Hello Military-Experts,
I have tracked down, I think, the area where my Great Uncle Alec Beach (Regt. no 624941) was killed near St Julien 4th October 1917. I poured through heaps of diary entries and trench maps and certainly got the sense of the activities (and the horrors) at the time. And a couple of years ago, Andy and Jim were v. helpful educating me about weapons and types of barrages etc. as well as where Alec was initially buried before being re-interred in a CWG plot. So that's all good.
Yesterday I bought a book "The Honourable Artillery Company 1914-1919" (edited by MAJOR G. GOOLD WALKER), hoping it might contain a reference to Alec's death - and it did!
Referring to the 4th October 1917:
" The following day was one that will live in the memories of all who were up with the guns. A barrage was laid down just before daylight and continued intermittently for several hours. During this time we came under severe counter battery fire, and one shell burst on the light railway track against which all the guns were in position. This unfortunate shell killed Sergt. G. A. Frymann and Bdr. Beach, and wounded many others. The Boche prisoners were pouring back in small, unaccompanied groups, and it must be recorded that one German N.C.O., seeing the plight of the Battery, organized stretcher parties to assist in evacuating the wounded to the dressing station at Alberta. The guns were kept in action (the rate of fire being fortunately reduced) by, in some cases, one man per gun. Practically every day barrages were fired, and the difficulty in bringing the ammunition up to the Battery position was acute. This was mainly dumped by the roadside at night, and the gunners at the Battery position fetched it in the early morning with the aid of the light railway, although much was buried by shell fire in the muddy road. This was afterwards unearthed and salvaged by a working party from a well-known cavalry regiment. On October 9th the Battery had another strenuous day, the attack being on a six-mile front. The barrage started at 4.30 a.m. and almost continuous firing kept up until 6.30 p.m. After this a new S.O.S. line was laid, as the advance made by our troops extended to a depth of over 2000 yards on the north of our position. The 10th was spent in replenishing ammunition, H.E. being the predominating shell.
(Source: HONOURABLE ARTILLERY COMPANY IN THE GREAT WAR 1914-1919 (pp. 605-606). Kindle Edition.)
In the book's honours list, it says Alec died at Stroombeek. I have tracked down where the Coys were first gathered, at Flora Cottage, which was right next to Stroombeek Canal. Alec was with the 126th Bde and for this period was artillery supporting the 48th South Midlands Div, and the 126th was one of 4 Coys on the first day of the major offensive of Passchendaele.
My question is: would Alec have been part of the Standing Barrage or the part of the Creeping Barrage and which weapon was he operating? The book says Alec's artillery was in a line of others, adjacent to a light railway. (Which I'm assuming was built specifically to hasten ammunition delivery.) Does this set-up, of being in a line next to the railway, mean that Alec was operating one of the 4.5 Howitzers (of which they only had 6 covering the whole division according to war diaries operations records). The Division had use of 21 18 pounders too.
Thanks for reading this far, very much appreciated.
Image shows the location of Flora Cottage where the 48th assembled for that operation, and Stroombeek canal, N.E of St Julien.
