Current Information:

Age-28

52, Lancefield Street, Queen's Park

Born-Leicester

Mendinghem Military Cemetery, Belgium

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 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 four 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.

Battle of Pilckem Ridge (31st July-2nd August)

This was the opening attack of Third Ypres and began at 3.50am on 31st July when British and French troops launched their offensive to break out of the Ypres salient. The day had mixed results. To the north the Pilckem Ridge was captured but there was less success further south along the Gheluvelt Ridge, where a combination of stiff German resistance and low cloud, which hindered observation, meant that only the first objectives were captured. Further attempts to push on were stopped in their tracks by specialist German counter attack divisions and resulted in a 70% casualty rate among the British troops. Then in the afternoon, the rain came and under the weight of shells falling on it, the battlefield soon became a quagmire. Over the next two days, suffering the most appalling conditions in the mud and the rain, the troops had to fight off numerous German counter attacks.

At 3.50am on 31st July, 1917, 2nd and 3rd Guards Brigades of the Guards Division attacked at the northern end of the salient, with the Ypres-Staden railway on their right and five hours later, after some hard fighting, had arrived at the third objective, the Green Line. At 8.50am, the 2nd Grenadier Guards and the 2nd Coldstream Guards of 1st Guards Brigade passed through their lines to continue the advance. 2nd Grenadier Guards met heavy machine-gun fire from west of the Steenbeek, a small stream that ran across their line of advance, and in response formed a defensive flank along the railway. Eventually machine-gun fire from Langemarck caused them to dig in 80 yards short of the Steenbeek though on the left, 2nd Coldstream Guards managed to cross the Steenbeek and take Signal and Ruisseau Farms. They remained in these forward positions in the pouring rain and under constant shell-fire until relieved on 2nd August. Among the casualties sustained by the battalion was Samuel Mace who died from wounds on 2nd August.