Our (First!) Journey to Wales

Finding the Place

In 2017, after what we thought was pretty exhaustive research, we set out for the UK with one goal: to find that place in Wales where our relative—and nineteen others—lost their lives on the way home after the war.

After journeying around England, we made our way to Wales and checked into a tiny bed and breakfast. During a chance conversation with the manager, we explained the reason for our visit. She listened with great interest and kindly offered to do a little research after the breakfast rush, hoping to help us narrow down the exact location we were seeking.

While she worked, we decided to explore the town—a place of quiet charm, where the stone buildings seemed to have stood forever. As we wandered, a woman stepped out of one of the cottages. We began to chat, and again shared our story. Her eyes softened. She said she believed that she and her boyfriend had biked in the very area where the crash occurred, and that they had seen the memorial plaque. Then she then went inside, returning with a hand-drawn map, and offered directions.

"Once you get into the general area," she said, "you'll come upon thirteen gates. Go through them all."

The Thirteen Gates

My husband and I began the drive. I remember the moment we came upon the first large gate blocking the road. The sign was in Welsh, and we hesitated, unsure if this was one of the "thirteen gates" she had mentioned. We later learned that the gates marked the boundaries between farms, keeping each flock of sheep to its own pasture.

I hopped out at each one, opening it for my husband to drive through, then closing it behind us—a rhythm that felt both strange and sacred, as if each gate were granting permission for us to pass.

After we'd gone through several gates, we grew uncertain. There were signs for nearby farms, and another gate with a gravel road beyond, but we had no clear sense of the right direction. We parked beside the gate, and I decided to ask at one of the farms. Just as I began walking up the path, a young man on an ATV appeared in the distance. We waved him down, and he came over, curious.

After hearing our story, he nodded and said gently that the gate we had parked beside was, in fact, the one leading to the crash site. "Go through three gates," he told us. "If you reach a fourth, you've gone too far."

It turned out to be just the guidance we needed—because the walk was long, and without his directions, we might have turned back.

The Hill and the Silence

We continued on and on ... and then, at last, we found it.

When I say I cannot imagine a more peaceful place on earth, I'm not exaggerating. Everyone I know who has been there has said the same. The sky stretches wide and blue, the mountains rise like sentinels, and below them lies the town of Barmouth, small and shining in the distance.

There's no traffic, and no sound but the wind through the grass and the low bleating of sheep. It's a place of breathtaking stillness, the kind that settles into your bones and stays.

Standing there, we felt both the weight of loss and the grace of remembrance ... the quiet truth that, even after all these years, their story still matters.

Reflection

That day, we came seeking a place on a map—and found something far greater. We found connection: to a moment in time, to twenty souls who never made it home, and to the living thread that continues to bind all of us who remember them.

Each time I think back on those gates, I see them differently now: not as barriers, but as thresholds. One after another, they led us closer not just to a field in Wales, but to an understanding: that remembrance is its own kind of homecoming. ❤️