Crowe VC Site-Has anyone been recently?

[Mark Hone]

I am planning to include the Crowe VC site near Nieuwkerke (Neuve Eglise) on my forthcoming school battlefields tour. It is over 15 years since I visited the site and I was slightly disappointed to see that the site of Crowe's attack on the German machine gun positions on 13th April 1918, which used to be an open field, has been built on. I am assuming that the plaque unveiled  a few years ago on the building now occupying the site of the old Mairie is still there. Could anyone who has visited recently or has local knowledge please give me an update? I know that some guidebooks in the past got the location mangled, thinking it took place near the present Mairie in the middle of the village

Edited 7 October , 2018 by Mark Hone

[JWK]

It was rededicated in April this year

 

PDF File

and some pictures in this Twitter message

 

De Bosgeus, Dranouterstraat 24, 8950 Heuvelland

The big white blob opposite the Bosgeus is the fire station, and the "old mairie" is on that triangular square in front of the church.

 

And they brew their own Crowe beer

 

 

 

Edited 7 October , 2018 by JWK

[Mark Hone]

Thanks very much for this. The site of the Mairie in 1918, where part of the 2nd Worcesters was pinned down, appears to be the subject of some debate, as I mention in my original post. When I visited the site with the late Colonel Terry Cave and the WFA in the 1980s, the site was pointed out as being behind the buildings now fronting the Dranoutre road, which include the Bosgeus. See the sketch map of the VC action reproduced in the guidebook for the 1987 WFA Remembrance Tour, which I assume is from the Worcesters' Regimental History. 

Edited 7 October , 2018 by Mark Hone

[Macm149]

Hi. I've recently found out John James Crowe is my cousin 3x removed. My Great grandfather was his cousin, unfortunately he was killed on the Somme. I'm very proud of both of them.