Current Information:

Age-34

53, Cromwell Road, New Southgate

Born-New  Southgate

Enlisted-Wood Green

Bleuet Farm 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 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.

After their involvement in the first day of the battle, during which their casualties amounted to 150, the 3rd Grenadier Guards of 2nd Guards Brigade, Guards Division were relieved during the evening of 1st August and moved back to bivouacs. On 3rd August, after a day of rest they relieved the 1st Scots Guards in the front line in the northern part of the Ypres salient with battalion HQ at Grand Barriere House where they remained here for two days. John Batchelor died from wounds on 5th August but it is not known when he was wounded.