Remember the Dead – The 3rd Bn. Monmouthshire Regiment & the Second Battle of Ypres

Men of the initial draft of the 3rd Battalion Monmouthshire Regiment (colloquially known as 3rd Mons, and mainly recruited from the Gwent area) parade at Abergavenny in South Wales in August 1914.  Part of the 83rd Brigade, 28th Division, they would cross the channel to France on the night of 14th February 1915, and would find themselves digging trenches around Ypres within four days of their arrival in Flanders. 

Map showing the positions held by the 3rd Monmouths (highlighted, by me, in orange) in the spring of 1915.  Temporarily attached to the 5th Division throughout March 1915, during which they took over 500 yards of front-line trenches – at the very bottom of the map just east of Wulverghem, and incorrectly marked as 28th Division – with their Battalion HQ at the time at Dranoutre, off the map to the left, they received their first casualties on 15th March, according to the war diary.

One of their early casualties was Corporal J. Evans, whose wounding and death on 26th March 1915 is mentioned in the war diary (note he was a sergeant as far as the writer was concerned), and whose grave we recently visited in Neuve Eglise Churchyard.

Rejoining the 28th Division on 6th April 1915, the battalion would take over trenches in Polygon Wood (marked on the map – find it yourselves) on the evening of 8th April 1915.  The Second Battle of Ypres would begin on 22nd April with the German gas attacks just a couple of miles further north, and end on 25th May with the Germans still short of their objective, the City of Ypres.  However, what would be described in the Regimental History as ‘the Battalion’s hardest trial and greatest achievement’ would begin on 4th May, and, using the battalion war diary, along with pages from their official history, we shall follow their progress through April & May 1915 (click the pages to enlarge), two months that would see the end of the hopes and dreams of so many young men from South Wales.

Relieved at the start of the month,…

…the battalion would return to the trenches in Polygon Wood on 8th April,…

…the history giving a detailed account, as you might expect, of the battalion’s movements from then on.

Most unusual, at least in my experience, is the detail in the war diary about the casualties received; service numbers, names and the nature & severity of the wound are all recorded,…

…a veritable gold mine for researchers.

No, not February, but still April.  We all make mistakes.

Private Albert Dimmick (see 20th April) died of wounds on 22nd April aged 23 after a gunshot wound to the head.  He is buried in Poperinghe Old Military Cemetery.

Also wounded in the head (see bottom of page) on 26th April, Private Ishmael Evans, aged 21, died on 28th April, his body subsequently lost, his name now among twenty four 3rd Mons men killed in April 1915 whose names are to be found on the Menin Gate Memorial to the Missing.

29th April; the final entry for the month simply states ‘Very quiet day’.

The fact that there is no entry for the final day of April, and that the war diary continues in May in a different hand and in a very different style, poses several questions.  Who wrote the April entries (there is no signature), why did he no longer continue into May, and what happened to him?  Was he transferred, promoted, wounded, perhaps killed?  We will probably never know, and the questions will remain unanswered.

Three men of the 3rd Mons who died on 2nd May, from left, Private Evan Davies, Corporal Albert Powles & Private Herbert Martin.  The names of all three men appear on the Menin Gate Memorial, along with another seventy nine men of the 3rd Mons who died the same day and whose bodies were never recovered.  Evan Davies was just seventeen.

Serjeant Geoffrey Gravenor, gassed and severely wounded whilst leading his men on 5th May, for which he would receive both the D.C.M. and the Croix De Guerre.  His D.C.M. citation, published in the London Gazette on 14th January 1916, reads, ‘For conspicuous gallantry. When sent up to reinforce another regiment with a half company he came under heavy rifle and shell fire, which killed and wounded several of his party, he himself being wounded. The company began to fall back, but he limped after his men, rallied them, and, although wounded in the leg, led them to the advanced trench, where he remained in command of it until he was carried back to the dressing station.’  The Merthyr Express reported on 22nd January 1916, ‘It was during the terrible days of May last year, when the 3rd Mons went through a fiery ordeal and many men fell never to rise again, that Sergeant Major Gravenor with many others were wounded and gassed. The Sergeant Major was wounded in both legs, but seeing that his detachment of the regiment was in a perilous position he crawled to where they were under a hail of bullets and bursting shells, rallied them and got them out of danger. Directly afterwards a German shell completely shattered the position they had taken up, so by the bravery of Sergeant Major Gravenor they were saved. His gallant conduct was witnessed by the commanding officer of another regiment, and he reported the action. Sergeant Major Gravenor is a typical soldier, and a useful citizen, and the honour conferred upon him is an honour to the town of which he is a native.’  Fêted on his return to South Wales, Gravenor would sadly never really recover from his injuries, dying in January 1920 aged 42.

Privates Philip Powell & Zephaniah Thomas, both killed on 6th May 1915; their names appear, along with twenty two other 3rd Mons men killed the same day, on the Menin Gate Memorial.

My guess is that this man, Captain James Lancaster, is mentioned on the missing page. Aged 38, he was killed on 8th May, and is among forty one men of the 3rd Mons killed that day whose names appear on the Menin Gate Memorial,…

…as does the name of Company Serjeant Major George Henry Lippiett, reported killed (his name incorrectly spelt) in this newspaper report, and also later confirmed as killed on 8th May.  In total, two hundred and thirty six names of men of the 3rd Mons who fell between 9th April & 19th May and whose bodies could not be recovered are to be found on the Menin Gate.

The actions of 8th May are described here on the right,…

…this map showing the 3rd Mons’ fighting retreat over the course of the day.

Casualty figures…

…and remnants.

The entry for 11th May is intriguing, to say the least, because according to the diary,…

…the battalion was relieved that day and proceeded back to billets in Vlamertinghe,…

…whereas, for some reason, the CWGC database lists no less than forty four men of the 3rd Mons who were killed on 11th May and who have no known grave and whose names are listed on the Menin Gate.  Explain that one.  Not so odd, the number of 3rd Mons men killed on either 9th or 10th May is, according to the CWGC, precisely zero; no burials anywhere, and no names on the Menin Gate.  The war diary tells us that on 9th May ‘Remnants of Battalion returned to huts near Vlamertinghe’, and that on 10th ‘…3rd Mons detachment…in GHQ line at Potijze’, the latter not the front line, and for less than a day, as we know they were relieved the following day.  My point being that no casualties over these two days is not actually a surprise.  Forty four men killed on 11th May is, dare I say it, absurd.  The inset shows men of the 3rd Mons on the march before embarkation to France.

This chapter of the history ends with the words of Sir John French, who inspected the Brigade on 21st May 1915.

There follows a series of post-war photographs – there are bunkers evident in a couple – attached to the 3rd Mons war diary and associated with the actions in May 1915, with various lines & arrows marked on the photos themselves, and details on the reverse:

Casualty lists.

South Wales Gazette, 14th May 1915.

Abergavenny Chronicle, 18th June 1915.

South Wales Gazette, 3rd December 1926.

The 3rd Mons began the Second Battle of Ypres with 1,020 men; when they finally left the front line at the end of the month, only 134 men had survived unwounded.  On 27th May, the remnants of all three Monmouth battalions would be amalgamated, temporarily, as it turned out, into the new Monmouthshire Regiment, although the story of the men of the 3rd Mons would not draw to a close until July 1916, and the carnage of the Somme.

They went with songs to the battle, they were young,
Straight of limb, true of eye, steady and aglow.
They were staunch to the end against odds uncounted;
They fell with their faces to the foe.

REMEMBER THE DEAD