THE YPRES TIMES
List of Members of the A.I.F. who won the Victoria Cjross
near Ypres
234
at these headquarters, beside the road along the ridge-top fought sternly, but the heights
were captured from its muddy trenches the new front line looked out, at last, into
the comparatively green country beyond the ridge, and the Germans were thrust form
the observation posts from which they had so long directed the fire of their batteries
upon the Salient.
The weather then broke, but so striking had been this last success that it was
decided to accept the risk of failure, and make, at last a definite attempt to break through
the German front by attacking Passchendaele. To bring forward infantry, guns, and
stores over the morass of mud-pools, miles of plank-road and duckboard track were
laid by the pioneers. Two battles were fought on October 9th and 12th. In these opera
tions the New Zealand, 2nd, 3rd, and 4th Australian, and a number of British divisions
took part but the mud of that dreadful battlefield clogged the effort both of infantry
and artillery, and, in spite of their most gallant efforts, the final advance broke down
in the wire of Bellevue Spur and the mud of the Ravebeek.
The conditions of the battlefield had now changed, and so did the policy of the high
command. The main task of attacking Passchendaeleno longer in an attempt to break
throughwas transferred to the Canadian Corps, which, despite the mud, tackled the
operation in three stages and carried it to success. In this phasethe third (and last)
of that battleseveral Australian divisions played only subsidiary parts on the flank
of the main attack, though all the Australian divisions suffered in the mud and in the
bombardments of the back area. In November they were withdrawn to spend the
winter at Messines, leaving the New Zealanders at Polderhoek. In the spring the Somme
again took them, and they never again returned to the Salient.
Capt. Robert Cuthbert Grieve, 37th Batt.
Pte. John Carroll, 33rd Batt.
2nd-Lieut. Frederick Birks, Late 6th Batt.
Pte. Reginald Rov Inwood, 10th Batt.
Lce.-Cpl. Walter Peeler, 3rd P. Batt.
Sgt. John James Dwyer, Aust. M.G. Corps.
Pte. Patrick Bugden, Late 31st Batt.
Sgt. Lewis McGee, Late 40th Batt.
Capt. Clarence Smith Jeffries, Late 34th Batt.
