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For more Somme pics see "Somme 2001"
This year we decided to use a tried and tested way of travel. We used the "Lancemobile".
After reading the instructions left by St. Catherine we headed to Dover and then across the Channel on a Ferry
to Dunkirk.
We stopped off on the Way to the Somme so we could pay our respects to Steve's Great Great Uncle
- Herbert Preen at the Ferne-Ollivers CWGC Cemetery, just outside Ypres.
| Steve laying a tribute to H. Preen |
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| Herbert's final resting place |
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After leaving Ypres we travelled across to a Second World War site and the Massive V1 and V2 Nazi Rocket Site
at La Coupole,
The La Coupole Museum was planned and constructed over a ten year period from 1987 to 1997. The Wizernes dome was
declared an historical site in 1985 by the French government. The museum resides inside and around the old mining quarry where,
in 1943, the German Army began work on the second of several giant hardened bunkers, intended for launching 40-50 V2 rockets
at London each day. Inside the museum, the "Historical Centre about the war and development of the rocket," you will now find
exhibits that document the German planning and construction of the bunker, the Nazi occupation of France, mans conquest of space, and one example of a surviving A4/V2 rocket.
The Museum
is a "Must See" visit - just to see the size of the place. After leaving the V2 site we headed to our main goal - The
battlefields of the Somme.
| Above La Coupole |
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| Above from the air (picture by Jean-Luc Van Campenhout) |
| THE V2 |
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| Hitler's Vengeance Weapons |
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