Menin Gate (Menenpoort) (in explore 15-01-2023)
One of the most significant World War I memorials in Flanders, the Menin Gate in Ypres commemorates the names of more than 54,000 officers and men of the Commonwealth forces whose graves are not known. (That's almost 20,000 more than the total population of Ypres today - and which counted only 18,000 in 1914).
Hundreds of thousands of soldiers passed through the Menin Gate on their way to the battlefield. The memorial was designed by Sir Reginald Blomfield with sculpture by Sir William Reid-Dick. It was unveiled by the British Field Marshal Herbert Plumer on 24 July 1927.
Each night at 8 pm buglers of the Last Post Association sound the Last Post in the roadway under the Memorial's arches.
It's a sobering thought that the names on the Menin Gate walls represent people who went missing in action - killed, mutilated, obliterated - and whose remains might still be out there, somewhere on the old battlefield. But nobody knows where they are. Remains are still being found, even a hundred years later, but for many an identification is no longer possible.
In this age where narratives and storytelling matter so much, for these men, many still extremely young, there is no story to tell, except that they were caught up in a brutal war and then vanished.
For those who were left behind - mothers, wives and relatives - it was vital to have a place where they could, and still can, mourn their lost ones.
© 2023 Marc Haegeman. All Rights Reserved
Menin Gate (Menenpoort) (in explore 15-01-2023)
One of the most significant World War I memorials in Flanders, the Menin Gate in Ypres commemorates the names of more than 54,000 officers and men of the Commonwealth forces whose graves are not known. (That's almost 20,000 more than the total population of Ypres today - and which counted only 18,000 in 1914).
Hundreds of thousands of soldiers passed through the Menin Gate on their way to the battlefield. The memorial was designed by Sir Reginald Blomfield with sculpture by Sir William Reid-Dick. It was unveiled by the British Field Marshal Herbert Plumer on 24 July 1927.
Each night at 8 pm buglers of the Last Post Association sound the Last Post in the roadway under the Memorial's arches.
It's a sobering thought that the names on the Menin Gate walls represent people who went missing in action - killed, mutilated, obliterated - and whose remains might still be out there, somewhere on the old battlefield. But nobody knows where they are. Remains are still being found, even a hundred years later, but for many an identification is no longer possible.
In this age where narratives and storytelling matter so much, for these men, many still extremely young, there is no story to tell, except that they were caught up in a brutal war and then vanished.
For those who were left behind - mothers, wives and relatives - it was vital to have a place where they could, and still can, mourn their lost ones.
© 2023 Marc Haegeman. All Rights Reserved