Current Information:

Age-30

60, Mount Ararat Road, Richmond

Voormezeele Enclosure3, Belgium

In the early summer of 1918, German plans had been to launch another offensive, Operation Hagen, in the north along the Flanders front held by the British between the La Bassée Canal and Ypres but after their reverses further south in July and August, when the Allies launched a series of  offensives that were to lead to the end of the war, this was put on hold. German troops were moved further south to try to stem the flow of the allied advance there and as a result they had no option but to evacuate important salients in the north and generally fall back to a more easily defended line. The British Fifth and Second Armies pressed hard on the retreating enemy here making their withdrawal as difficult as possible and clawing back the territory lost earlier in the year. This process was to continue until the end of the war in November, by which time the German Army was in full retreat everywhere.

One example of this, although not a very successful one, came on 4th September when the 12th East Surrey battalion of 122 Brigade, 41st Division attacked in the Vierstraat sector of the line, a few miles to the south of Ypres in Belgium. Moving forward behind an artillery barrage at  5.30am, C and D Companies attacked and managed to consolidate the road that ran along the Bois Quarante on the German-held Wytschaete Ridge, south of Ypres, near St Eloi. They then came under heavy machine-gun fire from Oak Trench on their right and two large pill boxes in the wood. As their right flank was ‘in the air’ and unprotected, A and B Companies were sent forward to assist. This coincided with a counter attack by the enemy which drove all of 12th East Surrey back to either the Vierstraat Switch Line or a line of trenches along the Vierstraat-Wytschaete road. The battalion had suffered very heavy losses during this operation with well over two hundred casualties and when they were relieved that night what was left of it was formed into just one company. One of those who did not survive was Francis Barry.