Westouter War Memorial, Churchyard & Extension

Every so often we find ourselves in an area that remained behind the British lines for the whole of the war, and Westoutre, now Westouter, is one such place. 

Probably.

Who knows whether a lone German Uhlan clattered his horse through the village streets in the late autumn of 1914, wondering where he was, where the enemy was, and exactly what he might do should he meet them.

You can see where we are on this combination of two maps I’ve put together, which illustrates a potential problem from much later in the war that could arise when, in the summer of 1918, the British, in order to fall in line with their French allies, changed, or rather swapped, the colours used on their trench maps.  The top half of this map, from May 1918, shows the British trenches in blue and the German trenches in red; the bottom half, from July 1918, has the colours reversed.  The shaded areas show, clockwise from top left, Poperinge (orange), Ypres (turquoise), Messines (purple), Mont Kemmel (green), and finally Westouter in red, seven miles or so, as the crow flies, from the centre of Ypres (Ieper).  The bottom left quarter of this map,…

…is shown again here, this extract from December 1916 and thus unencumbered by trenches, with Westouter once again marked by the red circle, and the line of hills shielding it from the east clear to see; from left, straddling the Franco-Belgian border, Mont Noir & Mont Vidaigne, then Mont Rouge and the Scherpenberg with, in the bottom right corner, Mont Kemmel.

This view was taken from almost four miles due east of Dranouter, and thus also off the map to the right, but it shows clearly the high ground the Germans needed to take if they were to break through the Allied lines in the spring of 1918, which they would, of course,  ultimately fail to do.  Closest to the camera, in the centre of the picture behind the pole, the Scherpenberg stands at 413 ft in height, and beyond, moving left, both Mont Rouge (554 ft) & Mont Noir (498 ft) can be seen.  Mont Vidaigne, at just 406 ft, is obscured by the higher hills, and Westouter is beyond the horizon between pole and tree.

Taken on 15th July 1918, this aerial view looks south east, Mont Vidaigne in the foreground.  The two map references are marked on the previous map, as here, by pink & mauve dots.

Westouter war memorial stands outside the church,…

…and sadly…

…its angel has suffered much erosion over the years and today looks more than a little the worse for wear.

But the panels are all perfectly legible, on the left,…

…the names of eighteen soldiers, the first of whom died in October 1914, and the last in January 1919,…

…and on the right, eleven civilians and three Second World War casualties.  You might note that eight of the eleven Great War civilian victims were women of which three, killed on the same day during the Battle of the Lys in April 1918, were from the same family.

Above the panels, on one side, a dying soldier,…

…and on the other, a dying civilian – note the clogs & spade.

Taken in January 1915, this picture shows British soldiers, men of the Royal Irish Rifles, and two Belgian civilians (father & son, perhaps) passing the spot where, not so many years later, the war memorial would remember the town’s dead.  It would be nice to think that one of those twigs on the left became, over a century, the willow that now enwraps the memorial*.  Certainly two, possibly three, of those whose names appear on the memorial panels had already lost their lives when this photograph was taken.

*and, I suppose, is probably the cause of the memorial’s erosion.

Westouter would suffer most during the spring and early summer of 1918, this photograph, taken on 6th September 1918 once the Germans were no longer a threat to the village, showing damage to the church – compare with the previous picture – caused by German guns during their spring offensive.

Aerial shot from August 1918 showing the effects of German artillery on the landscape, the church & churchyard marked in red at the bottom of the photo.

But, as the title of this post suggests, there is more to see here, and on the northern side of the church there are just over a hundred Great War graves…

…split into two plots, those in the churchyard, the smaller of the two plots, on the left, and those in the extension on the right.  The cemetery plan, thanks to the CWGC, can be seen here.

Field ambulances buried their dead in the churchyard at various times throughout the war; logically you might expect the earliest graves to be here in the original churchyard, and that is indeed the case, a single grave from 1914 to be found in the final row of the plot.

But we’ll start at this end, these casualties in Row A killed in September & October (the Canadian private on the left) 1915.

View looking towards Plot II with Plot I Row A now in the foreground on our right, and Plot I Row B to the left,…

…the graves in Row B all Canadian, all three of whom died on 8th October 1915, with three August 1915 casualties in Row C behind.

The only burial in Row D is Private Charles Edward Tyson, King’s Own (Royal Lancaster Regiment), who died on 26th July 1915 aged 27.

Rows E & F,…

…the burials in Row E from the summer of 1915,…

…with another in Row F on the far left, next to the two earliest burials to be found in either churchyard or extension, in the centre, Driver Frederick James Brooks, Royal Field Artillery, who died on 25th January 1915, and on the right, Driver James McIntyre, Army Service Corps, who died on 26th November 1914.

Once this small plot had been filled,…

…and men kept dying,…

…burials began to be made in what is now the churchyard extension and the site of Plot II.  Of the eighty five burials in the plot, sixty four are British, fourty two of whom died in September 1917.

Nine of the burials in Row A are from September 1917,…

…including, rather remarkably, three Robinsons in a row,…

…as detailed on this GRRF extract.  Two were brothers, one A.S.C., the other R.F.A., killed together and buried in the same grave, and the third, a Durham Light Infantry private who died a week later, was, it seems, no relation.

There are three Germans buried in Plot II, two here in Row A.  Fourth from the camera,…

…Unteroffizier (Sergeant) Johann Heilmeier died on 14th October 1918, the final burial made here.  The tide of war had long moved east by then, and thus his death is unexplained; a wound from the fighting in the summer that would not heal, an accident, the flu, who knows?  Unless this isn’t him at all, and is actually an unknown German soldier who died on 8th June 1917, because that’s how he is listed on the GRRF we just looked at.  In case you hadn’t noticed.

The second German buried in Row A, here on the left, died on 7th June 1917; one wonders whether Musketier Robert Glass (there is little other information on his headstone) was a victim of one of the mines that devastated the German front lines that day, picked up seriously wounded by the advancing British troops, but who subsequently died before he could be evacuated any further west than here.

Canadian burials from late 1915 and early 1916 in Row B,…

…with another at the start of the row on the left (close-up below), slightly separated from his colleagues.  It was the Canadians who began the burials in Plot II, the fourteen Canadian burials in the plot – note the five Canadian burials at the start of Row C immediately behind, and more in the rows beyond – all men who died between October 1915 & March 1916.

Lance Serjeant Edward Ernest Barnes, 24th Bn. Canadian Infantry, who died on 18th November 1915 aged 23.

Seven of the eight British burials in Row B are men who died between 7th & 12th June 1917 during the Battle of Messines,…

…while seven of the nine British graves in Row C are men who died on either 22nd or 23rd September 1917,…

…the two men left & centre here both 23rd September casualties, the machine gunner at the end of the row dying on 25th September.  All are most probably men seriously wounded during the Battle of the Menin Road, which took place between 20th & 25th September 1917, one of the actions that, together, posterity knows as the Battle of Passchendaele.  Behind, in Row D,…

…the last two burials in the row are men who died on 26th (right) & 28th September 1917,…

…the next six burials all being men who died between 24th & 26th September 1917.  The four men whose graves are separated from the rest at the start of the row…

…are, from left, an unknown Canadian, the only unidentified burial here, a Royal Field Artillery corporal killed on 26th September 1917, an earlier Army Service Corps casualty from February 1917, and another Canadian infantryman, far right, who died in March 1916.

Three more Canadians (2nd, 3rd & 5th from left) at the start of Row E, casualties, like the others, from late 1915 & early 1916, with a Royal Field Artillery gunner killed on 26th September 1917 second from the right.  The man buried on the far left,..

…is a much later grave, and the penultimate British burial here.  Serjeant W. Mallin D.C.M., M.M., South Lancashire Regiment, died on 1st September 1918.  In August 1917 he had been awarded the Distinguished Conduct Medal as a lance corporal ‘For conspicuous gallantry and devotion to duty, when in charge of Battalion H.Q. orderlies. On several occasions he accompanied them through heavy shellfire to give them confidence. He has on all occasions shown himself to be absolutely fearless, tireless, and can be depended upon to carry any message anywhere.’

His death is noted in the 2nd Bn. South Lancashire Regiment war diary (click to enlarge).

Row E continues with more men killed between 24th & 25th September 1917,…

…including the only New Zealander in the churchyard, far right, a rifleman who died on 24th September,…

…his headstone seen here again closest to the camera.  Only the final burial in the row,…

…the K.R.R.C. rifleman seen here on the right, is a slightly later burial, from October 1917.

A look at the GRRF for Row D and most of Row E shows the plethora of late September 1917 burials here in Plot II; all but five of the British burials in the plot died on 22nd September or after.  The Battle of Polygon Wood, following hard on the heels of the Battle of the Menin Road, took place between 26th September & 3rd October 1917, and most probably accounts for quite a number of these burials.

The final Canadian burial in the cemetery, a private who died on 30th March 1916, can be found on the far left at the start of Row F,…

…alongside a subaltern of the West Yorkshire Regiment (Prince of Wales’s Own), seen here in the centre, who died on 17th April 1918, and then the first of three Border Regiment privates on the right,…

…all three killed on 25th May 1916,…

…sadly as a result of a bombing accident during training that took the lives of five men in total, and wounded a considerable number of others.  The two other men killed are buried in Bailleul Communal Cemetery Extension, Nord, around five miles to the south of here, where they are given a date of death of 26th May.

The other burials in Row F, and apologies for not having a closer shot than this, are once again burials from late September 1917, barring one, and include, third from the right, the only Australian casualty buried here, an artilleryman who died on 30th September 1917.  Note the third German burial in the plot, second from left – I’ll show you a close-up in a minute – but just before I do, the headstone furthest left, and the man pictured,…

…is the single Indian Army grave in the churchyard, that of Lieutenant Colonel Alexander George Stuart, 40th Pathans, who was killed on a reconnaissance mission on 4th June 1916, aged 43.  Between the three Border Regiment men killed in the accident in May 1916 and the first of the Messines casualties in June 1917, only three men, including Lieutenant Colonel Stuart, were buried here.

The German burial in Row F is another man who died in late September 1917, wounded, captured and now dead.

At the end of the row, four men who died on 1st October 1917, three Tank Corps gunners, likely the crew of the same tank, and on the far left, a Hampshire Regiment private whose fate, along with a number of his colleagues, will be revealed next post.  In the meantime, there being two other men of the Hampshires buried in Rows E & F of Plot II who died during the Battle of Polygon Wood,…

…we could use the 14th Bn. Hampshire’s war diary to give us an idea of the number of casualties suffered by just one battalion during those final days of September 1917 during the battle.  Click to enlarge.

The three burials in Row G are men killed on 18th April 1918 during the Battle of the Lys.

North easterly view across Plot II.

Panoramic view of churchyard & extension with, in the field beyond, the reason why.

Snapshot of the battered church taken, I would hazard a guess, during the winter of 1918-1919.

Aerial view of Westoutre, taken on 30th September 1916.  The church & churchyard are shaded in red, and there is no sign of war damage to be seen; note the pristine shadows of the trees in the bottom left.  Compare this with the earlier aerial photograph taken almost two years later in August 1918.  But we aren’t leaving just yet, because Westouter hosts a second CWGC burial ground, marked here in green, which we shall be visiting next time.