Sunday WW1 Remembered....

The Battle of Polygon Wood

26 September - 3rd October 1917

The Battle of Polygon Wood took place during the second phase of the Third Battle of Ypres in World War I and was fought near Ypres in Belgium 26 September – 3 October 1917, in the area from the Menin road to Polygon Wood and north towards the area beyond St Julien.

The name Polygon Wood was derived from the shape of a plantation forest that lay along the axis of the Australian advance on 26 September 1917. The wood was sometimes known as Racecourse Wood, as there was a track within it. Before the Great War, Polygon Wood was used by the Belgian Army and within it stands a large mound, known as the Butte, which was used as a rifle range; there was also a small airfield near the area.

Though smaller than in 1917, Polygon Wood is still large; the remains of three German pillboxes captured by the Australians lie deep among the trees but few trench lines remain. The Butte is still prominent and mounted on top of it is the 5th Australian Divisional memorial. There are two Commonwealth War Graves Commission (CWGC) cemeteries in the vicinity of Polygon Wood, the CWGC Polygon Wood Cemetery and the CWGC Buttes New British Cemetery. Within Buttes New British Cemetery is the CWGC Polygon Wood New Zealand Memorial to the Missing.

Source:Wikipedia

A wrecked German concrete observation post, 26 September 1917, seen during the Battle of Polygon Wood part of the Battle of Passchendaele.

Photograph : Brooks, Ernest ( Lieutenant)
Imperial War Museum
© IWM (Q 2908)

Motorised transport on the Ypres-Zonnebeck road, alongside which wrecked transport are seen with their split loads of shells, etc. 30 September 1917, during the Battle of Polygon Wood, part of the Battle of Passchendaele. In the background men are filling in shell-holes.

Photograph : Brooks, Ernest ( Lieutenant)
Imperial War Museum
© IWM (Q 2917)

Battle of Polygon Wood 26 September - 3 October: Members of the 13th Australian Field Ambulance sheltering in funk holes along Anzac Ridge.

Photograph : Australian Official Photographer
Imperial War Museum
© IWM (E(AUS) 839)

As always, I am indebted to the Imperial War Museum for the opportunity to share these fascinating photographs taken at the time by WW1 photographers.

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Sunday WW1 Remembered...

The Battle of Messines

 7-14 June 1917

The Allies plan was to attack around the Ypres Salient in order to drive the Germans out of Belgium. The plans were long in the making and the attack made use of strategic tunnels which had been burrowed underground during the previous eighteen months of planning.

I'd like to quote this observation from Voices and Images of the Great War by Lyn Macdonald

Pastor Van Walleghem : - 7 June 1917  ...What a hellish sound, what an abominable spectacle, thousands of gun-flashes and bangs per minute, beneath a rain of fire and resounding shell and shrapnel explosion, if this were not human carnage one would all it 'wonderful'. For us onlookers this is nothing, but what must it be like for the 100,000 men in that pool of fire...

Ruins of Martens Farm, near Wytschaete, 10 June 1917.

© IWM (Q 5479)

Shells bursting in a valley near Messines, 7 June 1917.

© IWM (Q 5462)

Artillery officers mess, in front of Kemmel, 10 June 1917.

© IWM (Q 5476)

The fine June weather was a bonus and the Battle of Messines was a victory. By removing the Germans from the ridge it ensured that the high ground around the salient was under Allied control.

As always, I am indebted to IWM for the opportunity to feature these photographs from the area around the battle site.

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Sunday WW1 Remembered...

I am a frequent visitor to the History of the Great War website and I am always fascinated in the timeline of events which are so clearly marked out for each month of the war.

 This month I will look at what was happening in April,1917.

U.S. Entry into World War I, 1917. 

On April 2, 1917, President Woodrow Wilson went before a joint session of Congress to request a declaration of war against Germany. On April 4, 1917, the U.S. Senate voted in support of the measure to declare war on Germany. The House concurred two days later. The United States later declared war on German ally Austria-Hungary on December 7, 1917.

US Army Recruitment poster

More than four million copies of this image of 'Uncle Sam ' were printed between 1917 and 1918.


Incidentally I visited the Imperial War Museum as a young teenager and bought a copy of this poster which was on my bedroom wall for quite a while.

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H.M.S. "Jason" (torpedo gunboat) sunk by mine off west coast of Scotland.

On 3rd April 1917 Minesweeper HMS Jason was sunk at 56 36N, 6 28W by a mine laid by U-boat 78, off Coll Island, West coast of Scotland, with the loss of 25 lives.

© IWM (FL 14225)