Current Information:

Age-24

6, Priory Park Road, Sudbury, Harrow

Born-Sudbury

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 31st August, 1917, the 17th London battalion of 141 Brigade, 47th Division moved into the front line near the Menin road in the Ypres salient. On the following day, 1st September, their positions along Jabber Trench and the duck board tracks leading to the Menin Road were shelled, enemy aircraft flew very low along their line and they came under rifle and machine-gun fire. The battalion suffered eight casualties one of whom was Sidney Wilkinson who was killed.