Had a great trip in January to visit the precise spot (to the metre ) where my grandfather was temporarily buried by a shell explosion in what was no mans land in July 1917 near the Messines Ridge. It was amazing to stand in this peaceful green field early in the morning with frost all around me thinking that this terrible mayhem had gone on at this location. My grandfather was lucky because he managed to get out of the shell hole in which he was buried. But his Captain and an orderly who were with him at the time were both killed. The experience was heightened in a sense by my son discovering an unexploded shell sitting at a collection point nearby.Great experience.Very moving.
The photo is looking down the line of a communication trench in no mans land looking towards the German front line (approximately where the trees are)
