kabarsula Historian marks Remembrance Day in Ypres after five-month Anzac battlefield journey bandar SLOT INDONESIA

Australian historian Mat McLachlan will mark Remembrance Day in Ypres, Belgium, 110 years after Australian tunnellers arrived on the Ypres Salient. He will attend the 11am service at the Menin Gate Memorial to the Missing.

The trip began in June in Vietnam, where McLachlan led a group of Australian travellers through Vietnam War battlefields with Long Tan veteran Dave Sabben. He also researched a new Mekong river History Cruise, which will depart for the first time in August 2027.

McLachlan then spent four months in the UK and Europe. He sailed the Seine from Paris to Normandy aboard AmaWaterways to research the new Mat McLachlan History Cruises range, which launches in 2027, and spent several weeks investigating D-Day and Operation Overlord sites. He also led a nine-day Western Front Signature Tour.

In Vignacourt, McLachlan met Queenslanders Donna and Michael Fiechtner, the new caretakers of the Thuillier Farmhouse, a photographic studio during the Great War. The farmhouse was marked for demolition before the couple saved it, and they have launched a crowdfunding campaign for restoration. They told McLachlan that more glass plate negatives have been found in the attic walls as work begins.

From Ypres, McLachlan is telling the story of the 1st Australian Tunnelling Company, which arrived near Hill 60 in November 1916. It spent seven months keeping tunnels sound and secret before 19 mines were fired at Messines Ridge on 7 June 1917. An explosion on 25 April 1917 killed 10 Australians in the tunnels, and hundreds of men still lie beneath the hill.

Looking ahead to 2027

Anzac Day 2027 cruise through the Netherlands and Belgium, including a service at the Menin Gate
Anzac Day land tours to the Western Front, Gallipoli and Hellfire Pass, with some departures waitlisting
D-Day Anniversary River Cruise in June 2027
Western Front land tour led by McLachlan at the end of June 2027
Inaugural Mat McLachlan Signature Cruise aboard AmaWaterways in September 2027, covering Waterloo, Ypres and Operation Market Garden