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Age-24

25, Ferndale Road, South Tottenham

The Battle of Messines was a successful British offensive between 7th-14th June, 1917 that dislodged the German army from the Messines Ridge, a salient jutting into the British lines, that they had held since 1914. The front attacked ran south for nine miles from Mount Sorrel, through the villages of Messines and Wytschaete, down to Ploegsteert and its capture gave the British control of the high ground to the south of Ypres. This greatly facilitated their attack further north the following month which became known as the 3rd Battle of Ypres or Passchendaele. The success at Messines was a result of some careful planning and the explosion of nineteen large mines at zero hour on 7th June, along the length of the ridge. Twenty two mine shafts had been constructed but one was discovered by the enemy and destroyed and two failed to explode. Nevertheless the resulting explosion was so loud that it could be heard in London and so powerful that 10.000 German soldiers were killed. Nine British, Australian and New Zealand divisions then attacked behind a creeping artillery barrage and all first day objectives were soon taken. Over the next few days  German counter attacks were repelled and by 14th June the whole of the ridge had been captured.

On the northern part of the battlefield X Corps attacked with 41st, 47th and 23rd Divisions. By the end of the morning they had successfully attained their objectives and in the afternoon, 24th Division, passed through 41st Division and went on to capture the Green Line, the final objective. During the morning 13th Middlesex of 73 Brigade had moved to Ecluse and Old French trenches as the battle raged and at 3.10pm went over the top under an excellent barrage.  Their objective was the front edge of Ravine Wood on right and then along Olive Trench to the Hollebeke road on the left.  This, the Green Line, was reached without much opposition.  On the left, “A” Company had to throw back its left flank to compensate for the insufficient progress made by 47th Division and this meant they could only consolidate the left half of Olive Trench. Nevertheless 120 Germans were captured along with 5 machine-guns.  The rest of the day was reasonably quiet but lack of water was a discomfort. This and other rations was brought up after dark. 13th Middlesex remained in these forward positions until relieved on 11th June. On 10th June the enemy kept up a steady shelling of their positions which became particularly heavy around 10pm. This caused a number of casualties, one of whom was Allen Potter.