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Age-37

8, Nunhead Grove, 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.

Battle of Pilckem Ridge (31st July-2nd August)

This was the opening attack of Third Ypres and began at 3.50am on 31st July when British and French troops launched their offensive to break out of the Ypres salient. The day had mixed results. To the north the Pilckem Ridge was captured but there was less success further south along the Gheluvelt Ridge, where a combination of stiff German resistance and low cloud which hindered observation meant that only the first objectives were captured. Further attempts to push on were stopped in their tracks by specialist German counter attack divisions and resulted in a 70% casualty rate among the British troops. Then in the afternoon, the rain came and under the weight of shells falling on it, the battlefield soon became a quagmire. Over the next two days, suffering the most appalling conditions in the mud and the rain, the troops had to fight off numerous German counter attacks.

On 31st July, 1917, 24th Division were on the southern end of the attack 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. All three brigades of 24th Division were used with 17th Brigade on the right, moving forward from Klein Zillebeke, 73 Brigade on their left, attacking the Lower Star post, a German stronghold in Shrewsbury Forest, and on their left  was 72 Brigade who attacked with 1st North Staffordshire and 8th Royal West Surrey (Queens). Zero hour was 3.50am, at which time a hostile artillery barrage fell on the front line causing a number of casualties among the men of A and D Companies who were leading the attack. Despite this they pressed forward behind their own barrage and an hour later had reached Jehovah Trench near Bodmin Copse, their first objective. Here they waited for their own barrage to lift and then followed it on to the next objective, the Bassevillebeek stream at the foot of Dumbarton Wood. On reaching this point they were hit by flanking fire from Dumbarton Wood on their left and from a German stronghold, the Lower Star Post on their right. Under this pressure consolidation proved impossible and they withdrew to the line taken up south of Bodmin Copse, which marked their gains for the day. 8th Queens remained in these forward positions throughout the next day, 1st August, during which time it rained continuously. To add to their woes, in the afternoon, the enemy artillery began a very heavy shelling of their positions which caused many casualties The total casualties for the battalion since 30th July amounted to over 300, nearly half of their total strength, and included Archibald Bowley who was killed on 1st August.