Current Information:

Mendinghem Military 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 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.

20th Division were in reserve when the British offensive was launched on 31st July and for the first week of August, 1917, 10th Rifle Brigade of 59 Brigade were in a camp near Canada Farm, north-west of Ypres. At first they were in flimsy bivouacs and given the appalling weather it was a great relief when they moved into nearby huts after a few days. On 6th August 20th Division relieved 38th Division, who had attacked in the northern part of the battlefield on 31st July, towards the village of Langemarck and between 8th-11th August, 10th Rifle Brigade were in reserve on the Canal Bank, providing carrying parties taking supplies of all sorts forward to the battalions in the front line. James Yuill  was wounded on 5th August and died from his wounds on 9th August