Canadians at Passchendaele - Oct - Nov 1917

This tour is taken is following Norm Christie’s excellent series for King and Empire.

The Battle of Passchendaele, episode 4, in his For King and Empire tv series is located:

               https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=njlrDT-QfH4&t=1851s

Battle

We often think of Passchendaele as an all-Canadian battle, but actually it was a combined British, Australian, New Zealand and Canadian battle with the Canadians finally capturing Passchendaele on 10 November 1917.

The 3rd Battle of Ypres (Passchendaele) started 0350 on 31 July 1917. The aim of the offensive was to clear the German ports to eliminate the open Submarine warfare that was plaguing Allied Shipping, and to do this the Germans would have to be pushed off of Passchendaele Ridge.

The initial British assaults were effective, but persistent German counterattacks and torrential rainfall quickly slowed the British attack. By the end of August, the British Army had suffered 70,800 casualties.

The map shows the progress of the battle throughout the 3 phases.

After the Brits were stopped, in September, the ANZACS (Australian and New Zealand) troops were thrown into the battle.  The Brits and ANZACS launched the next phase of the battle and suffered another 35,000 casualties between 20 Sep and 03 Oct.

The heavy rains and incessant shelling had turned the low-lying land into a quagmire. The intricate drainage system used to manage the ground water was completely destroyed making the conditions even worse.

The men often struggled in waist deep mud, and the only way to get around was to walk on duckboards. If a man fell off the duck boards, he almost certainly drowned because to attempt to rescue him usually meant the rescuer would be lost as well.

The path to Passchendaele is shown through a series of Ridges. The Brits spearheaded the action until the end of August, then the ANZACs led the way through September and early October. The Canadians were called into the line next. Arthur Currie was extremely reluctant to continue the battle as he felt as if it would be a needless loss of life. He predicted that there would be 16,000 Canadian casualties in the battle, an estimate that very close to the actual loss of 16,400 casualties.

Currie would not proceed without making his usual meticulous preparations. The engineers constructed a transportation system, built gun emplacements and ensured that sufficient shells and supplies were available before the assault. Canadians were in the lowlands and under constant by the Germans, so were forced to do most of the preparations at night under heavy shelling and Gas attacks.

The Canadian plan was to make small advances, so they did not progress out of artillery range, to dig in and hold their ground, then progress to the next objective.

The Canadian assault kicked off at 0540 on 26 October.

The Canadians avoided the swampiest land around the Ravenbeek River, with the 3rd Canadian Division attacking to the north of the river and the 4th Division to the south. Since the land was so low-lying the Germans had built bunkers and machine gun nests instead of traditional trench lines. The taking of the bunkers usually required heroic action of a single person or a small group of soldiers to flank or rush the bunker and kill the occupants.

The bunker positions were invulnerable to anything but direct artillery fire from the heavy guns. Bellevue Pillbox was a one of very many bunkers the Canadians faced. The devastation of the land is evident, and it is little wonder that the crosses marking the fallen did not survive the battle.

The Mosselmark box is another typical German defensive post.

Individual feats of bravery won the day for the Canadians. Maj Christopher O’Kelly led his company to capture 100 prisoners and destroy six pillboxes. Private Tommy Holmes singlehandedly knocked out 2 machine guns, captured a pillbox and 19 prisoners allowing his unit to advance. Lt Robert Shankland led his platoon to hold off repeated German counterattacks after progressing 700 yards. Shankland went back to the front lines to get more help and made a second trip across no man’s land under heavy fire to rejoin his platoon. All three soldiers were awarded the Victoria Cross.

Lt Shankland is one of three Winnipeg natives who all lived on the same street, to win the VC. FW Hall won his VC in the battle of 2nd Ypres in 1915, and Leo Clarke won his on the Somme in September 1916. You will remember from the Canadian Heritage moment that their street was renamed Valour Road.

A total of 9 Canadians won Victoria Crosses during the Battle of Passchendaele, an indication of the remarkable individual efforts required for this assault to be successful.

Following this advance the Canadians dug in, usually using water-filled shell craters as cover.

The mud and dead bodies of horses and men made this a hellscape.

Tanks were worthless in this terrain and bogged down instantly.

The conditions were abysmal.

“EVERYTHING TURNED into porridge, a ghastly dreadful porridge, thigh-deep, in which if you got hit on the shoulder blade with a bullet that merely knocked you unconscious for two minutes, you drowned,” remarked Gregory Clark of the 4th CMR. Those wounded men who avoided drowning in the mud still faced the conventional dangers of passing into shock or bleeding to death. Quick care was the solution, but how were they to get to the surgeons in the rear? The mud was so thick that it could take six hours to get a wounded man to a medical unit. “One thing about Passchendaele I’ll never forget was the endurance, the fortitude and the courage of the stretcher-bearers,” remarked one infantryman who described the burdened men’s struggles through the mud. “I don’t know how the human frame stood up.”  Prisoners were employed to help, but even so the transporters ran a race against time. Relays were established to reduce the strain posed by inert, water-soaked men, but as Private Deward Barnes of the 19th Battalion recounted, the experience was always horrible: “Carrying the wounded out, most…. had parts of their faces shot away, some nearly all of their face.”  The sound of men’s feet being pulled repeatedly from the suctioning mud could be heard all across the battlefront, and the mud-bespattered ordeal of stretcher-bearers emerging from the ghostly vapour became an iconic image of the battle.

Gunner Ernest Black endured the strain and survived the German destruction of twenty-three guns in his battery, revealing an almost 400 percent casualty rate. “I spent thirty-one months in France and Belgium and I would do all of the rest of it again rather than those six weeks at Passchendaele,” wrote the beleaguered gunner.

The next phase of the attack went in at 0520 on 30 October. Early successes were blunted by fierce resistance and artillery fire. Once again, individual heroism was required for the units to progress. Maj George Pearkes, later to become a Major General in WW2, and the namesake of the DND headquarters building on the Rideau Canal, against heavy machine gun and artillery fire, led small groups of troops to take and hold two German strongholds. This action saved the Canadian advance, and Maj Pearkes was awarded the Victoria cross, having already been awarded the Medal of Courage, after having been wounded 4 previous times. The 4th Division captured Crest Farm, the current site of the Canadian memorial to Passchendaele.

Major Talbot Papineau, PPCLI and grandson of Louis-Joseph Papineau the leader of the Lower Canada Rebellion of 1837, was killed on 30 October. Papineau a lawyer and Rhodes Scholar from the upper class of Quebec society and touted as a future Prime Minister of Canada in the mold of Wilfred Laurier. Papineau joined the PPCLI at the outbreak of the war and survived the Battle of Bellewaarde Ridge on 8 May 1915 where the PPCLI suffered 400 casualties. In February 1916 he took a staff position and returned to the regiment in May 1917 after the battle of Vimy Ridge. During the attack of 30 October, he was hit by a shell and literally cut in half. His legs were found in a shell hole after the battle and initially identified by reversed puttees and confirmed by items in his pockets. He was buried and the location marked by a cross, but when the battlefields were cleared in 1919 the cross was found but his remains were not. He is commemorated at the Menin Gate.

This is one of the many instances when one wonders what would have happened if Papineau had survived. The question can be asked of all of those lost. Many of those who survived have survivor’s guilt wondering why they were allowed to live a full life when so many others did not.

In an ironic twist of fate, in 2007 on the CBC two-part miniseries, Talbot Papineau the man who could have been Prime Minister was portrayed by the man who would become Prime Minister, Justin Trudeau, Papineau’s fifth cousin twice removed.

The next phase of the attack went in at 0600 06 November 1917. By this time the Canadians were far enough up the ridge to attack over dry ground.

The village of Passchendaele had been pounded into piles of rubble by incessant artillery barrages.

The oblique aerial photo shows the shattered village of Passchendaele.

The 1st Division captured Mosselmark north of Passchendaele and the 2nd Division captured Passchendaele finally taking control of the ridge. The shattered remains of the church after the battle ended.

The map shows the progress of the 1st Battalion on 06 November.

On 06 November, then Cp1 Robert Connelly of the 1st Battalion, and uncle of my brother-in-law, won the Military Medal.

The Military Medal is awarded to Warrant Officers, Non-commissioned Officers and non-

commissioned members for individual or associated acts of bravery on the recommendation of a Commander-in-Chief in the field.  The regimental or equivalent number, rank, initials, surname and unit of the recipient appear in plain block capitals around the edge of the medal.

His citation reads:

At Passchendaele on 06 November 1917 this NCO was in charge of a platoon, the officer being called upon to take charge of the company upon the Commander of the company becoming a casualty. This NCO displayed mark tact and efficiency in handling his men and guiding them to their objective. He consolidated his portion of the line and reported for further instructions during a heavy bombardment by the enemy. He exposed himself to heavy shell fire in order to assist a wounded comrade whose escort was dispersed by a shell falling near and led him to the dressing station.

Connelly was promoted to Sgt on 24 November 1917.

On 10 November 1917, the final phase of the attack pushed the Germans completely off of the Ridge.

The two-week campaign cost the Canadians 5,000 dead and a total of 16,400 casualties, almost exactly the number predicted by Currie before the battle. The battle of Passchendaele from 31 July to 10 November cost the  Commonweath was more than 250,000 casualties for a gain of 7 km. However, this effort very likely saved the British Commander in Chief, Sir Douglas Haig, his job and restored faith in the Commonwealth army.

Tour

While traveling to the Passchendaele tour spots, I happened on a few interesting sidelights. The French Cemetery St Charles de Potyze has 3547 named burials including 609 in an ossuary. After the war, the French removed the unknown soldiers and placed them in a separate ossuary in Kemmel.

The Sculpture near the entrance shows Jesus on the Cross and the women at his feet mourning the fallen soldier.

A little further down the road, I came across a windmill, so I stopped to take some pictures.

Like many places in the area, there was a small private museum. The museum was not open but in the back yard was a display of railway ties, each with a face carved in them.

The installation is called faces of war, and has 119 figures, each one representing a country involved in the war. It is impossible to stop at every cemetery or every memorial, but every one you do stop at gives a fresh prospective on the war.

The tour kicks off at Wolf Farm, the jumping off point for the initial assault of 26 October.

The tour map from Norm Christie’s book shows the trench locations in the area.

Wolf farm was the jump of point for the 3rd Division. The map shows the flooded areas and the number of German pillboxes that caused so much grief for the Canadians.

The area looks benign today but was a sea of mud and shell holes the morning of the assault.

Just 100 m down the road is a monument to the 15th Battalion, celebrating their action on Gravenstafel Ridge more than 2 years earlier during the 2nd Battle of Ypres.

The next point was Source Farm, the jumping off point for the 3rd Division on 30 October. Maj George Pearkes won the VC for pushing his troops forward, and deploying some of his troops to fill the gap when British units were unable to advance.

This is the ground the 3rd division crossed over.

The next stop is the Passchendaele British Cemetery, near the jump off point for the 1st Division on 06 November. The cemetery was built in 1920 from field clearances, and contains 2091 Commonwealth soldiers, including 650 Canadians, 452 of whom (70%) are unknowns.

This cemetery is deceiving, as there is a drop off beyond the stone of remembrance, making the cemetery appear smaller than it actually is. This cemetery appears not to have had its spring cleanup yet. The wet weather causes mold to grow on the headstones, and the grounds have not received the usual immaculate care. I visited Tyne Cot cemetery later, the largest Commonwealth cemetery in the world, and the difference in the headstones and grounds is dramatic.

Norm Christie worked for the War Graves Commission Records department and was instrumental in identifying soldiers previously identified as unknown through detailed examination of the records. In this cemetery alone, he identified 4 soldiers, 3 officers and one private. The officers can be identified through a process of elimination, or by the medal ribbons on their tunics, but the private was identified by a pen knife with his battalion and initials carved on it. One guide told me Norm was asked to leave the commission as he was identifying too many unknown soldiers and causing extra work.

The next stop was Vindictive Crossroads, the jumping off point for the 1st Division on 10 November. The final action was to push the Germans off the ridge completely and set up a defensible point to hold of all counterattacks.

Next stop is the Canadian Battlefield Memorial at Crest Farm. Crest Farm was the scene of a major battle on 30 October. It is very close to the heart of Passchendaele and was the jump off point for the 2nd Division on 06 November to finally capture Passchendaele village.  The Bite and Hold strategy relied on small achievable objectives, with the ability to dig in and successfully defend against certain German counterattacks. The map shows the limited ground to be taken on 06 November. The 1st Division was progressing from the Passchendaele British Cemetery to Vindictive Corner, and the 2nd Division from Crest Farm into Passchendaele.

The view from behind the monument at Crest Farms shows the short distance to cover.

The memorial itself is the standard Canadian Design.

The view from the back of the memorial shows the valley of the Ravebeek (tree-lined in the middle of the picture). The river valley was completely flooded during the attack and the green fields a muddy quagmire.

Next stop was the 85th Highlander memorial, site of their attack on 30 October. The memorial is in the middle of a field south of Passchendaele.

The memorial has a plaque listing the fallen of the 85th Battalion. The original monument was raised by the battalion before the end of the fighting to remember the 148 officers and men who fell in the four days of fighting around here between 28th & 31st October 1917, but by the late 20th Century the memorial was in poor condition and, it seems, threatened with collapse. Descendants of the 85th Highlanders raised funds, and one person donated the block of granite that the monument was made with.

Looking at the left edge of the memorial, the church steeple at Passchendaele is barely visible.

Zooming in you can see how close the village is..

The next stop is near Tyne Cot Cemetery, jumping off point for the 4th Division of 26 October. The attractiveness of the position is evident, as it provides an excellent view of Ypres, 3 km away.

This was the jumping off point for the 4th Division. The cemetery area was heavily defended, and 3 bunkers remain on the grounds. The Cross of Sacrifice is built atop one bunker, but the other two are clearly visible.

The bunkers show signs of battle damage.

Tyne Cot Cemetery is the largest Commonwealth Cemetery in the world with 11,871 war graves, 70% unknown. The cemetery was started in 1917 and vastly enlarged after the war with concentrations from the battlefield. There are 966 Canadians in the cemetery, with 554 unidentified. In addition, there are 35,000 British and New Zealand soldiers with no known graves are commemorated on plaques on the walls of the cemetery.

The names include British soldiers missing after 15 August 1917, and New Zealand soldiers missing after October 1917. The original plan was to have all soldiers named on the Menin Gate memorial, but they ran out of space so are listed here. All Canadians missing in Belgium are listed on the Menin Gate, those missing in France are on the Vimy Memorial.

The Battle of Passchendaele was a costly conflict for the Canadians in abysmal conditions. They suffered 5000 killed and more than 11000 wounded to gain 2 km of ground. In most battles, the ratio of wounded to killed is 3:1, but at Passchendaele it was 2:1, due to many wounded drowning before they could be removed from the battlefield. Taking of the myriad of bunkers required extraordinary personal effort. Small wonder that 9 Victoria Crosses were awarded to Canadians over the course of this brutal battle.