2/Lt William Frederick Law Johnson - WiA Nieuport Sector August 1917

[ProudGrandson]

Thank you Chris. I found a picture of those houses online. I think they were demolished as part of the slum clearance.

The records show he was sharing the house with a Hirdley Wiggins. I thought that was a pretty distinctive sounding name, but the only match on ancestry (while also from Leeds) doesn't stack up date wise - he was born in 1869, and bizarrely, married a Lillie Lancaster in 1908. No record of any children though.

Fascinating and frustrating in equal measure this research lark.

[A Lancashire Fusilier by Proxy]

On 09/10/2024 at 19:39, ProudGrandson said:

I believe his letters,  diaries and other docs are with the IWM. I've got a request into them to check.

Do you mean that the original memoir written by your grandfather and his letters and other documents are in the IWM? If so, presumably the image of the operation orders in your first post is in a photographic record that you have retained, and hopefully you have retained a photographic record of at least the key documents. Our family placed the memoir of our grandfather', Norman Hall, and a few other WW1 documents that he had collected in the IWM just over 10 years ago but made the mistake of not taking a full set of photographs initially, which meant a few visits to the museum in person to remedy that.

I couldn't see the memoir of a W.F.L. Lohnson in their catalogue, but if it has been a recent donation they maybe haven't catalogued them yet.

It may only be of passing interest for your purposes, as I am sure that your own grandfather left a fully adequate description of the Nieuport sector, but my GF was also in that sector a couple of months later between September and November 1917, with the 1/5th Lancashire Fusiliers, and included a general description of the area in his memoir, including its propensity to flood, and the difficulty of crossing and maintaining the various - and numerous - bridges in the area. He tells us how the bridges by which the Redan (a triangular piece of land shown in the first map posted by @RussT on this thread) was accessed from the town were made of duckboards with no sides supported on barrel floats, and rose and fell with the tide, as well as being carried out of the straight by the infow and outflow of the tide, so that the approaches were steep, either up or down, as well as being slippery and muddy, and the bridges themselves were wobbly, and constantly being shelled.

He also tells us that patrols were not often carried out in this area because of the conditions, and when they were it often involved wading, using rafts, or even swimming.

He was not himself involved in any attacks as your GF was, but he does give a vivid account of one particular occasion when his unit was stationed in an area a little to the west of where your GF's attack took place.

He says that they were in close support at Nasal Walk (again marked on @RussT's first map) on a narrow neck of land which at low tide was merely mud, and at high tide a lake, and was reached by crossing three canals on rickety bridges. They had the Yser Canal to the south and Nieuwland Polder in front. A dam on my GF's right which he was holding with a Lewis Gun was blown in on the first day, flooding the area around his post and isolating him from the rest of his company. By the next day, as they were constantly being shelled by German shorts intended for the Five Bridges behind them, all three bridges giving access to the position were damaged and partly sunk, cutting them off completely. They set to work to repair one bridge and were eventually relieved by the French, but in the course of extricating themselves from their position a signaller slipped into the canal with his fullerphone, which piece of equipment went to the bottom, though the man fortunately was rescued, and then a Lewis Gunner slipped in with his gun, which also went to the bottom. As my GF says: "some expensive relief; still, we didn’t lose any men, and that was the main point."

[ProudGrandson]

Thanks @A Lancashire Fusilier by Proxy - I can't begin to imagine what the conditions must have been like. My uncle produced a book about his father and it's from those pages that I've got much of the context. But this forum has been so helpful in giving me more of the detail - and learning about men like your own grandfather has been invaluable. Thanks for sharing his story.

 

[A Lancashire Fusilier by Proxy]

On 14/10/2024 at 14:09, ProudGrandson said:

Thanks for sharing his story.

You are welcome.

It occurs to me that, with regard to the part of the Operation Order which states that the "Code word for return will be "THUMP"; the words "RETIRE" or "WITHDRAW" will not be used on any account", you might be interested to read another thread which may explain why a code word was necessary https://www.greatwarforum.org/topic/292964-germans-causing-allies-to-retreat-by-giving-order-to-retire-in-english/?tab=comments#comment-3060251