Lest we forget...

[don4l]

rednotdead said:

don4l said:

Here is a photo of Passchendaele (in the Somme)

Passchendaele isn't in the Somme - it's just outside the Ypres Salient. It's one of the names synonymous with WW1.

For those interested in visiting, Tyne Cot cemetery is in Passchendaele village, but the highly recommended Passchendaele museum is actually in Zonnebeke Chateau link

That makes sense.

I don't know why I thought that Passchendale was part of the Somme. I do know that the Somme tended to be a bit chalky, and so a bit less muddy.

I'll edit my post.

[don4l]

john2443 said:

My to do list includes a visit next year, Grandad was gassed in Aug 1917 near Arras, his CO wrote a book on the regiment so I have a reasonable knowledge of where they were so will try to retrace their steps, and also go to the Menin gate.

He survived, not in full health but being gassed probably saved his life as the regiment went on to Passchendaele.

If there is somewhere in particular that you want to visit, then let the tour company know. They all appear to be very accommodating.

On the last day of our tour, the guide rushed us a bit. That afternoon we did a 45 minute detour so that someone could lay their poppy on a relative's grave.

Edited by don4l on Saturday 15th October 16:54

[don4l]

I thought that I had already thanked you for saying that you are reading these posts.

The previous post got no replies and it left me wondering if anybody was reading.

So, to everyone who replied, thanks. Each post is taking about 6 hours to research, and about two hours to type.

The battlefield tour took us to many, many locations. There was so much to see that it was very confusing. Researching these posts is helping to put all these places and battles into context. I hope that these posts will do the same for others.

[don4l]

baldy1926 said:

https://www.facebook.com/TheGreatWar191418/?hc_ref...
I dont think its a closed group

That is a good page. Thanks for sharing.

[don4l]

Oilchange said:

I'm reading.
Grandad fought their, infantryman. Never spoke of it of course but once mentioned a little ditty that just before a dawn raid there was a milder than seasonal night and the snow melted. So the snipers had to roll around in the mud to cover their whites! It's about 17th hand that story so may have changed slightly from the original...

Also, my Dad tried to research Grandads war records but the records office was hit during the Blitz and a lot was lost to the subsequent fire.

Many, many people never spoke of it afterwards.

I hope that I am helping people to understand why they were unable to speak about it.

[don4l]

Tycho said:

Rude-boy said:

Thank you for taking the time to research and post on this. IMO you are hitting the right balance on all levels from detail to emotion and post length. I do hope that this thread is also the precursor to some others which can explore some areas in greater detail than appropriate this one.

+1, there is a good balance between looking at the total numbers which can be quickly forgotten and the individuals suffering in the trenches. The macro and micro are explored very well. Thanks.

Thanks for the feedback. It is very nice to know that the balance is right.

[don4l]

rscott said:

It's interesting (and somewhat saddening) to compare the Allied and German cemeteries. The German ones are very plain and few in number now - they were consolidated into only 14 cemeteries over several decades, with multiple soldiers commemorated on each cross.

I completely agree.

We visited a German cemetry. The "density" was 10 times that of a British, or Commonwealth cemetry. In fact, we saw one spot that is half the size of my modest lawn.

It contained the remains of 25,000 Germans.

It is the rectangle half way down the right hand side of the cemetry.
https://www.google.co.uk/maps/place/German+War+Cem...

The rest of the cemetry contains over 19,000 bodies.

A British cemetry of this size would contain about 4,000 bodies.

After the war, the Germans were told to remove most of their cemetries. The French and Belgians wanted to use the land for agriculture.

I believe that the Germans had to buy land to provide burial spaces. They didn't have much money. They had smaller cemetries all over the battlefields, but the Belgians and the French were not going let good agricultural land go to waste on the Bosch.

So, the bodies were exhumed and reburied where the Germans could buy a bit of land.

In the allied cemetries, the dominant colour is white. In the German cemetries the dominant colour is black.

The allied cemetries are very sad places to be, but the German cemetries are just desolate.

May I ask which cemetry your great uncle was buried in?

[don4l]

43034 said:

BBC interviewed a load of WW1 soldiers in the 60s, hundreds(?) of hours of footage.

Can't remember the name, does anyone know it? Or know where I can find it?

Cheers

Is this it?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=po3OZyVLHTM&li...

There is another one which I cannot find at the moment. I will keep looking and post again when I find it.

EDIT:-

This is the one that I was thinking of:-
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OtyWXDw4S0U

Edited by don4l on Thursday 20th October 09:47

[don4l]

RicksAlfas said:

Don, if you don't want this posting here, just let me know and I can delete it.

This is my great grandfather's wire cutter from 1917. It's built like a bolt cutter, but the jaws only open about half an inch. He was badly wounded in the fighting near the Belgium border, as can be seen from his cigarette case. However he recovered and lived until 1977.

I'm very pleased that you posted the photos.

So many people still feel the pain.

One of the things that I am struggling to get my head around is why the barbed wire proved to be such an obstacle. I was wondering why the British didn't have bolt cutters.

I think that I am beginning to understand why bolt cutters wouldn't have worked.

In most places, no man's land was about 200 yards. The only places where the British succeeded were where the local Generals ignored the "walk" order and instructed their men to run across no-man's land as fast as possible. As far as I can see, these places also had manageed to flatten some of the barbed wire.

When the artillery barrage stopped, the Germans took a couple of minutes to get back up to their machine gun posts. In a couple of locations the Allies were waiting for them as they came out of their dug-outs. In these places, the Germans didn't stand a chance.

[don4l]

Jasandjules said:

IIRC another issue was the British Generals had time limits - 3 mins to walk over, 2 mins to take objective, so at 6 mins the next barrage would take place. Therefore, any small delay (or being shot at) meant the barrage finished long before the troops arrived, giving the Germans time to deploy.

One of the French generals as I understand it said "f*ck that" and got his people on the ground to inform him when they had advanced, then the artillery started up. They advanced further and with fewer casualties due to the flexibility.

So many errors, so many thousands of young men died because of them. Such a waste.

That is absolutely true. I will be posting a YouTube that discusses the subject in detail.

The opposite also happened. In a couple of cases where the allies made rapid progress, they got shelled by their own side.

Having said that, the French general must have been lucky with the terrain, because the only means of communication was "runners". Runners were prone to getting shot.

[don4l]

deadtom said:

last weekend some of my unit paraded for the daily remembrance service at the Thiepval memorial.

I feel privileged to have been a small part of keeping the memory alive of what these men did and what they sacrificed.

We visited many of the places mentioned so far in this thread; the ones that stand out the most for me were the sunken lane which remains largely unchanged since the war and you can climb up the very same bank that the soldiers did moments before they were cut down by machine gun fire, high wood which is an utterly foreboding and unnerving place to be near as it has never been properly cleared and as such still contains the remains of an estimated 10,000 soldiers and Delville wood which is now a place of incredible beauty and tranquillity that belies the total carnage that befell it 100 years ago.

Sunken Lane seems to have a huge impact on everyone who visits. I think the reason is that it is clearly unchanged since the 1st July 1916. You can feel what happened.

If you had shown me that photo of Delville wood a few weeks ago, all I would have seen was a nice photo of bluebells in the forest.

We were at Thiepval for the service on 24th Sept. It was very touching.

[don4l]

Evil Jack said:

I would like to recommend Dan Carlin's six part 'Blueprint for Armageddon' podcast for a fascinating, sobering and yes, depressing account of the First World War.
Actually one of the best podcasts I've ever listened to...

http://www.dancarlin.com/product/hardcore-history-...

I've listened to the first 10 minutes so far.

Very, very thought provoking. I shall definately listen to the rest.

Edited by don4l on Tuesday 25th October 23:06

[don4l]

A chap who clearly lost a relative has made some interesting films. In this video he takes some footage that was shot on 1st July 1916. He combines it with footage shot from exactly the same spot 100 years later.

It is 16 minutes long, and features some lovely music.

It features Sunken Lane, Hawthorn Ridge and Mametz wood. If you have forgotton about these then I would suggest that you search back through the thread for them. The video will mean so much more if you know what you are looking at. It will only take a couple of minutes for each place.

http://www.hellfirecorner.co.uk/9vcs.htm

[don4l]

MikeT66 said:

Just wanted to say - a very illuminating thread, don4l. Not sure if there are any more posts coming, but it's been brilliant to read of your experiences.

There are quite a few more posts coming.

I didn't think it out properly at the beginning, and the posts came in a bit of a random order.

I'm currently researching a freind's grandfather (who survived). However, it appears that most of his records were destroyed when the Germans dropped a bomb on the repositry in 1940. It is taking a bit of time.

In the meantime, I have found some good Youtubes.

This one is a "Time Team" special.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=usncav3TcPo

I think that they did a good job. It is quite amazing what is still in the ground. Our tour guide told us that whenever they build a new house around Ypres, they find bones as they dig the foundations.

I thought that he might be exaggerating. I don't think that he was.

[don4l]

ChemicalChaos said:

Not to hijack the thread, but do you know where people normally sell poppies in Liverpool? I have yet again this year failed to spot anyone on the campus area selling them

Most of the petrol stations around here sell them.

Post offices too.

Not in a million years could anyone interpret your question as a thread hijack.

[don4l]

12. The Chemists War.

WW1 is sometimes called The Chemists War because of the use of chemical weapons.

Unfortunately, there is very little recorded information out there, so you must not take any of the following information as 100% fact. All of it is only accurate to the best of my ability. The "fog of war" is incredibly thick on this subject.

On the 22nd April 1915 the Germans used chlorine gas against Algerian soldiers near Ypres. The Algerians immediately fled. The Germans didn't know what the result of their attack would be and failed to take the vacated trenches.

The Canadian 1st division filled the gaps before the Germans could take possession. The Canadians were able to make improvised gas masks by wearing urine soaked handkerchiefs over their faces. The urine neutralised the chlorine.


Chlorine was a nasty gas. It caused great irritation to the eyes, throat, tongue and lungs. It caused the lungs to fill with liquid which resulted in the victims drowning to death. Some victims were axphiated due to swelling in the throat. However, you needed to get a fairly high dose to be mortally wounded. Most people actually recovered, although many had respiratory problems for the rest of their lives.

This first gas attack used gas cylinders that simply had their valves opened during an easterly wind. Later attacks would use artillery shells.

One key component of any poison gas was that it had to be heavier than air.


For more information on the effects of chlorine gas see here:-
http://www.vlib.us/medical/gaswar/chlorine.htm


The British developed Chlorine as a weapon five months later. I haven't found much information about the British use of gas, but as the prevailing winds were south-westerley, I suspect that the Germans came to regret the fact that they introduced it.

The next gas that was introduced was Phosgene. This was a more potent, but slower acting, gas than Chlorine. It was also heavier, so it lingered in the trenches a bit longer.

Phosgene did not have a strong smell. It smelt a bit like mouldy hay. This meant that it was much more difficult to detect. Also, whilst Chlorine caused instant coughing, Phosgene often had no immediate effects. Sometimes it took 24 hours before it was obvious that you had been poisoned.

It was also much more potent. The moving air dispersed these gasses fairly quickly, and Chlorine quickly became quite safe. However, Phosgene was poisinous at a concentration of 1/8th that of chlorine. When you combine that with the fact that it was difficult to see or smell, it was much more deadly. Death would often occur about 48 hours after exposure, when the lungs stopped working.




Both Chlorine and Phosgene could be rendered fairly useless by the use of gas masks.

This photo depicts the effect of gas. The soldiers eyes have become so sensitised to light that they have had to cover them. They are walking to the dressing station. I think that it depicts the effects of mustard gas.




Mustard gas was first used by the Germans in July 1917. It was different to the other gasses in that you did not need to inhale it for it to be effective. It also attacked the skin. This meant that it was very difficult to protect soldiers against the gas.

Mustard gas wasn't really a gas at all. It was a liquid that slowly evaporated over several days. So, if it got onto your clothing, it could spend several days attacking you before you knew that you had a problem. In the meantime, you might have come into contact with other people who would become infected.

Beause it was a liquid, it would persist for many days, even weeks. It was often used to deny the enemy access to part of their territory.

It caused blistering, and if these blisters became infected, then death could easily follow. They did not have access to antibiotics.

If the Mustard gas was inhaled, then blisters would also form in the lungs.

This would often lead to death.

However, only about 1% of victims actually died. Most people made a full recovery.

The big effect of gas was to lower morale. It wasn't really used to capture territory.

As far as I can tell 90,000 deaths occurred due to gas. However, the true figure might be as low as 9,000. As I said at the top of this post, the fog of war on this subject is impenetrable. The records do not simply seem to exist.

I've seen many films about the first and second world wars, and they all misrepresent what actually happened.

This little clip accurately demonstrates the effect of heavy gas.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oV5Wq0vMZnw

[don4l]

Rebew said:

I've been reading this thread since the start and it really changed my perspective during the moments silence today. The more you learn about the war the more you realise what a tragic loss of life it was with so little achieved in the long run. Looking forward to more posts soon,

That comment is very much appreciated.

Thank you.

[don4l]

Channel 4, now.

[don4l]

I'd like to say thank you to the last three posters.

Thank you.

Baldy, I've read the officer's letter to your grandmother.

You must be very proud indeed.

Your other great uncle was also remembered at the scene.