WIX Archives
Re: TV Heads up! (UK)
Posted by Tony on Thu Mar 07, 2002 06:45:16 AM
In reply top Re: TV Heads up! (UK) posted by Elliott on Thu Mar 07, 2002 06:01:30 AM
As I mentioned before, we did a Regimental tour there in 1998. We we very ably guided, by C/Sgt Doc(History comes alive) Dorrington who narrates on various regimental tours. We were taken to various locations, where we had decribed to us, various small unit actions. The one that stood out in my mind, was the Northumbrian Fusiliers "Forlorn hope" attack on 2 strongpoints just off the Ypres road.
The Northumbrian Fusiler TA battalion were mobilised with 48 hours notice to move, from their TA centre to Belgium. 3 days later, they were in the trenchline at Ypres waiting to mount the attack. The attack was preceeded by an artillery barrage, which failed to knock out the German machine gun posts. On realising this, the word was given to halt the attack, 20 seconds AFTER the NF jumped off. 1,024 men went into the attack , across an area with no cover at all. The distand was less than 700 yards to the objective, I know, because we walked it, with Doc giving us a running commentary. Approximately 65 men reached the objective, and silenced one blockhouse. 37 men answered rollcall.
The entire attack, was over in 28 minutes, with casualties in the order of 95%.
At the memorial and graveyard, which is at the jump off point, I saw strong men weep, as they recognised the names of relatives, who had been killed in the attack. Our Northern battalion has a very strong family tradition, and everyone knows each other, and the story oof what happened , has been passed down from generation to generation.
I believe our Regiment has a link to this action somewhere, I'll post it if I can find it.
Tony