PASSCHENDAELE MEMORIAL APPEAL LAUNCHED

The mud of Passchendaele

An appeal is being launched to commemorate the hundreds of soldiers from Wales who were killed in the Battle of Passchendaele in Ypres, Belgium. The Passchendaele Society in Belgium wants to raise 60,000 euros (£52,000) for a Welsh memorial. Society organisers hope it will become a memorial to all Welsh soldiers who died in the Great War. The appeal is being launched at an event close to where many of the Welsh soldiers came to grief in Langemark, near Ypres. The grim battle of attrition lasted from the 31st July to the 6th November 1917. it was fought in the heaviest rain for 30 years which made the mud so deep that men and horses drowned. The battle ground to a halt when British and Canadian forces captured Passchendaele, this village was barely five miles beyond the starting point of the offensive. There were approximately 325,000 Allied casualties and some 260,000 German casualties by the battles end, amongst the many Welsh casualties was the poet Hedd Wyn.