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Key dates over October 1917

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31

Lives lost on this day: 6

25th October 1917 - WORCESTERSHIRES AT GHELUVELT

Rolling casualty count: 7994

War Front:

1st Batt: 3 officers joined the Batt.

2nd Batt: Batt moved by lorry route to the Menin Gates, Ypres for working parties to the 1st Anzac Corps.

1/8th Batt: Batt relieved the 1/7th Worcs in Support.

2/8th Batt: Training in heavy rain. Working parties supplied.

4th Batt: W Coy employed improving the roads and drainage. Remainder of Batt training in musketry and bayonet fighting.

10th Batt: Batt doing PT, arms drill, saluting and musketry. A working party of 300 other ranks was provided.

14th Batt: Batt joined by 2nd Batt at Ypres.

Home Front:

WORCESTERSHIRES AT GHELUVELT – “Lest We Forget” – The Times in a leading article on the first battle of Ypres, which reached its climax on Oct 31st 1914 says: “By common consent the supreme moment, the hour when destiny hung in the balance, was between 2 and 3 o’clock in the afternoon of October 31st, in the area then held by Sir Douglas Haig and the First Corps. About Gheluvelt the line of the First Division was broken and the division fell back. The Commander General Lomax was wounded, several of the staff was killed and the whole division had suffered heavy losses. The Germans got into Gheluvelt and it seemed that the whole front must give. Then came one of those moments in war, when a single clear-sighted man can sometimes avert disaster. It was the 2nd Worcesters who saved the day and therefore the battle and it was the Brigadier General Charles FitzClarance, killed twelve days afterwards, who instantly saw the danger and though they were not under his orders, bade the Worcesters retake Gheluvelt.

Information researched by The Worcestershire World War 100 team