29/10/2026
🇫🇷 France Battlefield Tour 2026 🇬🇧
What an incredible few days for our cadets!
This week, 46 cadets and 8 adult volunteers from Newark and Lincoln Sea Cadets travelled to France for a three day Battlefield Tour, exploring some of the most significant sites of the First and Second World Wars.
After a very early 4am start on Monday, our first stop was Étaples Military Cemetery, the largest Commonwealth War Graves Commission cemetery in France, where we took time to reflect and pay our respects to those who made the ultimate sacrifice.
Day two took us to the Somme, where we visited the Somme Museum, walked through the preserved trenches at Beaumont-Hamel Newfoundland Memorial, paid our respects at the magnificent Thiepval Memorial and visited the enormous Lochnagar Crater.
Our final day saw us visit the Éperlecques Blockhouse, an extraordinary reminder of the scale of German military engineering during the Second World War.
Throughout the trip, our cadets had the opportunity to see history brought to life, gaining a much greater understanding of the sacrifices made by previous generations. Experiences like these are incredibly valuable and something we hope they will remember for many years to come.
Of course, it wasn’t all history! We enjoyed some fantastic hospitality at Château du Broutel, with evenings spent around the campfire, toasting marshmallows, playing games, enjoying a disco and, most importantly, making new friends and plenty of memories along the way.
👏 A very special thank you to Lt Cdr (SCC) Louise Everett RNR, who put an enormous amount of time and effort into organising the entire trip. From the planning and logistics to ensuring everything ran smoothly, Louise did a fantastic job and we are incredibly grateful.
A huge thank you also to the entire Lincoln Sea Cadets team for inviting Newark to join them and making us feel so welcome. It has been a pleasure bringing our two units together, and hopefully this is the first of many more shared adventures!
Finally, thank you to all the adult volunteers who gave up their time to make the trip possible, and to our cadets, who were a credit to their units throughout.
46 cadets, 8 staff, two units, three days and countless memories!
Here’s to the next adventure! ⚓🇬🇧🇫🇷
