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Age-20

27, South Grove, Mile End

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.

The Battle of Langemarck

This took place between 16th-18th August, 1917 and was the second general attack of 3rd Ypres. Although it did not rain during the two days of the battle itself there had been plenty of it in the preceding days and in many places the battlefield was a quagmire. On the left of the attack in the north-west of the Ypres salient there was considerable success,  especially for the French Army which attacked on the left of the British, but the attack on the Gheluvelt Plateau, due east of Ypres, met determined German resistance and the early gains were soon reversed.

On 16th August, 1917, 29th Division attacked on the extreme left of the front with the Ypres-Staden railway on their right. 88 Brigade were on the right of the divisional front and had the 2nd Hampshire and 1st Newfoundland battalions in front with 1st Essex and 4th Worcestershire in the second wave. At 1.30 am 2nd Hampshire reached their assembly point with the battalion HQ at Tuff's Farm While waiting here enemy shelling caused several casualties and then at 4.45 am the British barrage came down and the men advanced taking full advantage of the protection it provided. The advance went well but on the right they  suffered some casualties because of the ragged nature of the barrage there and they were also troubled by enfilade fire from blockhouses near Reitres Farm.. By 5.45 am their first objective had been secured and they began their advance to the second objective, the Green Line, which was secured on the heels of the barrage and consolidated. Here they captured over one hundred prisoners but then had to endure heavy shelling of this new position with the enemy fire being directed by planes. 1st Essex and 4th Worcestershire then passed through on their way to the final objective. 2nd Hampshire suffered many casualties especially among stretcher bearers and HQ personnel at Tuffs Farm before they were relieved in the early morning of 17th August when they went back to a camp at Bleuet Farm for three days. On 20th August they moved back to the right sector of the divisional front line where they stayed until 24th August. During these four days the enemy’s artillery was very active and on 24th August, the day on which Frederick Holder was killed, the battalion suffered 14 casualties before their relief.