The last RNAS / RAF guy passed a couple of weeks ago.
I walked the Somme battlefields last September, and it was pretty awesome (and I'm using that word in it's proper sense, rather than the overused Americanism). In most areas the trenches have been filled in and just show up from the air as different coloured lines on the ground but in some places they are still there.
I was particularly struck by the sheer number of cemetaries - I was aware that over 50,000 allies were killed but rather stupidly thought the bodies were concentrated in a few large cemetaries. Instead, the Somme was the first place I've ever been to where the landscape is defined by graveyards (which are all immaculate) some having a dozen or so graves and some "just" a few hundred. They sit at the side of roads, or in the middle of modern fields (with a path leading to them), surrounded by a white stone wall - and are just everywhere.
The Newfoundland Memorial Park was a fantastic example of just how a field should be preserved, and how those men should be remembered - although there are many such sites which do the job just as well (although I was disappointed that the Irish Tower had been pretty much turned into a coffee shop as far as I could see).
I'd definately recommend anyone to go and spend a couple of days there.
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