Current Information:

Age-18

10, Chaplin Road, Willesden

The Battle of Hill 60 (17 April – 7 May 1915)

Hill 60 is at the southern end of the Ypres Salient and is a man made mound from earth excavated from the nearby railway. It was an important vantage point for whoever controlled it which at the beginning of 1915 was the Germans. In April 1915, 5th Division took over the line in front of it and prepared to capture it. On 17th April six mines were blown beneath it which so discombobulated the defending Germans that 13 Brigade was able to capture it, sustaining only seven casualties. However, holding it was a much more difficult task. German artillery began to pound the position and early next morning, 18th April, they launched three counter attacks which were only repelled after heavy losses and only after the British had been forced back to the crest of the hill. Later that evening British counter attacks retook all of the hill The next three days saw intense German shelling of the position and numerous counter attacks until it was a mass of shell holes and mine craters. Between 1st and 5th May the Germans launched a series of attacks preceded by gas and eventually after desperate fighting, took back the hill.

On 18th April, two companies of the 1st Bedfordshire battalion of 15 Brigade were sent forward to support the hard pressed battalions of 13 Brigade and retake the lost positions. That night 15 Brigade relieved 13 Brigade at Hill 60 and 1st Bedfordshire, along with 1st East Surrey, attached from 14 Brigade, moved into the front line there. Throughout 19th April, a day spent clearing the trenches of dead and wounded and improving the defences, the position was shelled continuously by the Germans with their fire being directed mainly on the support and communication trenches in rear of the hill. 20th April was a day of ferocious fighting. At 11am an extremely heavy bombardment of the British positions on the hill commenced. Trenches were obliterated and many men were buried alive. An even fiercer shelling of the British positions began at 4pm which cut all communications to the rear. There were two German infantry attacks that evening and they continued to batter at the British positions all night. Some ground was lost in the desperate and confused fighting but Hill 60 remained in British hands. The fighting continued through the early morning of the next day, 21st April and enemy field guns were brought up to within about 30 yards from where they fired at point blank range at the parapet, blowing it to pieces and mangling the defenders. Later that morning 1st East Surrey and 1st Bedfordshire, sorely depleted in numbers, were relieved and the survivors of 1st Bedfordshire moved back to Reninghelst. One of the many casualties sustained by the battalion during this time on Hill 60 was George Bell who was killed on 19th April.