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Age-22

107, Grove Street, Commercial Road, Whitechapel

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.

On 16th August, 1917, 17th London of 141 Brigade, 47th Division were training in a camp at Wizernes in France, a long way from the front line. That changed the next day when they moved by rail and route march to Ypres and on the following day, 18th August, they took over the front line at Westhoek Ridge, south of the Ypres-Roulers railway. They stayed here until relieved on 21st August and moved back into reserve in tunnels in Railway Wood. On the following day, 22nd August, an attack was launched along their sector of the front by other units and 17th London were called upon to provide working parties for a number of tasks including assisting the Royal Engineers and carrying bombs (grenades) forward to the front line. Alexander Cohen was killed while on one of these details, most likely as a result of shell fire.