Current Information:

Born-Greenwich

New Irish Farm 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 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.

On 31st July, 1917, after an opening barrage by 3,000 guns, 16 divisions attacked along the length of the salient. Those divisions in the centre of the line moved due east to the Steenbeek, a small stream, crossing the line of attack some 1,000 yards off. This was the final objective of 39th Division, whose first objective was Kitchener’s Wood, or rather what was left of Kitchener’s Wood after 3 years of concentrated artillery bombardment.  16th Sherwood Foresters and 17th King’s Royal Rifle Corps led the attack by 117 Brigade and after they had secured the German front line, 17th Sherwood Foresters and 16th Rifle Brigade passed through and continued the attack to Kitchener’s Wood and on to the Steenbeck. Advancing at 3.50am, 16th Rifle Brigade had crossed the German front line within 8 minutes but soon they ran into the first of the new concrete emplacements at Racecourse Farm on the left which inflicted severe casualties among the ranks before it was finally rushed and silenced. Approaching Kitchener’s Wood they were fired on by a number of machine guns and snipers and again men fell. The machine gun nest was captured after rifle grenades had been used against it and another concrete blockhouse, Alberta, superbly camouflaged had to be faced and finally taken. Three more strong points at Regina Cross were put out of action by Stokes mortars before what was left of the battalion reached the Steenbeck and dug in. Here they remained until 4th August, with the rain pouring down, the trenches turning to mud and impossible to maintain, exhausted, hungry and still having to face the enemy’s artillery. On 31st July, casualties suffered by 16th Rifle Brigade amounted to about 300 with over 50 of them killed. One of those who lost their lives was Leslie Chown.