Cameronians

A Cameronian View of Passchendaele

A Cameronian View of Passchendaele

With the centenary of the Third Battle of Ypres drawing to a close, let us look back on the activities of the Cameronians (Scottish Rifles) in this infamous battle.

In actuality, the Third Battle of Ypres was divided into several smaller battles which took place throughout the Ypres Salient from 31 July to 10 November 1917. Battalions of the regiment were present at almost every single one of these smaller engagements. Starting on 31 July, the 10th Battalion with the 15th Scottish Division attacked German positions around Beck House on the Frezenberg Ridge. It’s four companies were divided up between various battalions of the Division as extra strength to assist in their various objectives. Simultaneously the 2nd Battalion with the 8th Division attacked along the banks of the Hanebeek.

Both the 2nd and 10th Scottish Rifles would return to the fight on 16 August, and both in relatively the same positions they had fought in in late July and early August. The 10th would assault positions such as Gallipoli Farm, Iberian Farm, and Beck House. The 2nd again attempted a crossing of the Henebeek and again suffered heavily casualties being bogged down in the mud.

On 20 September the 9th Scottish Rifles entered the battle with the 9th (Scottish) Division, assaulting the Frezenberg Redoubt. (Now the site of the Scottish Memorial.) This was the British Army’s first attempt to counter the new German defense in depth tactics which had stymied their advances earlier in August. The weather however, was beggining to interfere with any further pushes. As the 9th’s After Action Report records the effect on weapons:

Breech and Muzzle Covers were used by all except first waves, but still rifles were difficult to keep clean, and at Final Objective a great many were caked with mud, and, in a few instances, unserviceable. The need for cleaning rifles at earliest opportunity after objective is reached ought to be impressed on all ranks during training.

The Scottish Memorial, Frezenberg. Site of the 9th Scottish Rifles’ action in August, 1917.

By 26 September the 1st and 5/6th Battalions had arrived as part of the 33rd Division. They pushed up the Menin Road and through the South East corner of the now infamous Polygon Wood. Company Sergeant Major Docherty of the 5/6th Battalion noted the confusion of the fighting in a later issue of The Covenantor:

We went through and beyond the pill boxes and lay down; the shell craters in this area had to be seen to be believed. Serjeant Hay and I went along the line to get the men straightened out; dawn had broken by this time and men of the Suffolks and B and C Companies were all mixed up. The shelling was so bad on both sides and the confusion such that some of our men were digging in facing the direction from which our own artillery was firing.

The two battalions of the Cameronians with the rest of the 33rd Division successfully assisted the Australian attack which captured Polygon Wood. Though this was not without large losses to both sides.

Fighting continued into October with the 9th Battalion returning to attack a position near Kronprinz Farm. By 10 November the Canadians had captured Passchendaele Ridge, with the now destroyed village resting on top. They were relieved by units which included the 1st and 5/6th Cameronians (Scottish Rifles). The 5/6th took up position around a block house known as Tyne Cot. There the began to bury their own dead, as well as scattered dead from other regiments. Their War Diary reads

The battalion War diary for 23 November states “The Battalion relieved the 1st Middlesex Regiment in RIGHT SUPPORT SUB SECTOR behind PASSCHENDAELE. The ground was in a dreadful state of mud and shell holes. The Battalion Headquarters were in a small PILLBOX 2’ 9” high and Aid Post was a tarpaulin lean to.” And the published post war history records “All around lay the dead still unburied. Desolation everywhere! Never before or since have we experienced anything like it.”
The beginning of a cemetery the Cameronians (Scottish Rifles) laid down grew into the famous Tyne Cot Commonwealth War Graves Cemetery and Memorial to the Missing, the largest British and Commonwealth military cemetery in the world. Following the fighting the regiment settled down to endure the cold and trench warfare of the Winter of 1917-18. To come in the Spring was the great German offensives, and the war still had one full year to go.

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Posted: 29/10/2017 by JamesTaub in First World War



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