Visit of 336th Siege Battery, R.G.A.
to Ypres
THE: YPRES TIMES
236
Whitsun, 1935.
WHEN the Battery left the Salient in May, 1918, after seventeen months un
relieved strenuous fighting, it heaved a great sigh of relief. Not one member
wanted to see the blasted place again.
Yet, in 1935, when the project was mooted for a visit to our old positionsand,
alas, the graves of our deadthe response was instant and eager. Finally 31 pilgrims
for such we were—assembled at Victoria Station on the evening of 8th June. The
party included representatives of all ranks from Major to Gunner with some wives, sons
and friends.
Under the very able supervision of the League Secretary, who honoured us by
personally conducting the tour, assisted by our old Mess Secretary, we were safely shep
herded on to the train. The crossing from Folkestone to Dunkerque was uneventful
and the subsequent train journey was comfortable, enlivened for many of us by a stand-
up snack in the kitchen-carthe first opportunity for many to discover how "rusty
was their French. Those who had expected to travel by cattle track were agreeably
disappointed, and the train proceeded without the bumpety-clank refrain of Hommes
et chevaux, hommes et chevaux," although the old marking, hommes 40, chevaux 8,"
was still visible on .many cattle trucks in the sidings. An hour's break at Hazebrouck
enabled us to stretch our legs. Even at the early hour of 7 a.m. the estaminets were
open, and ready for a good trade, while to judge by the noise and speed of the motorists,
there is room for a Hore-Belisha in the French Government. Soon after leaving
Hazebrouck Look there's Mont de Cats They've never rebuilt the Scherpenberge
MillGood old KemmelDo you remember whenand the floodgates were
opened.
An excellent breakfast at Skindles was followed by a charabanc and motor car
tour, our numbers having meanwhile been swelled by the addition of four who had
journeyed direct to Ypres, three from Paris and one from Le Touquet. Out from Ypres,
through the Lille Gate, past Shrapnel Corner to Lock 8 on the Ypres-Comines Canal
our first stop. Everyone piled out in great excitement. Along the derelict Canal the
banks were still pitted with the Battery's old dugouts. A position had beenoccupied
here in 1917. Cameras clicked, tongues wagged, and off we set to St. Eloi and thence to
the Brasserie Cross Roads on the York Road. A cemetery occupies the place where the
guns had been during the 1918 retreat, but the beer in the Estaminet was just the same.
At this position the Battery, after pulling out from its position near Lock 7 under machine-
gun fire, had received a target at 11° First charge. (Look up your range tables you old
6 in. How. Gunners
On and away to Wytschaete, to the old crater position of 1917, and an inspection of
the one remaining crater. Our energetic photographer finished the war here on the third
day of the retreat in April, 1918, on the spot where the new church now stands he was
then occupying, as an O.P., a Pillbox which was blown in by a shellof its other occupants
two were killed and the other two wounded.
From there to Kemmel Village; (we had no time to visit the old O.P. on top) and
Kleine Vierstraat cemetery where a number of the Battery's personnel lie at rest. Each
headstone was photographed while a solemn hush fell over the party. Away by Swan
and Edgar Corner, leaving Dickebusch Lakea sparkling jewelon the right. Do
you remember when we had to switch 94° right the day. Bailleul fell Do I not
That was the day the guns were red-hot andThat happened behind the Lake.
