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The conditions British Troops faced in Flanders and Passchendaele.
Text:
British Troops in Flanders
The British Troops in Flanders have had to contend with almost incredible difficulties, owing to the autumn and winter rains, which have converted the ground into a morass of bogs and swamps. The photograph shows a domestic scene behind the lines. Some of the men are washing in the floods, while others are shaving and dressing before the day's work begins.
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CS 684. Wt. 7685 - 74m. - 12/17/C. & S. E2202

The conditions British Troops faced in Flanders and Passchendaele.

Image text

British Troops in Flanders

The British Troops in Flanders have had to contend with almost incredible difficulties, owing to the autumn and winter rains, which have converted the ground into a morass of bogs and swamps. The photograph shows a domestic scene behind the lines. Some of the men are washing in the floods, while others are shaving and dressing before the day's work begins.

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Reverse:

CS 684. Wt. 7685 - 74m. - 12/17/C. & S. E2202

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Wednesday, September 26, 1917

"At 11.45 D Company was forming up under some machine-gun fire. Two platoons of B arrived in time to advance with D at zero, noon. The only covering fire given was a few ineffectual smoke shells, because it was still thought that there were parties of the 98th Brigade in front, and there was no definite German position. Mann had just seen the other two platoons of B away when he was shot through the throat, and died almost immediately. Coster was shot through the head as his Company was entering a scraggy orchard, enclosed by a scraggier hedge, north of Jerk Farm : it is about 550 yards eastwards of Black Watch Corner. At this early stage the two Companies were losing touch. The extent of hedge, orchard and pill-box, and the consequent obstruction to view and control of movement, was underestimated on the map which had been our only source of information."

Quotation Context

Excerpt from the entry for September 26, 1917 from the writings — diaries, letters, and memoirs — of Captain J. C. Dunn, Medical Officer of the Second Battalion His Majesty's Twenty-Third Foot, the Royal Welch Fusiliers, and fellow soldiers who served with him. Dunn's entry covers his Battalion's part in the Battle of Polygon Wood. On September 28, he would write that his battalion had lost one-third of its men in the action, and 'more than 60 were dead. Mann was the greatest loss. He was an outstanding figure during the two years to a day he served with the Battalion.' Overall, the British suffered 15,375 casualties in the Polygon Wood battle, an engagement within the Third Battle of Ypres, begun two months before.

Source

The War the Infantry Knew 1914-1919 by Captain J.C. Dunn, pp. 395–396, copyright © The Royal Welch Fusiliers 1987, publisher: Abacus (Little, Brown and Company, UK), publication date: 1994

Tags

1917-09-26, 1917, September, Third Battle of Ypres, Third Ypres, Polygon Wood, Battle of Polygon Wood