Current Information:

Age-23

52, Howbury Road, Nunhead

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.

9th East Surrey of 72 Brigade, 24th Division were in reserve at Dickebusch Camp on 31st July when other units of the Brigade attacked in the southern part of the battlefield with the objective of forming a defensive flank between the Second Army to their south and the other divisions of II Corps who were attacking the Gheluvelt plateau. The next day they moved up to the Old French Trench, two miles south-west of Ypres and on 2nd August relieved two other battalions of 72 Brigade in the captured trenches ½ mile north-east of Klein Zillebeke. By now it had been raining for three days and the conditions were appalling. Communication trenches were waist deep in water and liquid mud so that all movement had to take place overland. They remained in these forward positions, a mixture of water-logged trenches and shell holes for four days, having to deal with not only the awful weather but also constant enemy shell fire which was particularly heavy at dawn and dusk. Not surprisingly the casualties mounted up and included among them was William Barber who was killed on 3rd August.