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Remembered Today:

Battle of Broodsiende - AIF 3 Btn Member Information.


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Seeking information about my 1st Cousin twice removed, 6716, BEAR, James William, Private 8th Platoon, B Coy, 22nd reinforcements, 3rd Battalion, 1st Brigade, 1st Division, Australian Imperial Forces (AIF). He was killed on 4 Oct 1917 at Battle of Broodsiende Ridge. He was possibly a Lewis / Machine gun crew member. Witness accounts say he was buried behind the trenches, near B Company HQ, near Remus Wood, near the village Molenaarelsthoek, near the town of Zonnebeke, in the Ypres sector. There was a map reference of Sheet 28, J.5.A.3.9. given, but after that the trail finishes. I have perused trench maps, Red Cross files, CWGC and the Australian War Memorial and the Unrecovered War Casualty section with Australian Army. I was hoping that someone, somewhere on this forum may have further information / ideas that I could follow up which might lead to the discovery of his final resting place.

 

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Hi Deldarri,

 

Have you checked "Randwick to Hargicourt, History of the 3rd Battalion".  Most of these books have a good overview of the conditions.  Also, the 1st Battalion fought with them on this day and you can download a free online copy of the "First Battalion AIF 1914 - 1919".  They have a detailed description of the action that day and what happened to their own casualties in the mud and shells and probably form your own impression of exactly what happened.  Here is an extract:

 

image.png.c1b40d890df9f186600470f930630aeb.png

 

If you are just looking for where he probably lies behind the trenches, Sheet 28.J.5.a.3.9 is shown below side-by-side with an October 1917 trench map:

image.png.5794ce728541facec69b358912d675f1.png

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Hello,

 

this is how I would do it:

CWGC has 50 men of the 3rd Battalion who died that day, 13 are identified, the others are on the Menin gate.

The location where the identified were found should bring you close.

 

KING H S 6298' BUTTES NEW BRITISH CEMETERY, POLYGON WOOD
LEWIS W T 1386' BUTTES NEW BRITISH CEMETERY, POLYGON WOOD
COLLESS J W 1179' HOOGE CRATER CEMETERY
BELL J C 6461' LIJSSENTHOEK MILITARY CEMETERY
SCUDDS R H T 6874' LIJSSENTHOEK MILITARY CEMETERY
ARIANSEN V E G 6212' TYNE COT CEMETERY
BYRNES J 6834' TYNE COT CEMETERY
DARR J F 6983' TYNE COT CEMETERY
HARTLEY D 1335' TYNE COT CEMETERY
INCH A G 6522' TYNE COT CEMETERY
MASTON H W 2167A' TYNE COT CEMETERY
MEANEY E 2646' TYNE COT CEMETERY
WEEDING A G 3262' TYNE COT CEMETERY

 

Tyne Cot has the most of them and the first one that I checked has several unknown Australians recovered very close from your target:

https://www.cwgc.org/find-war-dead/casualty/462482/darr,-justus-frederick/

 

doc2129689.JPG

 

Luc.

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Thanks gents, just the sort of information I was hoping to elicit. WhiteStarLine, thanks for the information about the book and also the photo overlay of the trench map. We went to Belgium this year and Sacred Ground Tours took us to the location you have identified, which verifies that part. I was hoping that, hvaing been buried so close to Coy HQ and with 5 or 6 others his body would have been recovered and reburied - I didn't know where to go from there. LDT006, your ideas are very welcome and fall in with my original thinking but lack of knowledge where to start. I will definitely go through the records to see if there is any cross reference. Also, very interested in the "Burial Return". Where or how do I access them please? I am guessing that the final 2 numbers of the grid reference on the burial return, which are double digits, are a more exact grid reference than the single digit grids I already have?  I will have to interrogate the CWGC more thoroughly and do some cross reference. Thanks again Gents.

 

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Deldarri, the work Luc did is very valuable as it gives us a degree of confidence that they mapped the bodies they recovered with some care, which was not always the case.  I've plotted four in square 5.a and one in 5.b (yours is the blue and the gray is a bit hard to see.  In theory the double digits express a 5 x 5 yard square rather than a 50 x 50.  In practice, when I see every single grid reference with a 0 after it I think of clerical neatness rather than mapping accuracy.  Just below I've shown you the difference between J.a.3.9 (outer red rectangle) and J.a.30.90 (inner gray with orange icon).  On the ground it would not amount to much.

image.png.d081da333407916a462c5cd2e4b530d9.png

 

image.png.a0b33aed4a925e93cf62f051d7bfac4e.png

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