Current Information:

Age-26

Kemmel Chateau 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 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.

After their involvement in the opening phase of Third Ypres, the 8th East Lancashire battalion of 112 Brigade, 37th Division moved back to Wakefield Huts and then Swindon Camp until they returned to the front line on 11th August for a five day tour They were back in support trenches at Dammstrasse on 21st August before moving into the front line on 25th August, the day on Raglan Pocock was killed by machine-gun fire while checking on the outpost wire.