Regimental Diary
2nd Battalion The East Surrey Regiment
85th Infantry Division
28th Division
18th April 1915
St Jean - Zonnebeke
Battalion left St Jean at 6.35pm to relieve Middlesex Regiment in trenches. Four companies placed in fire trenches with one company 8th Middlesex in dugouts
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22nd April 1915
Report received that enemy were massing opposite battalion on our right but nothing happened.
At 6:30pm both fire and support trenches were heavily shelled and the harmful effects of the fumes from the enemy's shells were first noticed. Reliefs cancelled as French right had been broken by enemy. Major C.G. Ashton arrived and assumed command of battalion.
23rd April 1915
At midnight the enemy made an attack on the centre of the battalion line but were repulsed 2nd Lieut H.G.H Fardell killed, A quiet day, Casualties Seven killed, thirty one wounded.
Great Grandpappy Zero was one of the Seven killed - 100 years ago tomorrow.
So Tomorrow I have a day trip booked. The lancer put on Le Shuttle for a day trip to Ypres. A visit to the In Fanders Fields museum, early evening meal of moules & frites then stay for the last post played at the Menin Gate where great grandpappys name is engraved on one of the panels, then a nice drive home.
Last edited by: Zero on Wed 22 Apr 15 at 16:45
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>> early evening meal of moules & frites<<
At The Trumpet in the square?
Excellent food if it is!
Pat
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>> >> early evening meal of moules & frites<<
>>
>> At The Trumpet in the square?
well as you recommend then The Trumpet it is.
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Seating outside if you want and ample time to watch th world go by on the square. It's about two or three away from the side of the museum. Try a night in the Hotel Regina in room 21 overlooking the fountain, quirky but excellent and you tunnel ticket will allow you to come back the following day for the same price.
www.hotelregina.be/
www.detrompet.be/EN_fotos.php
Pat
Last edited by: Pat on Wed 22 Apr 15 at 17:16
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>>. Try
>> a night in the Hotel Regina in room 21 overlooking the fountain, quirky but excellent
>> and you tunnel ticket will allow you to come back the following day for the
>> same price.
>>
>> www.hotelregina.be/
>>
>> www.detrompet.be/EN_fotos.php
>>
>> Pat
Next time - got stuff booked on the Friday
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There was me thinking retirement meant freedom:)
Pat
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>> There was me thinking retirement meant freedom:)
>>
>>
>> Pat
Marriage never means freedom!
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>> Seating outside if you want and ample time to watch th world go by on
>> the square. It's about two or three away from the side of the museum. Try
>> a night in the Hotel Regina in room 21 overlooking the fountain, quirky but excellent.
Small world, we always stay in the Regina and often eat in the Trumpet when in Ypres.
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I'd give my right arm for some moules marinière and frites right now.
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Won't get that sort of grub in the Scrubs AC...
;-)
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Seems not.....
Prepare yourself AC;
www.foodreference.com/html/british-prison-cuisine-2.html
Last edited by: No FM2R on Wed 22 Apr 15 at 20:05
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Can anyone enlighten me as to the reason why prisoners are better fed than hospital patients?
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>> Can anyone enlighten me as to the reason why prisoners are better fed than hospital
>> patients?
We might, if you can prove that is true.
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Have a nice day there Z. I have visited a few times with Belgian friends and eight o'clock is very special
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As I sit here and type this I realise had I lived 100 years ago I probably would have been fighting. A scary thought and a very poignant post. I am currently reading Max Hastings book Catastophe: Europe Goes To War 1914-18. Whilst this deals primarily with the first months of the war, it goes into incredible details of the extent of events, the logistics and ultimately the incredible waste of life and resources.
Very humbling.
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My father was in the 1914-18 war in the Norfolk R but I do not think he left these shores.
We have no info / details of his time in uniform.
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My grandfather served on the western front, but was a bit too old for any action. He left a diary detailing a lot of seemingly pointless marching about to and from relief trenches.
In the end they realised as a painter he would be better employed as a war artist, and did a series of sketches and water colours of everyday soldiering life, and a rather nice set of views of Amiens.
He finally did a rather neat forces Christmas card for 1918, full of symbolism about demobilisation, reconciliation, brighter future ahead, etc.
In one corner, there are two small mice dancing in the snow under some barbed wire strung with Christmas decorations and mistletoe.
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I think the most astonishing thing us when you look at pictures of Ypres in 1915, literally an Armageddon scene of flattened burning rubble, and then 100 years later its a charming picturesque thriving town, that looks as tho nothing has happened to it.
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One of the nicest things about travelling around the continent is the way that most towns and cities were rebuilt in a sympathetic manner, even copying the original buildings in some cases.
Unlike here, where the planning departments did more damage than the Luftwaffe!
And I speak as an architect!
Will there be a longer version of the trip, Z?
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Did anyone see that BBC Four documentary featuring the French airship pilot who flew over the fields and filmed it? Amazing scenes of absolute devastation and hundreds of square miles of holes and mud.
I've often wondered who had the job of filling them all in and carting away broken machinery and other detritus from millions of holes and craters and how long did it taken them?
You hear so much about what went on during the war but not a lot about who had to pick up the pieces afterwards.
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>> You hear so much about what went on during the war but not a lot
>> about who had to pick up the pieces afterwards.
Ask any Flanders farmer, and he will tell you its him that is still picking up the pieces. There they leave the dug up unexploded ordinance (only the shells, they leave the bullets and grenades in the soil) by the sides of the fields, and the bomb disposal comes round weekly to gather them up.
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>>Ask any Flanders farmer, and he will tell you its him that is still picking up the pieces.
Are there accidents? (of the explosive sort). I imagine deep ploughing might be a little fraught.
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>> >>Ask any Flanders farmer, and he will tell you its him that is still picking
>> up the pieces.
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>> Are there accidents? (of the explosive sort). I imagine deep ploughing might be a little
>> fraught.
Oh yes.
www.telegraph.co.uk/history/britain-at-war/10172232/Lethal-relics-from-WW1-are-still-emerging.html
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.... it has collected 73 shells and 57 assorted grenades and fuses. .... ""It’s a fairly typical day" he says.
Last year alone the Belgian military collected 105 tons of munitions...and the French police,............80 tons.
The year before the combined total was 274 tons.
In 2004 3,000 German artillery shells were found at a single site
b***** hell. Who knew? I didn't.
Thanks for that.
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>> In 2004 3,000 German artillery shells were found at a single site
>> b***** hell. Who knew? I didn't.
>> Thanks for that.
Large areas of northern France and Belgium were simply left to return to nature after WW1. You can see this from the lumpy, broken-up landscape. Similarly, places in Normandy and elsewhere still have concrete blockhouses and old filled-in trenches etc from the second world war. It's no surprise that farmers regularly plough up battlefield detritus including human remains. Plenty left in the ground even now I think.
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>> Will there be a longer version of the trip, Z?
A longer trip or a longer trip report?
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ok, I am editing the video, there is only so much pipe and drums you can take in one go.
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>> 8o)
>>
>> Report.
Ok - You asked for it.
Day trip to Ypres, c/o a very reasonable 53 quid return journey on le shuttle. (Never ceases to amaze me how we can just "pop over" to Belgium for the day) Journey down traffic and stress free. Quick reccee on Google Maps and Google earth found the ideal parking spot (free all day) near to the Menim Gate and TomTom directed me there with no issues at all, looping me round the northern ring road to come in from the north east.
Did my filming of the gate in the lovely morning sunshine, then a wander through the gate, along Menenstraat and into the main square -the Grote markte. Had a coffee and an ice-cream there, then spent two hours at the "In Flanders Fields" museum, which approached the first world war, very much from the local and human perspective. Next time I go back I will go the museum at Zonnebeke, which has a much more mechanics of war direction.
Paid a visit into the Cathedral of Sint Maarten (Always visit the cathedral of any city I visit, purely from an architectural and historical perspective - ever since I read Ken Folletts "Pillars of the Earth") but foolishly missed the fact there was the church of St George round the corner - this being St Georges day.
By this time the main square was becoming quite lively with Canadian Highland Regiments turning up, this turning out very much to be a Canadian Day. The Canadians on this day, at St Julien just to the north of the town, managed to plug the hole blown through the French lines by the very first use of gas in war.
Then it was an early evening dinner at Den Anker (tried the Trompet, sat down on a table outside next to some girls who were just served pasta and sent it back. The waitress then ignored me for 20 minutes, so I went next door). Moules are out of season, so I has king prawns in garlic butter with frites, and two excellent leffe brunes.
then a final look round the square, off to take my place at the gate for the 8:00pm ceremony.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=xOXN8rC3lxs
Journey home was a doodle till I got back to blighty. With NO warning the M20 was shut at Maidstone, with all the traffic being dumped into the town and the A20, lost foreign heavies milling around everywhere. Then after extracting from that mess some hour later the M26 was shut directing traffic up Wrotham Hill (heavies up Wrotham hill? madness) and onto the m25 at brands hatch. Had the dumb asses at the highways agency the wit and wisdom they were born with they would have directed all heavies out of the tunnel at Folkestone towards Dover and up the M2.
So what took 1.25 hours in the morning rush hour, took 3 hours night time off peak!
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>> Ok - You asked for it.
indeed you did, warning - Video is long at 12 minutes, last post is at 10 minutes for those impatient for the ending.
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>> >> Ok - You asked for it.
>>
>> indeed you did, warning - Video is long at 12 minutes, last post is at
>> 10 minutes for those impatient for the ending.
>>
TA!
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Excellent video Z, thoroughly enjoyed every minute of it.
I love the pomp and ceremony but I have to say the most poignant times at the Menin Gate are on a cold, midweek winters evening when there is no-one there but the locals and it all still happens.
We'll be back in September for a couple of days and will try Den Anker this time.
Pat
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>> I think the most astonishing thing us when you look at pictures of Ypres in
>> 1915, literally an Armageddon scene of flattened burning rubble, and then 100 years later its
>> a charming picturesque thriving town, that looks as tho nothing has happened to it.
>>
I've always found that one of the curious things about trying to relate historic events to their modern location. Even where the setting is absolutely original and untouched, it still looks unreal in an historic context.
I think it might be because the past took place in black and white, and colour was invented only in 1959 just in time for the sixties.
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I have somewhere a letter from my Jesuit great-uncle who served in the trenches as a Catholic chaplain. A note really, on a dirty scrap of torn paper, written in pencil but in the great-uncle's Jesuit modified-italic hand, thanking the CO of the battalion he was attached to for proposing him for a gong (for comforting wounded men out between the trenches under fire, something like that) which he said he didn't merit.
On the back in another hand, presumably the CO's, is written something like "None more worthily earned". I believe the CO sent it to my mother on seeing her uncle's obituary in the comic.
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St Georges Day - 100 years ago. - Pat
