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Remembered Today:

Zonnebeke Road? Battle of Menin Rd photo.


grantmal

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I stated that the IWM photo was probably taken in 1964, that was incorrect. I am sure it was 1967 as I went to the IWM and saw the exibition of then and now photos 1917/1967. Having been impressed with these and very keen I ordered a set in postcard size, I recall it cost a fortune to a lad like me on about £5 a week.

The IWM had their 1967 one as a comparison to the 1917 photo in Post 1

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Bob,

Allow me to be the devil's advocate ... Maybe in 1967 the IWM based their photo on the one in Twenty Years After (late 1930s) ?

(Maybe it would be interesting to see if in that 1967 collection other photos are the same as in Twenty Years After ?

***

Apart from that, just two thoughts :

- Are we sure the photo was not mirrored (wrong side of the negative when printed)

- Are we sure the photographer is looking east (toward Zonnebeke), and not west (toward Ypres).

(Not that for me there is reason to believe that. Just wondering as the previous postings do not lead us to 100 % ID of the location.

Aurel

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- Are we sure the photographer is looking east (toward Zonnebeke), and not west (toward Ypres).

(Not that for me there is reason to believe that. Just wondering as the previous postings do not lead us to 100 % ID of the location.

I think the photographer may very well be looking towards Ypres. If the photo was taken from a gun position (like has been suggested) the pile of shells suggests the gun is firing in the opposite direction towards Zonnebeke. Also the caption in post #10 says the photo shows "ground newly captured". When this gun was put in a forward position with the advancing troops they may have seen this view when they looked over their shoulders.

Roel

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Thanks, Bob, for the extra info.

Aurel's caution about the later photos being based on an 'incorrect' 1930's one, is a fair point. I'm sure many people researching a specific WW1 topic have found instances where a misreading or misinterpretation of original source material by one author is repeated in subsequent books. When it comes to written material we can go back to the source; here, obviously, there is no such luxury, unless the location of 1917 photo can be positively identified.

As for which direction the photographer is facing, toward Zonnebeke or Ypres, is that the Broodseinde/Passchendaele Ridge on the horizon? (I've never been to Ypres/Zonnebeke, so have been assuming). Roel, the direction of the 'cover' (photos in post #3) would seem, IMHO, to indicate that the photographer is facing east (unless that's not the Passchendaele Ridge!). Note the reinforced bank on the left, with the guy peering over the top, and the bank on the bend in the road, which, if the photographer was facing west, would be open to German fire from the east. There's been enough time since the ground was captured to repair the road (the white material along the roadside might be rubble from Zonnebeke village, which was carted away for just that purpose), lay a (duckboard?) track alongside, and bring up the guns, so plenty of time to 'reverse the cover'?

I've looked at the roads between Zonnebeke Rd and Menin Rd captured during the Battle of Menin Rd, on maps and aerials, read the Engineers' reports etc, but nothing really seems to fit (some kind of do, a bit), especially when that long ridge running across the horizon is taken into account. Anyone living nearby, owns a long ladder, and can climb up on that Zonnebeke Rd bend, and see if the ridge looks the same?

What could the long straight bank be, other than the railway? But if it is the railway, the angle doesn't really match up with the Zonneke Rd bend, according to this aerial:

post-4061-0-41149900-1347591780_thumb.jp

Good on you,

Grant

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Australian pioneers on Zonnebeke Rd, October 1917:

3rd Pioneer Battalion. [AWM4/14/15/12]

11 October. On this date from Bavaria House to Zonnebeke Railway Station, 150 yards of road constructed. Guns have already been moved over this new road to Battery Positions prepared by this unit.

4th Pioneer Battalion. [AWM4/14/16/20]

11 October. One platoon from each Company on repairs to Frezenberg – Zonnebeke Road.

12 October. 4 Companies less one platoon each working on Zonnebeke Road from D.28.A.0.4 to D.27.D.3.3. The Battalion is also employing six limbers and four tip drays carrying brick from Zonnebeke to be used as material on this road.

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Not much that I can add, I'm afraid.

As to : looking west (Zonnebeke) or east (Ypres) ? I just can't decide. Somehow I feel by intuition that photographers tend to look forward, "to the future", in this case to Zonnebeke, but of course that's a poor argument. Yet, we should keep the possibility (of looking to Ypres) in mind

As to : mirrored or not ? (Wasn't there a problem like that with Watson pics in a different thread ? Weren't they posted by you, Bob ?). To answer that question I always look at possible signs or so with letters on (none here). Or if with people on what side the buttons of their jackets are (but all men carefully hide their front side here !). Or the way trees lean. Here the prevailing winds blow from southwest to northeast, so most trees lean to the northeast. But with pollard willows (as here) this is a little tricky, not only because they are shorter (having less foliage, and shortened from time to time), but more important as they often are on the banks of a river, with earth being eroded, they tend to lean towards the water, even if this is against the wind. Here they seem to lean in the "correct" direction though, and more or less the same for the smoke.

As to the ridge at the horizon ... I know the area, and come along once or twice a month or so. Next time I will have a look. And no, I won't have a ladder with me :blink: but when crossing the motorway A19 near Verlorenhoek you may have a good view of the horizon. (If lower there are always things that obstruct the view : trees, buildings ...)

Aurel

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It could be that the IWM staff used the TYA photo and asumed that they were at the correct location, The Camera Returns team (just two of us) have fell into this trap more than once.

This does not mean that they and countless others have got it wrong, my belief is that it is where it is, but I would like to have a 100% on it and not just conjecture.

Aurel; The Watson mirrored images are fom negs being looked at 70 + years later, when they were to be published in c.1938 the image in the brain would be fresh and unlikey that a mistake would be made.

I like these topics.......

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Bob,

I agree with everything you wrote.

(And true, I don't think I have ever seen "then" photos in Twenty Years After that were mirrored, or gave that impression.)

And I like these topics too. Even more when (or maybe : because) they do not lead to 100% being sure. That is one of the charms. :-)

Aurel

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Just a suggestion, and may not be relevant, but to me the guns seems to be targetting the locomotive on both photos (presuming the second is taken shortly after the first), so possibly there may be written references to either a damaged locomotive or repairs to the line?

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Stitching the photos together suggests to me that the main road is on the right hand side and the road on the left is a subsidiary one.

post-51028-0-98718400-1347721470_thumb.j

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There is merit in tthe suggetion above but the distance from the 'main' (?) road to the railway is bit close.

The photographer is quite high up, is he on a concrete structure that has wood on top? There are photos of pillboxes camouflaged with timber.

BTW very good stitching, nice to see it all in one go.

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I wonder if its this road here - the road on the lower left on the image where it comes towards a point - the roads in the photo seem to be converging and I wonder if that's where the point is on the map.

post-51028-0-42662000-1347833993_thumb.j

Google earth certainly looks right for the terrain (look at the valley curving down and then the ridge in the background) - certainly looks OK, even if its not the exact position, it can be dar.

post-51028-0-75973400-1347834006_thumb.j

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Must apologise for error in post #1 - Hammerton's 'World War' captions the photo 'Menin Road', not Zonnebeke Rd. I have both the 'Twenty Years After' and 'World War' magazines, and got them mixed up. Interestingly though, whilst going through them all again, this turned up in 'Twenty Years After' (I think):

post-4061-0-22088700-1347863715_thumb.jp

Not that it's conclusive, but it does imply the 1917 pic is near 'Devils Crossing', where Zonnebeke Rd crosses the Ypres-Roulers railway......

The official Australian correspondent, CEW Bean, was strolling in these parts in October 1917:

[AWM38-3DRL606-91-1] …..[2 October] walked up to near Frezenberg, which is on the Westhoek Ridge but further north ... We went on over the hill – [Padre X] wanted to reach a place called Bremen, where another Padre was. Just over the top of the hill ... was another aid post, Bavaria House. They pointed out Bremen to us at the bottom of the hill in the bend of the road, half mile on.

On the far/forward? slope you could see, as open as the palm of your hand, the Broodseinde Ridge, and the two heights of the spur, NW of Zonnebeke – Hill 40 and Hill 35. A lower ridge was between us and them, just in front of Bremen House.

[15 October] We motored through Ypres up the Politjze Road as far as we could. Then walked. Traffic was going along the road very thickly, even past the Frezenberg Ridge where it comes directly under the observation of Passchendaele. Colonel Jackson of 3rd Australian Division met us. He had just come from his front line. He warned us that Cannan's HQ (in the kink in the road) had been intermittently shelled (Bremen House – opposite Potsdam) and that four men had just been killed there.

As we got over the Frezenberg Ridge the German was putting shells right close to the road ahead – teams and strings of pack mules had occasionally been passing but they cleared before he got the range. Isolated small parties of men were there moving all the time – some four horsemen took it at a gallop – and we made a slight detour to avoid the place. The German shells (there were two guns firing) quickly fell short. We stopped on the forward slope to have a careful look through the glasses at Passchendaele – the Red Cross flag was still there west of it – indeed there seem to be several.

We walked on past Bremen. The four mules were there badly cut up, and their driver lying dead amongst them.

At the crest of the next ridge (Anzac – or rather its extension) we found some Pioneers calmly working at the road near a very outstanding dugout, which I photographed. Several wagons lying by the road also showed the difficulty the artillery had worked under – and I took a photo of these for record.

post-4061-0-14176100-1347864918_thumb.jp

This pic is captioned 'between Bavaria House and White Chateau' on the Zonnebeke Rd, and shows the same building rubble (?) along the road edges as in the original photo:

post-4061-0-83553300-1347865227_thumb.jp

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There was a duckboard track running alongside Zonnebeke Rd in October 1917:

post-4061-0-86256400-1347866546_thumb.jp

Grant

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I contacted the IWM today to see if there were other photos either side of Q2868,(the main one on the left) and there were none, so only two were taken from that vantage point.

I was ready to submit that map, you are very quick Grant..........

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  • 2 weeks later...

Finally, the second photo. The mystery object is a little sharper:

post-4061-0-30845100-1348733106_thumb.jp

post-4061-0-99063900-1348733378_thumb.jp

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The bend:

post-4061-0-49190900-1348733564_thumb.jp

An old (damaged) light rail runs beside the road. The track doesn't look like duckboards...or does it? What's in those 'bags' stacked by the track?

post-4061-0-64126800-1348734261_thumb.jp

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The panorama:

post-4061-0-53099200-1348735138_thumb.jp

I meant to ask earlier about the large explosion 'on the road' -- surely this isn't a shell? Could it be an ammunition dump going up?

Thanks again for all the contributions.

Grant

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I have looked on Googlearth and note some discrepencies. If we are to asume the the bend in the road is where the brickworks are then the distance from the photographers location to the railway is a shortish distance, say 100 yds. However on Googlearth is very many 100's of yards,or metres if you prefer. So is it the railway with the odd contraption on ? Or is the 'road' we all see not the main road into Zonnebeke after all.........?

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I have probably spent more time than is good for me puzzling over this thread.

From the beginning I have had problems with working out distances. I cannot interpret the way the camera sees it. I also have a problem with the apparent width of the road and although I can accept the drainage ditch on the left, there appears to be a gully on the right of substantial depth and for some considerable distance. My maps show a light railway on the road itself, although they do vary between the left and right hand side. The large object I originally thought was a loco may be two lorries, with the smaller one pulled up behind a larger one. What are the curved objects that have now appeared in the first photo in Post #44?

Do we have a definitive date for the photo? I don't see much urgency and the shelling is light.

The map extract of D26 below is a British base with captured German information from early July 1917 shown in blue and is the one I have been generally using to ponder over.

post-20576-0-95339600-1348783979_thumb.j

Phil

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Can I ask a few basic questions:

1) Why so may men ambling about with no cover during daylight with high visibility? I though this area was subject to German observation?

2) Everyone looks way too relaxed! There is shellfire not that far away, and they are all out in the open on a nice clear day - should they not all be expecting an express delivery from Kaiser Bill?

3) I though work, movement, etc had to be done at night in this area.

I just don't get this photo at all!

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