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Tags: World War I Travel / Historical Travel / Battlefields / → All Tags

Last British WWI Soldier Dies; Leaves Gripping Account of Trench Warfare Hell

Britain's last remaining World War I soldier, Harry Patch, died at the age of 111 today, leaving behind a collection of gripping stories about the inhuman conditions he and his comrades faced in the trenches of Ypres, in West Flanders, Belgium, during the battles of Passchendaele and Pilkem. The BBC has an amazing roundup of Patch's memories of his time in the war, in which he describes the muddy trenches - a mere three feet wide and six feet deep - that he had to occupy for days on end. The soldiers were mired in filth for months at a time, with the constant companionship of legions of lice:

From the time I went to France - the second week in June 1917 - until I left 23rd December 1917, injured by shellfire, I never had a bath ... For each lousy louse, he had his own particular bite, and his own itch and he’d drive you mad. We used to turn our vests inside out to get a little relief. And you’d go down all the seams, if you dared show a light, with a candle, and burn them out. And those little devils who’d laid their eggs in the seam, you’d turn your vest inside out and tomorrow you’d be just as lousy as you were today. And that was the trenches.

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Tags: National Parks / Battlefields / History / Memorials / Green Travel / → All Tags

Green Travel: Gettysburg's New Museum

A brand-new visitor center at Gettysburg National Military Park opens today. The building, designed to look like a 19th-century barn, brims with multimedia presentations, a feature film "experience" and hundreds of thousands of Civil War artifacts.

The new 22-minute film is narrated by Morgan Freeman and focuses on both the battle and its important aftermath. (While the fighting only lasted three days, it took four months for Abraham Lincoln to visit the site and deliver what came to be known as the Gettysburg Address.)

The visitor center will also house the Gettysburg Cyclorama. The 360-degree painting is currently being restored, but should be back on view by September. And of course walking the battlefield itself is still the main draw.

Interestingly, the new visitors center is LEED-certified as a green building, so you can count this as both a learning holiday and green travel.

Related Stories:
· Gettysburg National Military Park [Official Site]
· New Visitor Center Opens at Gettysburg [NPR]
· National Parks coverage [Jaunted]

[Photo: JonnyJonJon]