Hi.
Have been meaning to post this for a while.
The memorial is now being rebuilt in a new location next to the Point Du Jour Cemetery, progress seems to be going quite well. Just a question though. What is going to happen to the original site with its preserved trenches? Due to all the laying of new roads and the amount of construction work in the area, i think i already know the answer, the whole area is gonna be swamped by a vast Industrial Estate.
If any members of the Forum have never visited the Point Du Jour area, in the words of the song, "You better hurry cos it's going fast".
So much for progress.
Regards, Chris.

And new location, looking west towards Arras from Point Du Jour Cemetery.

Am I right in thinking that this memorial was inbetweeen two rather busy freeways - or over and between two busy roads. I remember last year looking for it, seeing it across the way, deciding it was too difficult to cross over and around and up and down. If so, then does it matter that it is being moved. It will make it easier to get to. And the Scottish were down towards the river in the April advance - werent they??

Kathie

Hi Kathie.
I agree. In it's original location you took your life in your own hands to get to it!
If you read the original thread Kathie, my concern was for the preservation of the few remnants of original trench line on the site, however small they may seem, but significant in my opinion. On the whole Kathie, the scale of development that is happening in the Point du Jour area is a very significant alteration of the topography of the battlefield. Not one to stand in the way of progress, i suppose these developments will provide jobs etc for the local populace, but, once it is completed, you will virtually look at a vast Industrial Estate from the Point du Jour Cemetery aswell.
Regards, Chris.

"In it's original location you took your life in your own hands to get to it!"

...however, Point du Jour is impossible to get to from the Arras - Douai road nowadays. You have to get from Arras to one of the southern villages, then up north to the cemetery. So even more people will now whizz by, thinking " oh, yeah, there it is, how do we get to it?".
..and can we believe the trenches will be untouched? yet another set of well-preserved trenches return to dust

Aye Graham.
I did a bit of a walk from the German Cemetery at St. Laurent, over the TGV line and up behind these industrial units and the site of the others. Rendezvous point with Mrs N. was Point du Jour Cemetery and the site of the new memorial location. Lets put it this way, Mrs N. had a few choice words for me when nearly getting 'taken out' by large HGV. And for the trenches Graham? Probably all buried under a Central Reservation. So much for history eh? But in the words of another Forum member in relation to sites that need to be preserved on the Western Front of which he alludes to many, "whats the point of whining, there's plenty of them".
Regards, Chris.

Point du Jour in July 1926. Compare with above photo of the vacant plot
Click to view attachment

Good photo Jack. What is the source?
Thanks for posting it, most interesting comparison to the re-location of the memorial.
Regards, Chris.

A few pictures of the original unveiling









Alistair

And a few more

[img]http://i106.photobucket.com/albums/m253/ab64/9th%20memorial/Image5.jpg[/img]

[img]http://i106.photobucket.com/albums/m253/ab64/9th%20memorial/Image4.jpg[/img]

[img]http://i106.photobucket.com/albums/m253/ab64/9th%20memorial/Image3.jpg[/img]

Alistair

Last one

[img]http://i106.photobucket.com/albums/m253/ab64/9th%20memorial/Image2.jpg[/img]

Alistair

It's one of a large number of snaps taken on the inaugural 34th Division pilgrimage to the sites of their wartime misadventures. The photographer was a 16th Royal Scot and he captioned most of them on the reverse. Point du Jour is recognisable, but there's lots of obscure locations that could only be recognised by someone who served on the spot.

Incidentally, when I designed the Contalmaison memorial, I incorporated the Point du Jour shape and elements of the massive cairn at Culloden. I wanted it to be something that the lads of 16 RS would recognise (and hopefully approve of) - rather than something from the 21st century. Contalmaison was an old memorial proposal, which couldn't be built at the time. It seemed fitting to try and make the cairn as traditional as possible.

I'm saddened by the Point du Jour 'removal', but I suspect that many of us who've been up and down the Western Front over the last twenty-five years are going to have to come to terms with some dramatic changes over the next ten. I suppose it's progress for the locals, but I can't help thinking that La Boisselle (for example) would be better off with Lochnagar, Glory Hole and Y Sap as the centrepiece of a mini world- heritage site rather than a few additional houses for incomers (both French and British) to buy.

Too late for Y Sap. And (despite the underground dangers) apparently all but too late for the Glory Hole as well.

I have only just caught up with and am totally amazed and appalled that this memorial is being moved: while it is not a CWGC cemetery, it is maintained by the CWGC and they must have agreed to this. I understand fully there are access problems, but it seems amazing that the whole monument should be moved. This is the first time this has happened on a British battlefield since the 1970s, and it has slipped by un-noticed or un-announced.

In moving the memorial it will of course lose its significance; the siting was done deliberately, and the section of preserved trench an important part of the site. As many have stated - what will happen to this now?

I am staggered and speechless by this - thanks for letting us know Chris.

fabulous pictures, many thanks for sharing them with us. I agree with Paul, it looks as if we increasingly need to be on our guard.

Alistair, many thanks for posting the photos of the memorial in it's original site, and in my words; " In the original context of it's emplacement".
Regards, Chris.

Just had a few days up at Arras, and had the chance finally to have a proper look at the new site. You access it via the village of Athies (signposted only from the direction of Arras, so watch it if you are coming from Roeux/Fampoux direction), and up a long, and really mud-cacked track to the new site which is next to Point du Jour cemetery. I would estimate it about 750-1000 yards from its original site. There is no access to it from the Arras-Douai road.

I noticed some of the stones with the units on are damaged; one was split in half and lying in two pieces. Some of the former corner posts have also been put in back to front.

You can't stop at the old site at all now, but the trench that was there seems to have gone.

Personally I wasn't impressed.

Corner post back to front (facing in, rather than out).

Regimental stones showing damage.

Stone cracked in two.

This is appalling isn't it - the lost trenches, the broken stones. How toothless has CWGC been on this? When you consider the fuss made about eg rubbish dumps at Hohenzollern etc, or the potential airport extensions etc etc, this one seems to have sneaked through without the slightest opposition. Surely some Scottish body should have been shouting about it.
So what was an extremely resonant site looking over the Douai plain has been shifted to a Disney corner that needs a 4X4 to reach it. Poor, Poor, Poor.
Thanks for the latest photos, Paul, though they make me feel totally dismal - and I haven't been very Scottish for a long time.

A cheap second rate job , disgusted!

What a sad spectacle. Thanks for the pictures Paul.

Aletter to Jack McConnell is on its way shortly, address to write to him showing your disgust will follow soon.

Kevin

I have written to a different MSP, I am awaiting his reply to see if he wants to raise the issue in the Scottish Parliament, will keep you posted if he does.

Kevin

It will certainly be interesting to see who made the decision to move it, who approved it and why.

Appropos my first comment, because I had not been able to get to the memorial I had not even realised that there were preserved (?) trenches. On seeing the first of the 1926 photos - are those mounds of white chalk portion of trench redoubts etc???? Interesting if they were.

I think the shoddy workmanship in relocation is disgraceful. Can I just remind that the Scottish included all the South AFrican regiments - few Scots and many Afrikaners. Regrettably, I think memorials in France are not high on the SADefence Force agenda in these days.

I will visit in the new site when I retrace the Scottish advance from Arras to Fampoux - April 1917 - during my visit in July.

Kathie

Hi.
Thanks for posting the photos Paul.
Judging by the response of the 'builders' when i took the original photo's of the re-location, no surprise.
Regards, Chris.

Came here via the link from Andy Pays pictures taken recently and whilst I am sad that the memorial has been moved I am more concerned (read disgusted) of the condition it has been left in, seemingly no care or attention to detail. Disgraceful!

Kevin, any news yet?

Arm

Hello all,
Just thought I would share this with you, it is taken from Vol 2 of Wauchope's History of the Black Watch.
'' This monument was erected on the highest point of the plateau, where we found the body of the Scottish soldier who had advanced the farthest.....
{C. Gassouin, Commander 17th [French] Div.}

'' It is worthy of mention that this monument is believed to be the only one erected by the French Army on any battlefield in memory of a British Formation. The soldier alluded to above was a man of the 4/5th Black Watch''
{Wauchope.}

?Here the noble thistle of Scotland will flourish for ever amoung the roses of France.

It would seem that someone has put weedkiller on that Thistle and has had a large Cr*p on the roses.
I'm not very impressed.

This Monument which General Gassouin talks of is at Buzancy near Soisson and is not the Point de Jour one.
It is in excellent order and there are thistles growing in the field outside the cemetery.

see
http://batmarn2.club.fr/15thdivi.htm

Aye
Malcolm

Oops!
Still, my blood is still boiling! Which makes it very hard for me to read . Red mist and all that.
Regards,
Disgruntled from Blairgowrie

Besides the South Africans, the Royal Newfoundland Regiment was also commemorated by one of the regimental stones, as they served with 9 Div in the last months of the war.

Hi.
If somebody is near the re-located memorial, can you take some photos?
Has the 'damage' been rectified?
Regards, Chris.

We were there mid April and were appalled at the amount of cracked and chipped stonework.

Keith

Jack

Congrats on your book "McCrae's Battalion". I have my copy here in Muscat, Oman which I brought with me from the UK.

As a Jambos supporter, it brought home to me with great clarity the sacrifice made by those players named on the Haymarket Memorial and the many who died with them or were maimed. The Contalmaison Cairn is a noble memorial, one which I will visit at the earliest chance. I also have a pilgrimage to make, relevant to this thread, to the 9th Scottish Div Memorial, the Arras Memorial and to a stretch of field near Roeux, on Greenland Hill by the brickworks, where my great uncle Dave, S/9365 L/Cpl David Elder Robertson, 8th Btn Black Watch, 9th Scottish Division, was killed on the early morning of Thursday, 3rd May 1917, during the Third Battle of the Scarpe.

When I read your book, I thought what a great film it would make ! It would transcend nations through the world of sport in the same way that 'Chariots of Fire', another Scottish subject, was a huge worldwide success, despite a much narrower story-base. Considering the severe lack of Great War films made in recent years - Joyeux Noel was a good attempt but I think of limited transatlantic appeal and the only other recent one (Flyboys) was yet another (semi-ficticious) example of the American experience we all have to sit through and endure.

Maybe old man Romanov can dig deep into his pockets to kick start such a movie. At the very least, it could be a TV-film similar to "All The King's Men" with David Jason. But I truly believe it can successfully make the big screen !

Who would play George McCrae ? I have to admit I first though of Big Sean, he's got bags of big character and charisma like McCrae, but he's just not a plausible 54 year old anymore !

Then I thought of King Mel Gibson. He is certainly a "Scottyphile"and as McCrae would certainly carry it through with passion and commitment and has loads of personality, but I think he would want to direct as well and he's carrying a lot of criticism at the moment. Unless you kept a tight rein on the screenplay, it might become a bit carried away, but maybe that might make it from a good to a great film. Agree or disagree with his politics and point of view, but you can't argue that We Were Soldiers, The Passion, Apocalypto etc are all good box.

I really hope the film is made and that the right director tells it the way it should be told - perhaps the definitive Great War film, the 'All Quiet' of the 21st Century.