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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.

56th Division were in reserve at the start of Third Ypres and the 16th London battalion of 169 Brigade were behind the line at Nordausques, undergoing training. It was not until 11th August that they moved to Ypres, going into the line near Glencorse Wood on the following day. They remained in these positions for three days during which time there was persistent heavy shelling of their positions that resulted in nearly eighty casualties. One of these was Frederick Spargo who was killed on 14th August.