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Using a compass in the morass of Passchendale – 1917
Second Battle of Passchendale 26th October – 10th October 1917 Before the big push around Houthulst Forest during the Ypres Offensive, the Brigadier gave us a lecture. He told us that one machine gun...
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You’ve got a Blighty One – October 1917
We had another casualty, a Birmingham lad who was in charge of that gun. The engineers would rig up a bit of a dug out on a dry spot and make a bit of shelter with corrugated sheeting. They’d been...
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The only thing that lived out there were rats and they had a feast of it –...
Mother! Mother! On the way in I came across these guardsmen, eight or nine, lying in a shell-hole as though they were asleep. (They were Gough’s XIV Corps. Guards. From the 38 Division commanded by...
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Some Horrible Ways to go – October 1917
Two weeks before there’d been a lad stuck in one of these shell-holes; they couldn’t get to him. It was too exposed. He must have drowned or died of his wounds. A horrible way to go that. Not being...
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Henry Gartendfeld & Dick Piper R.I.P OCT 1917
Gartenfeld’s head was split right down the middle as if he’d been hit with an axe. They’d dragged him out round the side. (Henry Godliph Gartenfeld died on the 22nd October 1917) Dick must have been...
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The Boy David, Machine Gun Corps Association, memorial service with last...
Memorial Service at the ‘Boy David’ Hyde Parker, summer 1991 or 1992. Jack Wilson MM without the stick, centre. His grandson, Jonathan Vernon far left holding a standard.
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2012 in review
The WordPress.com stats helper monkeys prepared a 2012 annual report for this blog. Here’s an excerpt: 600 people reached the top of Mt. Everest in 2012. This blog got about 5,500 views in 2012. If...
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In my grandfather’s footsteps
Egypt House (Far Right) was a three compartment German Pill Box. In late December 1917 my grandfather was a machine gunner here and on the edge of Houthulst Forest. I walked between Poperinge and...
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They Called it Paschendaele
For an insight into the life, death and frontline tactics along the Western Front controlled by British and Commonwealth troops you should begin with Lyn Macdonald’s ‘They Called it Paschendaele’....
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Souvenirs
I remember being in the brick factory on the Somme at Trones Wood. There was this huge crater, this was in 1916. I was trying to boil some water. I’d set up a bit of a fire with a couple of bricks...
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Two days to live, seven days to die
At the end of October 1917, 96 years ago to the day, my grandfather, then 21, and Jack Walsh the ‘carrier’ on a Vicker’s Machine Gun were sent in to relieve two fellow company machine gunners: Dick...
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