Current Information:

Age-22

Enlisted-Bow

Lijssenthoek 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.

47th Division arrived at Ypres in mid August and took over part of the front line on the Westhoek Ridge, south of the Ypres-Roulers railway and north of the Menin road. One of the spells in the front line here for 17th London of 141 Brigade began on the night of 12th-13th September when they relieved 18th London. There was considerable artillery activity here by both sides and in the evening of 13th September a patrol confirmed the position of an enemy post from which a machine-gun was firing. The following evening, 14th September, a platoon attacked this position. When close enough they rushed the post and took possession of it. The Battalion Diary recorded that the operation was entirely successful but it probably did not appear that way to the fourteen men who were either killed or wounded. On the next day, 15th September the Battalion Diary recorded that there was an organised bombardment by the British guns. Unfortunately they were not as well organised as they could have been and some of the shells from the British ‘heavies hit a forward post (Post J8a80∙65), manned by some of 17th London, causing severe casualties. The next day they were relieved. Martin Schroder died of wounds on 16th September but it is not known when exactly he was wounded.