Pte Noel Luttrell Jordan, 2nd Wellington Infantry, NZEF - Burial

[helpjpl]

Remembered today: Private Noel Luttrell Jordan, 2nd Wellington Infantry Taranaki Company, NZEF.

Noel, the son of Gibbes Claude Borlase Jordan and Lilian Isabella, nee Gawne, attended Terrace School and Wellington College. He was working as a ploughman in the Hawkes Bay district when he enlisted as a Private in the 12th Reinforcements Auckland Infantry Battalion A Company on 14 December 1915 - later transferring to the 2nd Wellington Infantry Taranaki Company.

Noel was killed in action on 02 October 1916, aged 20, and is buried at Warlencourt British Cemetery.

Edited 13 February , 2020 by helpjpl

[DavoT]

Rest in peace Noel his service life was short, but he certainly did his bit.

[helpjpl]

 

11486 Noel Luttrell Jordan's body was exhumed and reburied at Warlencourt British Cemetery and the Concentration report has a map reference where his body was found:

https://www.cwgc.org/find-war-dead/casualty/241550/jordan,-noel-luttrell/#&gid=null&pid=1

 

I'd like a trench map and an image of that location but don't know how to do it and I'd be grateful for your help.

 

JP

 

[Fattyowls]

Hi JP

 

I've just fed the map reference into tmapper.com and got this result. Hopefully one of the experts with tmapper can check I've got the correct place. When I visited Noel I walked to the crossroads just to the south south west which I think is the ruined Eaucourt Abbey. I'll check to see if I have any photos looking in the right direction but i suspect the site may be just over the brow. I'll have a go at the trench map with the NLS site a bit later.

 

Pete.

 

[MaxD]

https://maps.nls.uk/geo/explore/#zoom=15&lat=50.0688&lon=2.8171&layers=101464774&b=1  The reference on the concentration form is 57C M 24 a 9 9.  M 24 right in the center of the map, 24 a top left quadrant, 24 a 9 9 =  9 tenths east rom bottom left of the quadrant and 9 tenths north.

 

Certainly agrees with Fatty Owls tmapper.

 

Max

[Fattyowls]

Thanks Max, I'm fairly sure the guys have made Tmapper as fool proof as possible but a fat finger moment is always possible. When I compare the two maps I wonder if the area is in square 24 top left roughly where the German and Allied positions appear to be the same trench line separated by the track.

 

[MaxD]

Yes I'd say your yellow square has it, although perhaps more towards the top right, and anyway 24 a 9 .9 still only gives a 100 yd square.(The nls map is from Dec 1916, Oct 1916 :

https://maps.nls.uk/geo/explore/side-by-side/#zoom=15&lat=50.0719&lon=2.8145&layers=101465185&right=BingHyb is a bit clearer and I'd be looking at where the sunken bit of the SW-NE track starts.  That part of the track line has disappeared on the ground although the start of it at the D 11 and the continuation a bit further north are clear.

 

Max

Edited 13 February , 2020 by MaxD
typo

[Fattyowls]

I visited Noel nearly five years ago on an idyllic afternoon in June. I took lots of photographs as I walked to Warlencourt from Martinpuich but none of them cover the ground where Noel's body was found. The nearest is this one, looking from just south of the Butte de Warlencourt east south east towards the village of Gueudecourt. As far as I can tell the location is just over the brow to the right of the village.

 

 

Edited 13 February , 2020 by Fattyowls

[helpjpl]

 

Many thanks Pete and Max.

 

The search for Noel's grave - June 1920 (5 pages):

https://collection.pukeariki.com/objects/112655

 

From here:

https://collection.pukeariki.com/persons/10940

 

JP

[MaxD]

Fascinating thank you.  Is it your intention to add this info to the collection?

Max

[Fattyowls]

2 hours ago, MaxD said:

Fascinating thank you.  Is it your intention to add this info to the collection?

Max

 

I was thinking the same thing; if you do let me know if I can help JP. Just to add a bit of detail for now here is Noel's resting place.....

This is Warlencourt Military Cemetery from the ridge to the west, close to the Butte....

 

This is Noel's grave with the Butte on the horizon behind....

 

Edited 14 February , 2020 by Fattyowls

[helpjpl]

On 14/02/2020 at 16:30, MaxD said:

Fascinating thank you.  Is it your intention to add this info to the collection?

Max

 

On 14/02/2020 at 18:30, Fattyowls said:

 

I was thinking the same thing; if you do let me know if I can help JP. Just to add a bit of detail for now here is Noel's resting place.....

 

 

1.  What do you think about posting a link to this thread ?

 

2.  Excuse my ignorance with map references but was Noel originally buried at  57C.M.24.a.9.9 or 57C.M.24.a.0.9  ?

https://www.cwgc.org/find-war-dead/casualty/241550/jordan,-noel-luttrell/#&gid=null&pid=1

 

3.  Is Le Barque Road on Pete's satellite map ?  Edit.  Is that it, named above Gird Support, in top right corner on map in (a) 

01 October 1916 - Battle of the Transloy Ridges:

(a)  http://cranzone.com/somme/le_sars.html

(b)  https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=C9scCgAAQBAJ&pg=PA368&lpg=PA368&dq=Le+Barque+road&source=bl&ots=2_ZzPxYga8&sig=ACfU3U0VFSZZZm_MfQZwT-ebDP9LwE3sNQ&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwiNqdrprtPnAhWrURUIHTgUAL8Q6AEwA3oECAgQAQ#v=onepage&q&f=false

 

Many thanks

 

JP

Edited 15 February , 2020 by helpjpl

[Fattyowls]

Hi JP

 

Item 1. Wait until you've read items 2. and 3.

 

Item 2. Remember what I said about fat finger moments? It is 0.9 and not 9.9. My mistake and definitely not your ignorance. This moves the location closer to the top of the rise and to the Butte and his grave site.

 

 

Item 3. It's made me look again at the photos I took and I think the one I posted is not Gueudecourt at all but Ligny-Thilloy which has Le Barque as it's closest part. This would suggest that Le Barque road is the one next to the site where Noel's body was found in the above satellite photo. As I see it this fits with the description and map on the cranzone.com site. It also means I haven't got a photo looking towards the site at all. All I would have had to have done was walk a bit further down the track from the abbey site or even turn through 90 degrees when taking what I thought was Gueudecourt. Schoolboy error(s).

 

Pete.

Edited 15 February , 2020 by Fattyowls

[MaxD]

Hands up - my mistake also - many apologies.  Agree with Fattyowls new location.

 

Max

[WhiteStarLine]

Agree, going back to the original report the location for PTE Jordan's remains were exhumed from 57c.M.24.a.0.9, together with those of a a British soldier.

 

Combined with a 7 October 1916 trench map, this confirms the remains as SE of Warlencourt as others have said.

CWGC Find a Casualty

NLS and tMapper Preview

 

[WhiteStarLine]

Here's a clearer photo, courtesy of Google Street View.  The vehicle's camera is heading to the site of Eaucourt-l'Abbaye and Flers is on the middle horizon.  PTE Luttrell's remains were exhumed approximately 125 metres from the road in the field on a bearing of 135 degrees so I would place this on the far left of the frame beneath the Google compass / plus and minus icons.  If you are confused, think you are sitting in the car and look immediately to your left!

[Fattyowls]

Excellent WSL; it hadn't occurred to me to try Google Earth, I'd assumed those lanes were too small. Wrong again. I'm still going to go back myself next time I'm over, at least now I know what I'm looking for.

 

Pete.

 

P.S. Hope all is well down under.

[WhiteStarLine]

Pete, in the last few years Google have mapped quite a few of the small laneways and sometimes even inside bunkers like Zandvoorde or the tunnels at Vimy Ridge.  It's very helpful for confirmations.

 

Here, we've gone from a declared state of emergency with flames 6 km away, preparing our house for evacuation and blocking all gutters and filling with water ready for an ember attack.  This was 2 weeks ago.  We've since had 100 mm of gentle rain and Sydney has had hundreds and hundreds with flooding! All fires are out, or fully under control.

[MaxD]

Loose end - as to how to put this info on the memorial site, I'd suggest the combination of NLS map/image (the amended one from Fattyowls!) and the Google Earth view from WhiteStarLine with an acknowledgment to this site would do the trick.

 

Max

 

Good to hear the update from Canberra!

[helpjpl]

 

1.  The sender of this letter is 2nd Lt. Melville Arthur White (https://collection.pukeariki.com/objects/112655):

 

 

2nd Lt Melville Arthur White (7909 DH Scout) was killed 23 April 1917 together with Lt Eric Arthur Barltrop and 2nd Lt Fergus N O'Sullivan (6929 FE 2b) when the two machines collided in the air near Le Verguier and broke into pieces.

 

(a)  https://www.cwgc.org/find/find-war-dead/results?cemetery=JEANCOURT%2bCOMMUNAL%2bCEMETERY%2bEXTENSION&exactDate=23-04-1917&tab=wardead&fq_servedinliteral=Air+Force

 

(b)  https://www.aucklandmuseum.com/war-memorial/online-cenotaph/record/C58392

 

2.  Unable to decipher the signature of the person who found Noel's grave  and the only clue is that the letter was sent from Hornchurch in June 1920 (https://collection.pukeariki.com/objects/112655):

 

 

JP

 

[MaxD]

I seem to go round in circles trying to find the Hornchurch letter in the archive, all the references send me to the top level  -  what is the connection between the RFC men and Noel Jordan? (Or have I missed something?)

 

Max

[helpjpl]

14 hours ago, MaxD said:

I seem to go round in circles trying to find the Hornchurch letter in the archive, all the references send me to the top level  -  what is the connection between the RFC men and Noel Jordan? (Or have I missed something?)

 

 

1.  The RFC man - Melville Arthur White - knew Noel and knew Noel's brother Claude Alan Jordan.  In his letter dated 23 October 1916 Melville wrote   Dear Mrs Jordan I am so sorry to learn the distressing news of Noel's death. The first intimation I had was a letter from Alan dated 14th October asking me to verify the rumour about Noel being killed in action ..................   I am sorry that I did not see Noel before he went to France. I wrote to him when the 12th arrived at Salisbury plains from Egypt , but did not get a reply.

Melville Arthur White was KIA six months later on 23 April 1917.

 

2.  Melville's letter and the 7-page letter (Hornchurch  28 June 1920) describing the search for Noel's grave are in this section https://collection.pukeariki.com/objects/112655 

Click on the white arrow on the right to reach them.

 

JP

 

 

[MaxD]

Totally missed the white arrows before thank you! 

 

Such a shame the sketch map referred to in the Hornchurch letter has not survived.  As I read the details of the search, he refers first to square M17c (info in London) which he marked with an o 1000 yards to the NE of the x that the parents had marked .  This x then would have been in M 22. This position is in the Graves commission O (which is where???)  He notes that the parents were nearer to the right spot than the London info.  He spent half a day looking in the (London info) wrong spot ie M 17c

He thinks he has found the right grave near Eaucourt l'Abbaye but finds later when visiting the Graves Commission in Albert that the body had already been exhumed and transferred to the cemetery.

He concludes that the original position (marked with an X by the parents) was correct all along.

 

Nowhere does he record where the body had been exhumed from in Feb 1920. 

 

There is reference to the Eaucourt l'Abbaye cross erected for the 47 London Div (and a picture on Wikipedia) but I can't find a grid ref for it.

 

While I can find the NZ war diary collection I seem to get no further than  https://assets.ctfassets.net/etfoy87fj9he/30rYYSeLy77G07Cr2ovWhz/bee79bd9f62c05129367311400056d98/War_Archives-WA-Volume_2.pdf

 

I've read the 47 Div  war diary (they were on the immediate left of the New Zealanders) which make clear that the NZ attack was to the east of Eaucourt 'Abbaye, the inter Div boundary is clear on the map at::

https://www.ancestry.co.uk/interactive/60779/43112_2701_0-00000?backurl=&ssrc=&backlabel=Return#?imageId=43112_2701_0-005

 

Happy with M 24.

 

Max