Current Information:

Born-North Woolwich

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.

On 16th August, 1917, 17th London of 141 Brigade, 47th Division were training in a camp at Wizernes in France, a long way from the front line. That changed the next day when they moved by rail and route march to Ypres and on the following day, 18th August, they took over the front line at Westhoek Ridge, south of the Ypres-Roulers railway. They stayed here until relieved on 21st August and moved back into reserve in tunnels in Railway Wood. From here they provided working parties for a number of tasks, including assisting the Royal Engineers and carrying bombs (grenades) forward to the front line, until 26th August when they moved further back to a camp near Swan Chateau. Then, on the night of 30th/31st August they moved up into the line once again and remained there until relieved on 3rd September. They faced the same problems of enemy artillery fire, directed by their spotter planes, which was often targeted on the duckboards that were the supply route to the front line and of course the sea of mud that the battlefield had become. Joseph Fordham died from wounds on 2nd September but there is no information as to when he was wounded.