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Remembered Today:

Guards Division Ypres trench location help please.


neverforget

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I have for some while now been attempting to locate the place of my great grandfather`s death in the Wieltje salient, March 1916. I have recently discovered that there was a communication trench called Haymarket and Duke Street, that separated the various brigades of the division, and if I knew where it was, it would at least narrow the search down for me. I wonder if anyone could enlighten me.

Any help would be much appreciated. Thanks for looking.

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Many thanks for pointing me in the right direction. I see Haymarket via the links that you kindly provided.

I wonder if anyone could help further by locating the "canal-bank", which was referred to in the btn war diary, and was the actual place of his death. I cannot see this marked on any of the maps, though that may well be an oversight on my part.

Thanks again for helping.

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The Guards Division was at rest on that date, so the canal bank is almost certainly the trenches along the bank of the Yser canal. At a guess I would say your great grandfather had been sent forward from the rest camp to the canal bank on some kind of fatigue and was killed there - although quite where 'there' was I think would be hard to say, as the canal bank is obviously a long linear feature.

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Many thanks for the response spyinthesky2. I now see that Duke Street is obviously in very close proximity to Fenchurch St. which I have seen on trench maps.

Many thanks also brumell. I think that the canal-bank was used as a Reserve line, as the officer mentions returning to the reserve dug-outs on the canal bank in the second btn Coldstream war diary on March 30th 1916 (the date he was killed), after being relieved by the third btn Coldstream.

My great grandfather`s btn was definitely in the front line trenches on the day that he was killed. The btn received 29 casualties on that day due to heavy shelling, so I`m pretty sure now that he was killed in the trenches somewhere north of the canal that you mention.

I really appreciate your input, and response to my request for help. I`m narrowing it down more and more. Thanks again.

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Ha! My mistake - I was looking on my timeline at the end of May rather than the end of March. You're right, of course - the Division was very much at the front at that time. From the Haymarket area it is only a matter of 1.5 miles or so to the Yser canal so that all tallies.

Good luck with your research.

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:thumbsup:

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Many thanks once again, Paul. That`s got it nailed.

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