April 2, 1918

[cessna152towser]

Good Call.
Lest we Forget!

[macwilkin]

I just lectured this week on Operation Michael & the use of stormtroopers by the Germans.

T.

[ABG0819]

As usual I am a day late and a dollar shot but to Pvt. Spence I shall drink. Just as to all the service men and women who have put there lives in harms way and/or given the ultimate sacrifice.

Graham

[mull]

Also a day late, but I viewed the link and had a glass in his memory and all the others who have sacrificed.
Joe

[NewGuise]

That link is truly amazing!!
Thank you so much. I have forwarded it to the rest of my family.
The cemetery itself looks the same as the day when I visited it 43 years ago.
Technology certainly is making the world much smaller.

You are most welcome. It is indeed a great site. Between that, the photos at http://www.ww1cemeteries.com/, and all the information now available (cemetery plans included) at http://www.cwgc.org/, along with occasional recourse to Google maps, finding and visiting WWI gravesites - in person or just virtually - is now relatively easy.

Lat summer I had a brief conversation with a woman I met on the plan to France; I forget how the subject came up, but she mentioned that she had an uncle who died in WWII but who was buried in a WWI cemetery, which she said was now beside but inaccessible from a major highway and seldom visited by anyone. Just out of curiosity I figured out where he was. A full month later my partner joined me in Lille, but then, since I was still working, he took a couple of days to trace out the path taken by the Canadian corps between Arras and Cambrai in the last 100 days of the war. That cemetery was on his itinerary, so I gave him the info and he planted a small Canadian flag by that stone. I just wish I could contact that woman and let her know, but living beings can be harder to find...

[Lachlan09]

My Granddad James Gow of Dalnaspidal, Perthshire was a corporal in the 6th Black Watch (51st Highland Division) and he told my Dad how they had fired on their Portuguese allies by error during the Great War. My Dad told me years later but only when I studied history did I find the event my Granddad was talking about.

Following the end of the first phase of Operation Michael, the second phase commenced on 9th April 1918. The resulting Battle of the Lys saw the heavy involvement of the 51st Highland Division, who, in depleted numbers and by unfortunate coincidence, had just moved to this quiet area to recuperate after their involvement in the first phase defence.

In an unfortunate “blue on blue” event, neighbouring Portuguese troops, exhausted and hard-pressed by the German attacks, had been forced from their trenches and those who were not captured were forced to flee in all directions, including obliquely across No-Mans’ Land toward neighbouring British positions. Of course, No Mans’ Land was not a straight piece of land between two straight, opposing trench systems, the front line systems curved and changed direction in relatively short distances. The smallness of the Somme battlefield is a good example of that – it looks claustrophobic to visitors when scanned from a vantage point, yet the front-line trench systems cover some 13 miles (18 miles of actual trench) due to the curving nature of the battlefield.

Coming out of the early mists from what seemed to be the general direction of the German positions and dressed in blue/grey uniforms, the unfortunate Portuguese were fired on by British troops thinking them to be a surprise German attack. There were substantial casualties. The 51st was one of those neighbouring formations who fired on the Portuguese.

[yellowjacket]

My glass is raised to Pte Spence. Rest in peace brave solider.

[gordontaos]

Just a quick update on Private Thomas Spence. Through the good efforts of NewGuise I have been able to find the following:
1-A 360 degree view of the current cemetery where Private Spence is buried.
2-The location, and a street view of the cemetery that he was initially interred in.
3-The location and a street view of the area where the "field hospital" was in 1918, where he probably died on April 2, 1918.
4-The location and a street view of the trench where he probably was on the day that he was initially wounded. We assume that to be March 21, 1918.

We are waiting on more information from the Black Watch Archives to try to pin down his location on March 21, 1918 a little better, as well as, perhaps, the actual date of his initial wound(s) and capture. However, right now we have his location to within one kilometer or so.
You folks are absolutely wonderful!!

[yellowjacket]

I visited Find-A-Grave ( http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg...GRid=16149163& ) and they have a memorial for him but not much else. They also have his exact location:Plot: IV. E. 2. I hope this helps.

[ThistleDown]

"...and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly"