Current Information:

Born-Borough

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.

47th Division were in reserve at the start of Third Ypres and the 22nd London battalion of 142 Brigade were behind the line at Longuenesse, undergoing training. It was not until 19th August that 47th Division relieved 8th Division in the new front line in the Ypres salient. The records show that Ernest Wilson was killed on 10th August but he was either attached to another unit at the time or else the date of his death is incorrect. It is likely that he was killed on some date shortly after 19th August.