Battlefields Tour

This year the History Department took 53 members of the Fifth Form to the battlefields of the Western Front. The two days spent on the Somme were invaluable in giving the students an insight into the difficulties faced by commanders and troops in the great offensive of 1916, while the entire trip, which concluded with a day in the Ypres Salient, brought home to everyone the horrors of the conflict and the extraordinary sacrifices made by the huge numbers of men who fought there. The pupils visited cellars a mile behind the lines which had housed a dressing station and stretcher bearers post in 1916, and the remains of an early tank, knocked out at the Battle of Cambrai in 1917 and recently excavated from the outskirts of the town.

We were particularly privileged to be able to lay a wreath at the Menin Gate in Ypres, and to take part in the Service of Remembrance in St George's Memorial Church during which a plaque to the memory of all Dauntseians killed in conflict was dedicated. The service was particularly noteworthy because of the address given by Dick Hargreaves MC (OD 1932-36), who fought in the Parachute Regiment throughout the Second World War, and who reminisced on many of those whom he had known while at Dauntsey's and whose names now appear on the school's war memorial.

Educationally and emotionally it was a very successful weekend, and one in which the students once again were a credit to their school and their country.