Fosse 8 - Hohenzollern Redoubt

[battle of loos]

good morning,

being from Loos, I am therefore interested in the battle of the same name, I can tell you that the slag heaps at that time were flat like that of the "double crassiers" or the "fosse 15-15bis - Tower bridge".
less than 10 meters high.
the only one to my knowledge that was very high at that time (pyramid-shaped) in this sector, is that of the "Philosophe - Vermelles".

regards

michel

[WhiteStarLine]

Here is a good April 1918 image of Fosse 8 (obliterated) and The Dump, confirming just what a large and dominating feature it represented.  Taken by 2 Squadron RAF courtesy IWM / WFA.  Each grid line is 500 yards so this extract is 1,000 x 500.  Click to enlarge. 

[PaulTudge1916]

13 hours ago, brianmorris547 said:

look on the Long Long Trail under Battles, find the Divisions involved and then search the War Diaries of the Divisional HQ General Staff and of the Infantry Brigades. 

Thanks. I'll look there.

PT

[david murdoch]

Fosse 8 de Bethune. | WW1 PARCELS TO THE FRONT & LETTERS HOME (istworldwarhibbettletters.com)

The Dump is mentioned in this article  and as being 20ft high. 

 The Dump: a 20ft Crassier/ Spoil Heap (Mine ‘deads’) from the Fosse 8 / Pithead; with excellent views in all directions over the British Line.

There are several pictures of Crassiers at other mines (majority being Loos Crassier and "Tower Bridge") and they mostly (but not all) to follow the same style of long spread out  spoil heaps but not very high, compared to pit "bings" we would see in UK.

[brianmorris547]

On 05/12/2021 at 21:44, PaulTudge1916 said:

Thanks. I'll look there.

PT

Paul

The WD of 2 Div HQ GS (WO 95/1287 - Ancestry p 205 to 207/633) has a map from the La Basee Canal to Hill 70. It is in three parts and marked Situation 26/09/1915.

Brian

[PaulTudge1916]

Thanks Brian. Does it show the British lines in decent detail?

PT

[KernelPanic]

5 hours ago, brianmorris547 said:

The WD of 2 Div HQ GS (WO 95/1287 - Ancestry p 205 to 207/633) has a map from the La Basee Canal to Hill 70. It is in three parts and marked Situation 26/09/1915.

Brian

Brian, Thanks for this reference, particular the Ancestry indexing, which is very helpful!

 

1 hour ago, PaulTudge1916 said:

Thanks Brian. Does it show the British lines in decent detail?

PT

Paul, Parts of the 2 Division HQ map that Brian identified appear to be the same as 3 1915 maps at McMaster that are 'as of' July/August 1915. They show the German trench lines (in red) with the Hohenzollen Redoubt at the top of the maps. I think the British lines are shown by a single dashed black line.

However, one of them (PC0084WW1MAP) 'appears' (and I could be wrong) to have the British lines detailed in black (25-08-1915). Is this what you are looking for?

Edited 11 December , 2021 by KernelPanic
typo

[PaulTudge1916]

35 minutes ago, KernelPanic said:

However, one of them (PC0084WW1MAP) 'appears' (and I could be wrong) to have the British lines detailed in black (25-08-1915). Is this what you are looking for?

Yes it appears to show British lines but unfortunately doesnt name them

PT

[WhiteStarLine]

2 hours ago, PaulTudge1916 said:

but unfortunately doesnt name them

However, it looks to be very similar to the one posted by Brian earlier in this thread which does provide names.  Courtesy IWM / WFA, undated map, click to enlarge:

Notes: 36C [parts of][no title]Annotated. In 4 pieces. No date

[A Lancashire Fusilier by Proxy]

On 05/12/2021 at 11:16, WhiteStarLine said:

Here is a good April 1918 image of Fosse 8 (obliterated) and The Dump, confirming just what a large and dominating feature it represented.  Taken by 2 Squadron RAF courtesy IWM / WFA.  Each grid line is 500 yards so this extract is 1,000 x 500. 

By my reckoning, this makes the short south westerly extreme edge of the Fosse about 100 yards in width.

To quote a bit more from Chapter 13 of With a Machine Gun to Cambrai, including putting into context the section quoted in my first post on this thread, Coppard begins the chapter:

"We went up to the front line again, a little to the left of the redoubt. The dominating feature here was Fosse 8, a black heap of coal waste about eighty to one hundred feet high, and, if my memory serves me, well over a hundred yards long. The two front lines were very close, less than a hundred yards apart, and, with the big Fosse looming up directly in front of us, we felt naked and wide open to enemy observation ..."

I presume that the reference to "left" must be taken to mean "to the left when viewed from the British front line". If so, it is hard to see how the position described would be to the the left of the redoubt, as, if they were to the left of the redoubt, they would have been opposite the buildings rather than the slag heap, which latter would have been away over to the other side of the redoubt. If they were to the right of the redoubt, they might well have been facing the short wouth westerly edge of the Fosse, which, as mentioned above, seems to have measured about 100 yards, but surely it would be more natural to say that the Fosse was 100 yards wide from that angle, rather than 100 yards long? And then there is the puzzling measurement of 80 to 100 feet for the height of the Fosse, which does seem to refer to the height of the slag heap itself, not any chimney or other tall feature. So, unless I am misunderstanding any part of the quoted extract, or the nature of the features on the ground, it does seem that the passage of 50 years had played tricks on Coppard's perception of the scene.

 

[Donald Gillies]

Sorry to be late to the topic. Attached is a contemporary map drawn up by an orderly of the position of the 7th Seaforths at the Redoubt with a specific mark given for the fall of Capt Robertson Kerr Clark. You can see the German machine gun positions on Fosse 8 must have made those attacking extremely vulnerable and likely accounts for much of the appalling losses that morning (25th Sept 1915). 

[brianmorris547]

I have been reading the accounts of the attack by 46 Div on Fosse 8 on 13/10/1915. I think I have mentioned on another thread about the aerial photographs that are in the WD of 139 Infantry Brigade. There is also this map of Fosse 8 and The Dump.

TNA/Ancestry WO 95/2692 - 139 IB.

Brian