poems. All of us thoroughly enjoyed this year's battlefield trip, and we have all learnt a lot from visiting the vivid memorials to so many lost in the war.

By Eleanor (U4)