Jump to content
Free downloads from TNA ×
The Great War (1914-1918) Forum

Remembered Today:

Irchonwelz Communal Cemetery, Belgium


Mark Hone

Recommended Posts

Mr Hone, I don't mind but I appreciate. Thank you.

Here, in French, Mr Dubuisson's answer. (tourist office)

 

Bonjour Christian,

 J’ai repris la traduction de M. Hone.

C’est parfait.

image.png.ee867a42e07a52a21f116c993503ba68.png


Laurent DUBUISSON
Directeur
Tél. +32 (0) 68 68 13 01 | E-mail ldubuisson@ath.be

 

 

The girl of one of my neighbours wrote the German version ; unity is strength as we say in Belgium.

 

Am frühen Nachmittag des 10 November 1918 gehen englishe Soldaten des 2./5. Schützen-Bataillons Lancashire auf den Höhen des Dorfes Irchonwelz in Stellung, um Ath zu befreien.

Die Engländer werden durch die auf den Höhen des „Bois du Renard“ liegende deutsche Artellerie beschossen. Eine Granate explodiert hinter der Mauer des Bauernhofes unterhalb der Kapelle „Notre-Dame au Chêne“, wo sich Soldaten in Deckung befinden. Es wird 4 Tote und 7 Verletzte geben, von denen 4 aufgrund ihrer Verletzungen sterben werden. Am frühen Morgen des 11. November ist Ath befreit. Die 8 Soldaten, gefallen am Vortag des Waffenstillstandes, sind auf dem Friedhof von Irchonwelz begraben. Vergesst niemals ihr Opfer.

Edited by christiandup
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Hello everyone,

we need one or 2 pictures of 2nd/5th Battalion Lancashire Fusiliers in very good defintion to illustrate those texts : who can help us ? I would be fine if we can obtain picture of insign like attached file (found on Wikipedia) but in good definition...

 

Thanks a lot !

 

Sébastien Morancé

Lancashire_Fusiliers_Badge.jpg

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Christian, I have sent you the German version which my friend has done. You can compare the two!

Link to comment
Share on other sites

The giants participate in the hundredth anniversary.

November 10th and 11th, 1918, Ath « Faubourg de Mons »(A suburb of Ath).

Former path of Valenciennes: the British soldiers move forward and discover the city.

After the Armistice of November 11th, the former path of Valenciennes loses its name, It will be the street of Scotland and the street of England.

 

In May 26th and 27th, 2018, it is the fair in the suburb of Mons

The streets of England and Scotland recover...British colors !

The giant « Adrien » wears two popies in his buttonhole.

Three other giants of the Suburb accompany him.

In our region, groups of young people still create new giants.

Maybe that a day, a giant of the Lancashire Fusilier will appear, or it will be the soldier Cyclist Sullivan killed in the morning of November 11th, 1918 in the suburb of Mons.

With us in Ath, certain giants are very former, the Giant Goliath is 537 years old !

The giant Adrien is only 28 years old.

Some photos of Saturday

 

IMG_9001.JPG

IMG_9002.JPG

IMG_9003.JPG

 

IMG_9004.JPG

The guests of Sunday

The giant « Louis le tailleur de pierre » comes from the village of Maffle. November 10th and 11th, 1918, the Scottish soldiers stayed overnight to Maffle.

IMG_9005.JPG

IMG_9006.JPG

IMG_9007.JPG

IMG_9008.JPG

IMG_9009.JPG

IMG_9010.JPG

IMG_9011.JPG

Edited by christiandup
Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 4 weeks later...

This panel will be fixed to the wall of the chapel Notre-Dame-au-Chêne to Irchonwelz tomorrow. On Wednesday, June 27th at 9:45 am, the pupils of the British section of the International school of Shape and those of the communal school of Irchonwelz will unveil it to the public.

PANNEAU-14-18-1.pdf

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Cycle stroll of June 27th, 2018 with: the British Section, SHAPE International School and the communal school of Irchonwelz

Pictures 01, 02: Inauguration: a tribute to 8 soldiers of the Lancashire Fusiliers killed on November 10th, 1918

Picture 03: Inside of the chapel « Notre-Dame-au-Chêne », Irchonwelz

Picture 04: the chapel « Notre-Dame-au-Chêne »

Picture 05: the Lancashire Rose where the soldiers were killed. It is the pupils of the communal school of Irchonwelz, who drew this rose on a wooden panel.

Picture 06: Our British guests.

Picture 07: in 1918, the small way followed the wall which was much longer

Pictures 08, 09: in the cemetery: small bunches of flowers for each, speech and minute of silence.

Picture 10: we followed the progress of the British troops, we pass by the street Of England.

Pictures 11, 12: recent conversion of the former refinery; it is here that the soldier Sullivan Edward ( 7th Corps Cyclists Battalion) was killed. (november 10th for      the CWGC, november 11th for the Daily Mail.)

Pictures 13, 14: in front of us: this boat, LONDON ! The Private Sullivan was also of London

Picture 15: the arrival is very close.

Picture 16: the cycling world is put in the honor.

Picture 17: during the German bombardment of November 10th, 1918, 3 civilians of the same family were killed, Mr Minet is their great-grandson.

 

001.jpg

002.JPG

003.jpg

004.JPG

005.JPG

006.JPG

007.JPG

008.JPG

009.jpg

010.JPG

011.JPG

012.JPG

013.JPG

014.JPG

015.JPG

016.JPG

017.JPG

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 3 months later...

Mr Hone

You were already able to taste (to enjoy?) the beer of Irchonwelz " Gouyass ". During your next visit, October 22nd, 2018, to Irchonwelz, after the ceremony of tribute to the killed soldiers 10-11-1918, you will discover another beer: " le Scotch de Silly " (Obviously, to drink on the way back, at home).

Silly is a nearby village. Here is the history of this beer.

PAYNE George, «Jack», was born in Melbourn Cambs (Cambridgeshire) 08-11-1888. He is the son of Albert Payne and Annie Whoutcok.

He is drill sergeant, Royal regiment Essex Rt. . In 1919, his regiment is stationed to Silly.

One day, he leaves in search of a beer for his men. The brewer Adelin Mynsbrughen does not possess a beer « à l'Anglaise ». So, Jack decides to help him make this beer, The « Scotch de Silly » was born, we always sell it now.

The history is not ended ! Jack meets Emilie Timermans, he marries her and they return to England. In 1922, his military contract is ended, he returns to Silly with Emilie and 2 children !

All in all, they will have 10 children !! He takes back the bar of his parents-in-law on the square of Silly. He also returns to work on the brewery as well as on the factory of chicory, where he will lose a leg. As he carried a wooden leg " in the former", everybody recognized him in the region.

He died 30-03-1975, he has his grave in the cemetery of Silly.

George, the brother of Jack Payne, died on November 13th, 1918; his name is on the war memorial of Fowlmere in England.

On Saturday, October 13th, the English and Belgian descendants of Jack Payne shall gather for the hundredth anniversary of the beer: « scotch of Silly » in the presence of madam ambassadress of Great Britain. Do you wish for a photo of this event?

--------------------------------------------------

In Ath Communal cemetery, are buried:

- Cpl Payne W, died 23-02-1919


 

- Driver Payne W H dead 16-02-1919, Rawtenstall ( Manchester)

(Rawtenstall? I went with the tourist train there! It is close to Bury?)


 

Jack Payne Beer.JPG

Jack Payne.jpg

Edited by christiandup
Link to comment
Share on other sites

M Hone

The tourist information office of Silly booked me some posters for you and your friends.

Unfortunately there is no English version.

Christian

4fd7c6d1-5086-490c-a425-3e23b846e27d.jpg

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Centenary toast for British soldier's Belgium-brewed WW1 ale

It is a report of the BBC about Jack Payne, the link :

https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-cambridgeshire-45838445?intlink_from_url=https://www.bbc.com/news/localnews/2653941-cambridge/20&link_location=live-reporting-story

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

October 22th 2018 : visit of delegation of Bury Grammar School at Irchonwelz-Ath. Thank you very much for your visit, it was appreciated. Thank you Christian Dupret for all organization of this event.

IMG_7077.JPG

IMG_7078.JPG

IMG_7079.JPG

IMG_7080.JPG

IMG_7082.JPG

IMG_7085.JPG

IMG_7087.JPG

IMG_7091.JPG

IMG_7092.JPG

IMG_7097.JPG

IMG_7099.JPG

IMG_7101.JPG

IMG_7102.JPG

IMG_7104.JPG

IMG_7105.JPG

IMG_7109.JPG

IMG_7110.JPG

IMG_7111.JPG

IMG_7112.JPG

Link to comment
Share on other sites

2nd Lt. Thomas  Floyd, the Bury Grammar School old boy who described the liberation of Ath on 11th November 1918 said that the townspeople treated them like royalty. 'What a day we had' he wrote. He and his comrades could not have had a warmer welcome than we received on Monday. We were overwhelmed by your kindness. Thank you so much for everything: the ceremonies at the key points, the Union Flags, meeting the townspeople, the veterans and the children from the local school, the bellringing (as described by Floyd) and our splendid reception at the hall. We shall never forget it.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

The professors of the school « Bury Grammar, School » can be very proud of their pupils, their respect, their discipline, their politeness ...  

The team of Irchonwelz: Madame la directrice, Madame Vanessa et les enfants de l'école communale d'Irchonwelz, Françoise, Sébastien, Laurent, Georges, Robert, Jacques, Jean-Pierre, Daniel, Stéphane, l'Union Picarde des Commandos Parachutistes, Les Vaillantines, les tenanciers du café "le Moulin", Claude, Jean, Cyril, Christian.

After November 11th, 2018, « Les Vaillantines » already wish to extend the exchanges.

IMG_0270.JPG

IMG_0255.JPG

IMG_0258.JPG

Edited by christiandup
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Thanks Nigel. You will be pleased to know that this year's tour incorporated several sites from the WFA tours guided by your father in 1987 and 1988: Crowe VC at Neuve Eglise, Riqueval Bridge, Bellenglise Tunnel, Bony American Cemetery, St Souplet (where my great-uncle is buried)  and the location of Wilfred Owen's death on the Sambre-Oise Canal and his grave at Ors. I took my treasured copies of the guidebooks from those tours with me. Generations of my pupils have benefited from what I learned on those superb tours. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Further to the visit of the school « Bury Grammar School », several inhabitants of Irchonwelz decided to draft a small book on the events lived in the village during the war 14-18.

The end of 1918: they possess now a lot of information on 8 soldiers of the Lancashire Fusiliers killed on November 10th, 1918.

Three soldiers also deserve more attention

Private Condra, Machine Gun Corps 10-11-18 Service N° 100846, we think that he was killed in a suburb of the city of Ath, on November 10th at the end of the afternoon.

Private Sullivan, Army Cyclist Bn service N° 1076 Local witnesses of the time brought back that he had been killed on November 11th in the morning (And not 10-11-1918?), what confirms Daily Mail of 13-11-1918, but we don't think that he was the last killed English soldier, Daily Mail maybe modified well the testimony of Beach Thomas on the timing.

Private Godfrey, Lincolnshire Regiment. Secondary Labour Corps Service N° 33190. Did he simply die from the Spanish flu? Or did he die further to his wounds of 10-11-1918?


 

Could anybody bring additional information on these 3 soldiers?

What is your opinion on the date of the death of the soldier Sullivan?


 

Daily Mail 13 november 1918.pdf

Link to comment
Share on other sites

There is a link to morance's query about Private Condra here:-

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Thanks seaJane

Sébastien is now able to find the place where Condra was killed on November 10th, 1918.

Sullivan – Beach Thomas – Daily Mail- November 10th or 11th, 1918...the mystery remains.

Private Edward Sullivan, East Ham, Number Service 1076, had served continuously since 1914, taking part in all the battles from Mons till the finish, as Private Ellison killed the last one (English) in Mons.

Edward Sullivan also lost two brothers during the war.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Sullivan – Beach Thomas – Daily Mail- November 10th or 11th, 1918...the mystery remains...

One testimony collected on Sunday November 4th during a guided tour to Stambruges.

" Waterloo 1815, Wellington is victorious. Since this time, the British army underwent no defeat on the continent. Mons, August 23rd, 1914: a tactical victory for the British army which hides a strategic defeat, the German offensive is not stopped. In November 10th and 11th, 1918: the British command is anxious to erase the strategic defeat of 1914, by a symbolic victory in Mons.

Everything must be made to highlight this victory, an English soldier Ellison (5th Lancers) will be the last English soldier killed in action to Mons on November 11th. To avoid any confusion, the date of death of the last English soldiers killed in the region will pass from 11 till 10 November 1918 »

We accept and respect this justifiable decision of the British command.

For us too, the soldier Edward Sullivan thus died November 10th, 1918.

Are you all right or not all right?

On November 13th, 1918, the correspondent of the Daily Mail, Beach Thomas ignored maybe this decision, thus he did not make a mistake when he wrote that the soldier Sullivan had been killed on November 11th, 1918.

December 5th, 1918, coming from Mons, the king Georges V, greet the soldiers accommodated in Stambruges.

He will pursue then his journey to go to Ieper (Ypres).

The city of Mons before the city of Ypres !?

To Stambruges, the beautiful house of the bosses of the brewery Haubourdin is always there!

Georges V Stambruges Haubourdin.jpg

IMG_0308.JPG

Link to comment
Share on other sites

In November 11th, 2018 to Irchonwelz.

In the church.

Juliette deposited the spray of flowers on the grave of the soldier Kitchen.

God Save the Queen and la Brabançonne.

Some children of the school.

The strong wind, the children, the Union Jack.

IMG_0327.JPG

IMG_0339.JPG

IMG_0336.JPG

IMG_0341.JPG

IMG_0343.JPG

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 1 month later...

Christmas 2018, the eight soldiers of the Lancashire Fusiliers are not forgotten.

 

Yvette, Marie-Laure and Jean paid all the costs.

In addition, Jean wished to fix the plate on the wall of the Chapel Notre-Dame-au-Chêne.

An accurate work !

Thank you to all.

IMG_0468.JPG

IMG_0471.JPG

IMG_0474.JPG

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Thank you so much for this. We have broken up for the Christmas holiday but I shall spread the news of this wonderful gesture when we return in January.

Happy Christmas to all of our friends in Irchonwelz and Ath, made through the Great War Forum.

A Bientot!

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Is the military band referred to by Lieutenant Floyd (2/5 Lancashire Fusiliers) the picture below?

 

Lieutenant Floyd's diary book : Monday, November 11th, 1918

 

And at 11 came the official cessation of hostilities. The day was spend in jubilation.

 

In the middle of the day, the reminder of the 55 th Division arrived on the scene. They went through Ath while we were to go into billets in Irchonwelz. Boyd Mo.. came through first with the 165 brigade, the band playing all the old familiar tunes and flags flying. Every soldier had a Belgian flag in his rifle. The men and boys and girls and children followed the troops. Then came Kentish with the 166 brigade. When the whole division had marched through Ath and the artillery had entered the town we withdrew to our rural billets for the night.

 

The British troops (55 th Division) will march again at the end of November but to the sound of civil brass bands: Captain Leonard Hunt’s diary book (2/5 Lancashire Fusiliers)

 

The "site carpathea.com" sent to me the scan of this picture.

Ath Photo Select photo-carte musique anglaise.jpg

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 4 months later...

I seem to have come a bit late to this thread, but did so while planning a visit to Ath.
The reason I want to go to Ath is that it is the town where my father was on the afternoon of 11th November 1918, when he was the Medical Officer with the 1/5th Kings Own Royal Lancashire Regiment. (The 1/5KORL had been just west of the town in the village of Moulbaix at 11 o'clock.)
He described it in a letter to his mother as follows:


"Monday night. November 11th 1918.

My dear Mother.

I can hardly realise - in fact I cannot realise at all - that the end has actually come at last. It seems too amazing to be true.
We heard the news at midday. We had halted at a little village for our lunch, and were just starting to eat when the General rode up and announced that the Armistice had been agreed by the Bosches. I think we all took it very quietly, we all felt it to be too solemn a moment to do anything else. Then an old woman in whose cottage kitchen we were having lunch produced a bottle of horrible wine and we toasted each others countries, the priest peeled the church bell - there was only one! - and we continued our triumphal progress.
During the afternoon we entered this town in a drizzling rain and the most enthusiastic frenzy of excitement you can imagine. It is a town about twice the size of the one we were in last night and you can perhaps picture me riding along bowing and saluting left and right as though I had been born a King and created a conqueror.
My billet is the best I’ve ever had in the whole course of the war and is one occupied by a German doctor for several months. My hostess is a widow about 40 to 45 years old and she lives in a large house with her servant-companion.
Padre has got his own bed in a sitting-room which communicates with my bedroom through folding doors.
I have most beautifully embroidered sheet, pillowcases, and towels and a fire in the room and every attention. Madame is a lady and has evidently been very well to do until the Bosches came along and stripped her of many of her possessions.
...
Oh my, I’ve just had a most excited and lengthy conversation with Madame again, we both talked at once as fast as we could and gesticulated hard and laughed until we ache; she gave me some tea and had departed for bed.

Moi, je me coucheria toute de suite parce qu’il faut que je partis a huit heures demain possiblement, je suis très fatigué. Oh how difficult it is to think in English!!
 I begin to think about coming home now but it won’t be just yet awhile, still we can all be very thankful that the worst part is over.

Best love to you all from Arthur."

 

Alfred Morris
(PS I do mean my father and not my grandfather. I am not, however, a very old man; my father was widowed in the 1940s and then married a younger woman when he was in his sixties and I am a son from the second marriage).

Edited by Morris
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
×
×
  • Create New...