Wevelgem
During the First World War, the Germans constructed an airport. The airport still exists and is now used for private purposes. Also remaining is the German Military cemetery, which is also partly situated in Menen. There are 47,864 soldiers buried there, who all died during WW1. This makes the cemetery the biggest German cemetery in Belgium. Across the cemetery, there used to be a (fake) airport, with wooden planes to mislead the enemy; there are still remains of the airport consisting of a big bunker and a small bunker near the railway. The bridge that connects Lauwe to Wevelgem was destroyed during the Second World War and was rebuilt later.
Men of Letters
The book tells the story of the Post Office Rifles during the First World War. 12,000 men served with the unit during the course of the war, across three battalions, and around 1,500 of them were killed. The book describes in detail the horror and suffering of the war and Barrett writes about a man who was shot in the head by a former Post Office colleague before being suffocated by mud near Passchendaele. He also describes the humour of life in the trenches, including an incident in which some former postmen delivered mail to the Germans on the other side of no man’s land by wedging them into carrots and throwing them across.