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Age-24

6, Church Lane,  Lower Edmonton

Born-Edmonton

Third Battle of Ypres

This was a campaign fought between July and November 1917 and is often referred to as the Battle of Passchendaele, a village to the north-east of Ypres which was finally captured in November. It was an attempt by the British to break out of the Ypres salient and capture the higher ground to the south and the east from which the enemy had been able to dominate the salient. It began well but two important factors weighed against them. First was the weather. The summer of 1917 turned out to be one of the the wettest on record and soon the battlefield was reduced to a morass of mud which made progress very difficult, if not impossible in places. The second was the defensive arrangements of concrete blockhouses and machine gun posts providing inter-locking fire that the Germans had constructed and which were extremely difficult and costly to counter. For 4 months this epic struggle continued by the end of which the salient had been greatly expanded in size but the vital break out had not been achieved.

The opening of the battle on 31st July, 1917, had seen some gains and many losses in terms of casualties but by 3rd August, with the rain continuing to pour down and the mud slowing down everyone’s progress and making a complete misery of life, the attacks petered out. With the rainfall easing off, if not exactly stopping during the second week of August, plans to renew the attack were made and on 10th August, 18th Division and 25th Division took part in an attack on the village of Westhoek and the Gheluvelt plateau beyond it. While on the right of 18th Division 7th Royal West Surrey (Queens) of 55 Brigade, attempted but largely failed to form a defensive flank along the southern edge of Inverness Copse, 11th Royal Fusiliers and 7th Bedfordshire of 54 Brigade launched a attack at 4.35am along a 750 yard front after a 45 minute artillery barrage of the German lines. They reached the German 2^nd Line on either side of Fitzclarence Farm but a gap of 300 yards had developed between the two battalions that the enemy were able to exploit . 7th Bedfordshire stormed Glencorse Wood but could only establish isolated posts and because of the gap between them and 11th Royal Fusiliers their right was considerably bent back and eventually the Germans were able to push through the wood and force them back to Jargon Trench. At 5pm the enemy began to mass for a counter attack which, under cover of a smokescreen, forced 11th Royal Fusiliers back to a position 200 yards east of Clapham Junction where they were reinforced by HQ men. Here they stayed fighting off two more counter attacks until, late that evening 53 Brigade took over the divisional front. It had been a very bad day for 11th Royal Fusiliers who suffered nearly 350 casualties for very little gain. One of those killed was Thomas Akers.