“On the Road to Passchendaele”

Piron · Joined: 30 Jul 2009 Posts: 10 Location: Flanders

While visiting the battlefields in Flanders some decent maps and/or guidebooks are indispensable.

* Major and Mrs. Holt's battlefield guides in combination with their battle maps have always been very helpful. There are several editions which cover Ypres but I would advise the battlefield guide: 'Ypres Salient & Passchendaele' and the battle map with the same name. (www.guide-books.co.uk).

* 'Before Endeavours Fade' by Rose Coombs is similar to the Holt battefield guides, but it covers the whole Western front. (http://www.afterthebattle.com/before.html)

* The Memorial Museum Passchendaele 1917 has also published a battle map in 2008 with a small bilingual booklet (64 pages; Dutch-English). You can preview the map here: http://www.mapservice.be/frontkaart_14-18/. Don't let the 'with GPS locations' sticker fool you though as this refers just to the street names.

* The battefield Europe series cover lots of more detailed actions and some cover the surroundings of Ypres. (http://www.pen-and-sword.co.uk/?series_id=28). They are perfect when you want to make some walks on foot.

Piron · Joined: 30 Jul 2009 Posts: 10 Location: Flanders

Lots of people own a GPS, PDA or laptop, so you could also have a look a these applications.

* If you own a GPS I can really advise you to visit http://www.wo1.be/eng/mainnav.html and download and install their free gps coordinates of most places of interest around Ypres. These are available in the most common gps formats and work excellent. (www.wo1.be is a superb website to plan your whole visit btw.)

Another great online inventory, but only available in Dutch, is the one made by the VIOE (the Flemish government heritage institute). http://inventaris.vioe.be/woi/relict/zoeken

Piron · Joined: 30 Jul 2009 Posts: 10 Location: Flanders

* If you want to take it even further, and want to invest a bit more money, then the LinesMan application might be something for you. This PDA/GPS application projects wartime trenchmaps over contemporary maps allowing you to trace back the exact location of trenches in the field. It comes with a price though! (http://www.greatwardigital.com/index.shtml). Cheaper alternatives of digital trenchmaps, but without the gps function are the dvd's published by the Western Front Association (http://www.westernfrontassociation.com/great-war-mapping/mapping-the-front-great-war-maps-dvd/590-mapping-the-front-great-war-trench-map-dvd.html) or the trench map atlas published by the National Archives (http://www.naval-military-press.com/national-archives-british-trench-map-atlasthe-western-front-191-pr-21289.html)

PS: Its not my intention to cut al my posts into several pieces, but the limited number of links permitted in one post force me to do this.

Piron · Joined: 30 Jul 2009 Posts: 10 Location: Flanders

I noticed that Paul Reed, author of 'walking the Salient' in the battleground series, has also joined this forum. Maybe he can arrange a discount for the users of the forum? Wink

Erwin Ureel · Posted: Tue Aug 04, 2009 7:42 pm Post subject:

Linesman is absolutely fantastic, a must-have for every enthousiast!

Erwin