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Updated: May 19, 2025
One day during this short rest, October 29, I had a ride round with Lieut. Odell in search of a field-cashier's office where money could be drawn to pay Brigade details. After a long ride to different places we landed up at a Canadian Cashier's Office near Poperinghe; at this time the Canadians were on Passchendaele Ridge.
All honour to those that gallantly stormed the muddy slopes of Passchendaele; to the wonderful engineers that conquered the squalid quagmires of Langemarck and Zonnebeke; to the gunners that stuck to their guns under a rain of bombs and shells, and to the transport drivers that fed them. It is a tale of wonderful gallantry and heroic endeavour.
He distinguished himself signally as a sniper and bears the extraordinary record of having killed three hundred and seventy-eight of the enemy. His Military Medal and two bars were awarded, however, for his distinguished conduct at Mount Sorrell, Amiens, and Passchendaele.
Still the same dry east-wind weather very cold in the wind, very warm in the sun. If the German offensive began while these fine days held, they would have the luck of weather as we had never had it. Think of the drenching rains and winds of the Passchendaele attack! In the popular mind the notion of 'a German God' was taking actual concrete shape.
"Our Canadian troops have won another great victory they have stormed the Passchendaele Ridge and held it in the face of all counter attacks. None of our boys were in the battle but oh, the casualty list of other people's boys! Joe Milgrave was in it but came through safe. Miranda had some bad days until she got word from him. But it is wonderful how Miranda has bloomed out since her marriage.
Many times, probably, in the water-logged shell holes of Passchendaele in 1918 was it recalled how once at Armentières even the duck boards were cleaned daily and men were crimed for throwing matches on them. It is not forgotten either how the Battalion Band first came into being at Houplines. On the 11th August, the 6th and 8th Battalions once more assumed a separate identity.
Exceptionally large working parties were demanded on each of the three nights, and their experiences were perhaps worse than those of the tour in the line which was to follow. The third battle of Ypres was still in progress at this time, and Passchendaele had not yet been taken.
In the south-eastern distance rises the spire of Menin church. And this is the Menin Road. How it haunted the war news for months and years, like a blood-stained presence! While to the south-east, I make out Kemmel, Scherpenberg, and the Mont des Cats and in the far north-west a faint line with a few trees on it Passchendaele! Passchendaele! name of sorrow and of glory.
The first line over-attacked in the mud, swept over Poelcapelle and advanced on Passchendaele, pausing while the mobile artillery moved up to support over roads that were daily filled in and rebuilt by fatigue parties similar to the Guernseys.
He remembered it when it had been shelled in April '15 at the time of the first gas attack, and the inhabitants had fled in all directions. Then gradually it had become normal again, until, after the Passchendaele fighting of 1917, it had excelled itself in gaiety. And now in May 1918 it was dead once more, with every house boarded up and every window shuttered.
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