Current Information:

Born-Barnet

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 30th August, 1917, the 19th Manchester battalion of 21 Brigade, 30th Division moved into the front line near Wytschaete to the south of Ypres where they remained until relieved on 6th September. The battalion diary entry for 2nd September, the day on which Albert Foster was killed, recorded that work was done on the wiring at night and that the support companies provided carrying parties bringing supplies forward to the front line.