"Miety Wood", 3rd Battle of the Aisne 1918

[Michelle Young]

Quite often you will find maps in war diaries. Have you tried? Here’s 56 Brigade up to 31st May 

https://discovery.nationalarchives.gov.uk/details/r/C14053985

[WhiteStarLine]

28 minutes ago, Michelle Young said:

Quite often you will find maps in war diaries. Have you tried? Here’s 56 Brigade up to 31st May 

Also, TrenchMapper has multiple maps from April & May 1918 for the La Pecherie area and following up the La Miette river.  Not sure of the exact area you want but once you establish that we might be able to help.  The French 1:10,000 have many dozens of trenches shown.

[PJS]

The map I posted at the beginning of this thread was actually two maps stitched together. One of them (76NW) is available here: https://digitalarchive.mcmaster.ca/islandora/object/macrepo%3A70757 and the other one (76NE) is here: https://digitalarchive.mcmaster.ca/islandora/object/macrepo%3A70759

However, I think the location you are looking for is around Méry-Prémecy, a few kilometers west of Reims and unfortunately the above maps do not go that far south. 76SW from the same series will get you closer but I believe is still a little too far north.

Peter

[WhiteStarLine]

6 minutes ago, PJS said:

I think the location you are looking for is around Méry-Prémecy, a few kilometers west of Reims

TrenchMapper has 5 georeferenced maps of this area and the one from 27/5/1918 shows the front line around 5.5km west of Méry-Prémecy.  The other 4 maps are late 1917 or late 1918.

[GAW650]

Hello Lee,

A book that will offer a fairly good insight to your question is "The Nineteenth Division" by Everard Wyrall. I purchased a copy from Amazon as I am also interested in the 19th Division as my Grandfather was in the 9th Battalion Welsh Regiment in 58th Brigade. The chapter on the battle in question has a few maps as well as a detailed description of the fighting and the position of the various units on an almost hour by hour basis.

The chapter on the battle mentions that the 8th North Staffs and the 56th brigade were assigned to 8th division on the afternoon of the 29th. On the night/morning of the 29th/30th the 8th North Staffs were in position on the Bouleuse Ridge near Faverolles when they came under sustained attack.The division were forced to fall back with the 8th North Staffs occupying a line along the Sarcy-Bouleuse Road to the ridge north west of Aubilly. It seems from here units continued to fall back until reaching the Chambrecy-Bligny Road with the 8th North Staffs on the road west of Bligny. 

I visited the area around Bligny and Chambrecy in 2017 the site of some of the heaviest fighting and in particular the Montagne de Bligny and the cemetery on the Chambrecy Road.

I hope this helps a little with some of the detail. The book on the 19th Division is a good reference for getting more detail as to individual units.

[LCpl Lee Cope]

24 minutes ago, GAW650 said:

Hello Lee,

A book that will offer a fairly good insight to your question is "The Nineteenth Division" by Everard Wyrall. I purchased a copy from Amazon as I am also interested in the 19th Division as my Grandfather was in the 9th Battalion Welsh Regiment in 58th Brigade. The chapter on the battle in question has a few maps as well as a detailed description of the fighting and the position of the various units on an almost hour by hour basis.

The chapter on the battle mentions that the 8th North Staffs and the 56th brigade were assigned to 8th division on the afternoon of the 29th. On the night/morning of the 29th/30th the 8th North Staffs were in position on the Bouleuse Ridge near Faverolles when they came under sustained attack.The division were forced to fall back with the 8th North Staffs occupying a line along the Sarcy-Bouleuse Road to the ridge north west of Aubilly. It seems from here units continued to fall back until reaching the Chambrecy-Bligny Road with the 8th North Staffs on the road west of Bligny. 

I visited the area around Bligny and Chambrecy in 2017 the site of some of the heaviest fighting and in particular the Montagne de Bligny and the cemetery on the Chambrecy Road.

I hope this helps a little with some of the detail. The book on the 19th Division is a good reference for getting more detail as to individual units.

Hello and thank you, I'll definitely look into this book. 

5 hours ago, PJS said:

The map I posted at the beginning of this thread was actually two maps stitched together. One of them (76NW) is available here: https://digitalarchive.mcmaster.ca/islandora/object/macrepo%3A70757 and the other one (76NE) is here: https://digitalarchive.mcmaster.ca/islandora/object/macrepo%3A70759

However, I think the location you are looking for is around Méry-Prémecy, a few kilometers west of Reims and unfortunately the above maps do not go that far south. 76SW from the same series will get you closer but I believe is still a little too far north.

Peter

Hello and thank you, I've looked and found Mery-Premecy. So, I'll look on Trench Mapper and see what I can find.

[LCpl Lee Cope]

8 hours ago, WhiteStarLine said:

Also, TrenchMapper has multiple maps from April & May 1918 for the La Pecherie area and following up the La Miette river.  Not sure of the exact area you want but once you establish that we might be able to help.  The French 1:10,000 have many dozens of trenches shown.

Hello, thank you for the information regarding Trench mapper. I'm looking on there now for Mery-Premecy and I think that I've found a couple of relevant trench maps from 23/09/1918 and 18/08/1918. I'll attempt to locate an earlier one that's closer to 30/05/1918.

I don't want to hijack this thread.

So, thank you for the help, it's much appreciated.

[Howard]

I am a bit late to this thread, but if you put the map reference 76.I.24.a.18.96 into TrenchMapper that points you to B. Miette (Boyau) on the trench map and La Miette on the modern aerial imagery. Putting in 76.J.9.a.12.87 takes you to an adjacent sheet with la Miette  R. (rivière)

Howard

 

Edited 27 November , 2023 by Howard
Forgot the map.....

[PJS]

On 27/11/2023 at 09:37, Howard said:

I am a bit late to this thread, but if you put the map reference 76.I.24.a.18.96 into TrenchMapper that points you to B. Miette (Boyau) on the trench map and La Miette on the modern aerial imagery. Putting in 76.J.9.a.12.87 takes you to an adjacent sheet with la Miette  R. (rivière)

Howard

Thanks for taking the trouble to put that into Trench Mapper Howard. It's interesting to see the overlay. 

Peter