Profile Page

Menin Gate, Ypres Menin Gate, Ypres
First Name: Herbert Hinton Last Name: EAST
Date of Death: 05/08/1917 Lived/Born In: Richmond-upon-Thames
Rank: Reverend Unit: Chaplains Department Attached to 13th Cheshire
Memorial Site: 1. Kew, St Anne 2. Richmond-upon-Thames Memorial 3. Menin Gate, Ypres

Current Information:

Age-30

284, Kew Road, Richmond-on-Thames

 

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.

On 5th August, 1917, the 13th Cheshire battalion of 74 Brigade25th Division were holding the line near Westhoek in the Ypres salient when Herbert East was killed

« Back to Search Results
If you think any of the information shown here is incorrect, Click Here to submit your amends and comments
Copyright 2024 London War Memorial