Flamintinare [sp?], probably near Ypres

[zijde26]

The wooden windmill shown on photo 1 cannot be in Vlamertinge (=Vlamertinghe), since all windmills, except ' De Witte Molen' (The White Mill), made of stone, disappeared ca 1900, thus before ww1. This 'Witte Molen' was used during ww1 by the British army as CCS.

I am very interested in its localisation !

Photo 3 (with photographer) is also shown in in the book "1914-1918, De oorlog achter het Front" (The war behind the Front), edited by "Achter de Schreve", dealing with local history of the area of Poperinge. The windmill is called in that book (wrongly ?) a Westouter windmill.

Gilbert Deraedt

[bkristof]

Gilbert,

i believe you are right. But maybe the soldier didn't really know where he was.

He was maybe somewhere near Vlamerthinge, so he called it like that.

If i should be somewhere in England next to a mill, near a village i also should write the name of it and maybe i am standing in another village...

I hope it is not to confusing and i hope you understand my way of thinking.

So the new question is: Where is it then???

[KONDOA]

As our friend zijde26 says Vlamertinghe had a brick built windmill with which i agree. Thus if we now consider Westouter as a very viable possibility we need a map and then we can confirm or eliminate this location.

[Guest bonza]

G'day

As the photographer is Capt Hurley who kept meticulous records, it will be relatively easy to trace his movements on September 14 1917. That would not answer the original question though.

ooRoo

Pat

[KONDOA]

Well I think we have consensus on Vlamertinge for the original question Pat, but the subject has expanded a bit as they do and would benefit from such suggestions as your own.

[Aurel Sercu]

Well I think we have consensus on Vlamertinge for the original question Pat,

Actually I would not be too sure.

Well, that almost undecipherable name very probably is Vlamertinge indeed (modern spelling). Hardly any doubt about that. But there appear to be serious doubts whether this photo really was taken at Vlamertinge. Only yesterday evening I spoke to someone from Vlamertinge and who is interested in local history, and he confirmed what Gilbert (Zijde) said : at the beginning of the war there was only a stone mill at Vlamertinge (White Mill)

I also agree with what Kristof said. Mills are rarely built near the church, but somewhere in the country, and for a passing soldier it is not easy to know whether a particular location is within the boundaries of village X or village Y. In other words : the flour mill may be in one of the adjacent villages. Or also : the man who wrote the caption simply may have been wrong, after passing through so many villages and having seen so many mills. Maybe he wrote the name of the location many months later ? (When we are abroad and take pictures, afterwards it's not always easy to remember the names of the locations correctly.)

Aurel

[Half-pint]

Hello, Gilbert and all:

We have a dozen other photographs from the area: a few labelled at Kemmel; one at Scottish Woods, Voormegelze; Dickebusch church; Locre; and, Reninhelst. (These are the spellings used by Grandad to label the photographs.)

Although it is entirely possible that the flour mill depicted in photo #1 (snapped by H.N. Causton) was situated not precisely at Vlamertinghe, these several other labels would seem to indicate that he had a pretty good idea where he and his unit (the 28th Btn CEF) were located . Grandad also left two pages of written memoirs --in support of an application in the late 1970s to the Canadian government, for POW pension-- and each of the dates, places, and names mentioned by him have been corroborated with several contemporary accounts.

I mention this because, although of course an error by a mile or so is possible, in all other respects it would seem he got it right. I don't know if this information helps or not ...

Regards,

Alison Causton

[Aurel Sercu]

Alison,

Yes, it does seem to corroborate he was sure it was Vlamertinge (which is the northernmost village of the ones you mention).

And if it was not Vlamertinge itself (I mean if (if !) your grandad was mistaken and wrongly thought that the flour mill was on Vlamertinge teritory whereas in reality it was in one of the neighbouring villages or hamlets), then maybe it could be

- Poperinge and Brandhoek (west of Vlamertinge)

- Ouderdom (southwest)

- Dikkebus (south)

But mills are not my speciality, so I hope that Gilbert will join in again. And he will, for he has his roots in one of the villages you mention.

Aurel

[zijde26]

Up until now there seems to be no direct link between the on the one hand the localization of the windmill and the soldier shown on photo 1 and on the other hand the searched caption of that photo.

I understand and do agree with the reasoning of Kristof.

As far as it concerns :

- Popering(h)e : this town had several mills, (even a watermill !). Almost all of them disappeared before ww1, except the ‘Steentjesmolen’, present during ww1.

- Brandhoek : no windmills at all

- Ouderdom (=hamlet of Rening(h)elst), one windmill in ww1, i.e. “Goedmoedmolen”.

- Di©kkebus(ch) : some are discussed in this thread

As far as it concerns the name of Westouter (see my earlier posting and also photo 3). It seems to me (by comparing the photo of the first Hogegraevemolen with the mill shown on photo 3) that the name of Westouter is wrongly given in that said book.

Some months ago, I had an exchange of some emails with John Verpaalen, the author of ‘Molens van de Frontstreek’ and of ‘Molens van het Hoppeland’ about precisely the windmill on this photo 3.

What was the nationality of Capt. Hurley ? Does someone know more about him ?

Gilbert Deraedt

[Guest bonza]

What was the nationality of Capt. Hurley ? Does someone know more about him ?

Gilbert

Is the Pope a Catholic? Can a duck swim?

Answer is yes! Capt Hurley was Australian. In August 1917 he came to Flanders as the Official Photographer to the AIF. Many of his pictures are shown in Belgian Museums & even Tourist Publications. The picture below is extremely 'popular', what is not always known is that most of the stretcher cases were killed by shellfire almost immediately afterwards.

A couple of separate threads ran on this forum a few months ago, giving a link to an exhibition of his work.

There are over 1,000 items relating to Hurley on www.awm.gov.au including 600 on-line images. Not all relate to Flanders as Hurley & his staff also went to the Middle East.

I am away from home at the moment but will amend this message to give some quick references to his work, hopefully his diary entry for the day the Windmill pics were taken.

ooRoo

Warden Pat

Edited 26 October , 2004 by bonza

[Paul Reed]

Having a further thought about this, I turned to The Journal of Private Fraser. Don Fraser was a soldier in the 31st Bn, same Brigade as the 28th. In the first six months of 1916 he was in the line in the Douve Valley, St Eloi and finally Sanctuary Wood - Mt Sorrell in June. He talks much about life behind the lines; never were they in Vlamertinghe during this period. Up until April their main rest area was Kemmel - Neuve-Eglise - Boeschappe - Bailleul - Mont Noir. When they were at St Eloi craters they moved back to Dickebusche and beyond to camps around Reninghelst.

Fraser also mentions they were first issued with PH helmets (gas masks) on 20th February 1916. If you look at the original photo you will see the soldier has what looks like a strap round his tunic; this is indeed the strap of the small haversack that the PH helmet was carried in. So that dates the photo post 20.2.16, as the men in this Brigade probably would have had an issue all about the same time.

Just to show how many villages had windmills, below is a 1914 view of Neuve-Eglise, plus a close up of the windmill.

I wonder if, given that this album would have been compiled later, that he simply forgot, or didn't indeed know precisely where he had been at that time. Interviewing Great War veterans 20 years ago they used to say, when I questioned them, "I'd have kept notes if I'd known I was going to meet you one day"!

[Paul Reed]

close up.

[Ste]

A really interesting thread - good work folks!

On balance I think the caption refers to Vlamertinghe, the discrepancy in spelling being due to a British pheonetic spelling (a tradition that is alive and well today! )). The soldier either didn't realise exactly where he was or filled in the caption later. He wouldn't have got his hands on the photograph immediately because it would have taken some while to develop, so it would be at least hours, probably days and maybe weeks before he wrote on it - plenty of time to forget the details.

Cheers,

Ste