During the First War, from 1914 up to 1918, Ypres was the scene of some of the most important battle. Ypres never fell into German occupation during the war. The defence of Ypres was key to the British hold on this sector of the Western Front. The town was an important strategic landmark blocking the route for the Imperial German Army through to the Belgian and French coastal ports. Many thousands of Allied troops died to maintain the Allies' possession of this place. The town was almost completely destroyed by bombing, left in ruins in 1918, and reconstructed brick by brick in the 1920s and 1930s. Every night at 8.00pm the Last Post sounds under the Menin Gate, a moving tribute to the courage and self-sacrifice of those who fell in defence of the town. The Menin Gate Memorial to the Missing is one of four British and Commonwealth memorials to the missing in the battlefield area of the Ypres Salient in Belgian Flanders. The memorial bears the names of 54,389 officers and men from United Kingdom and Commonwealth Forces (except New Zealand and Newfoundland) who fell in the Ypres Salient before 16th August 1917 and who have no known grave. In the interactive ‘In Flanders Fields Museum’ the stories of ‘ordinary people' in wartime are told. They make war tangible and confront us with what ‘war’ means to the life of people. Ieper is a now seen as symbol of war and peace. Of course the breweries of Ieper were also destroyed during the battles - and some reconstructed afterwards. They are thus witness of Great War and its aftermaths. Some buildings remain, although none of these is brewing today