Current Information:

Born-Islington

Enlisted-Westminster

Reninghelst New 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.

The Battle of the Menin Road. 20th-25th September, 1917

After the disappointing opening battles of the last day of July and the middle of August, when very little had been gained but at great cost in casualties, a new approach was adopted for the next offensive against the Gheluvelt plateau which began on 20th September and became known as the Battle of the Menin Road. The task was handed over to General Plumer, commander of the Second Army, a more cautious leader who, rather than try to drive as deep as possible into the German line, was an advocate of 'bite and hold' tactics with limited advances of no more than 1,500 yards, based on overwhelming firepower and exhaustive preparation. These new tactics, which were significantly aided by a period of warm, dry weather, worked well and September and early October saw a decisive phase of Third Ypres in which the British gained the upper hand. At the same time that Plumer’s Second Army were hammering away at the German defences on the Gheluvelt plateau, Fifth Army also attacked in the northern part of the Ypres salient and they too made gains.

At 5.40am on 20th September, 41st Division attacked from a position south of the Menin Road, through the northern part of Shrewsbury Forest with the Tower Hamlets Ridge as their objective. On the left of the divisional front, 122 Brigade had the 15th Hampshire and 18th King’s Royal Rifle Corps battalions in front, detailed to capture the Red and Blue Lines after which, the 11th Royal West Kent and 12th East Surrey battalions would continue the forward movement. The Red and Blue lines stood either side of the Basseville brook, the ground either side of which was devoid of cover but 15th Hampshire made good progress until they were held up at Java trench by blockhouses that had been missed by the artillery barrage. Here they sustained heavy casualties including all four company commanders. Nevertheless they pressed on, took the Red line, crossed the brook and then took and consolidated the Blue line. A counter-attack from the north-east was checked at which stage the 11th Royal West Kent passed through to take the heavily defended Green line (Tower Trench). Here they took many casualties from blockhouses and enfilading machine-gun fire and although they managed to gain a foothold in the Tower Trench they were eventually driven back to the Blue line where 15th Hampshire were consolidating. Late that afternoon 15th Hampshire were ordered to take the Green line and although they could only muster 130 men they did so taking 40 prisoners including a battalion commander, a field gun and 2 machine-guns. The battalion remained in these forward positions, under heavy shell-fire until relieved on the evening of 22nd September. But their success had come at a high cost with over 300 casualties one of whom was Albert Dunford who died from wounds on 21st September.