Current Information:

Enlisted-London

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.

At the start of Third Ypres, 18th Division were in reserve and the 8th Norfolk battalion of 53 Brigade were in a camp near Zillebeke. From 5th-9th August they were in Canal Reserve Camp and then, on 10th August, they moved forward to Chateau Segard in order to launch an attack on Inverness Copse. That night they undertook a very difficult relief of 54 Brigade during which the enemy launched their own attack and captured a strongpoint. 8th Norfolk immediately counter-attacked with two companies advancing in sectional rushes from the front and the right and by 6am on 11th August the pill box had been retaken. There were the inevitable casualties in the fierce fighting that took place, one of whom was Arthur Fairman.