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WORLD WAR ONE

The Men Who Died

WORLD WAR ONE

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overwhelmed by the Germans. The Borderers were forced into the Gheluvelt Chateau grounds. Meanwhile, Borderers who had occupied a position along the light railway just west of the Chateau, together with a few Scots Guardsmen, counter attacked.

The effect was to surprise the Germans. Many were killed or wounded, others fled, becoming targets for other groups of the Borderers and Scots Guards. The position was still very insecure and soon the Germans began bombarding. It was then that the 2nd Worcestershire arrived joining the defence. The Germans eventually fled in confusion.

This defence came at a critical moment for the British Expeditionary Force was standing with its back to the wall. Had the Germans succeeded in breaking through the Channel ports were at their mercy.

He was killed in action at The Battle of Gheluvelt in Flanders on 31st October 1914 aged 39. He and another sergeant were hit by a shell burst. At the time he was a company sergeant major in the 1st Battalion South Wales Borderers. His wife Caroline was living at 22, John Street, Brecon.

The Battle of Gheluvelt, fought on 31 October 1914 is significant as the nearest that the German army came to breaking through Allied lines at Ypres until 1918. Gheluvelt is a tiny village outside Ypres.

Although one of the least known battles of WW1 it stopped a critical German advance and is memorialised for having ‘saved civilization’.

The British Expeditionary Force was in full retreat, and the road to the Channel ports opening up for the advancing Germans. Soldiers from the 2nd Battalion, the Worcestershire Regiment, were ordered to stop the German advance at all costs and they mounted a bayonet charge through heavy artillery and machine gun fire, and drove more than 1,000 German troops out of the grounds of Gheluvelt Chateau, where they met up with a small contingent from the South Wales Borderers, who were holding out against the Germans.

The Borderers had been holding the position for the previous ten days together with the Scots Guards and the Welch Regiment. During the 31st October there had been constant sniping, frequent shelling and bombardment of tremendous severity from the Germans together with repeated infantry attacks. The situation became worse in the evening when after some success the British troops became