HISTORY
Lest we forget the Yorkshire Trench
Over a century ago, Ypres in Belgium was the main theatre of trench warfare on the Western Front, where millions of men from the Allies and Central Powers were wounded, killed or declared missing during the First World War.
Today it’s the city of peace, the harrowing sound of conflict but a distant memory. The barren battlefields have since been replaced by thriving industrial estates, the historic buildings that were destroyed by bombs have been rebuilt. But in this tranquil Belgian city, the remembrance of the Great War will always live on in its many monuments and museums paying homage to the sacrifice of those who died so that we might live. One of these memorials is the Yorkshire Trench.
In that trench, based in the middle of an industrial estate not far from Essex Farm Cemetery where John McRae penned his famous In Flanders Field poem, the remains of over 150 forgotten soldiers were found nearly 30 years ago. Many of them hailed from towns and cities
across Yorkshire. We don’t know them all – only one could be identified – but we owe them all for their gallant bravery. For the last three decades, the site has been one of fascinating military interest to visitors from across the world. But now the battle is on to save the Yorkshire Trench from impending collapse, with recently retired army reservist, John Morrison, from Leeds, leading the charge.
What is the
Yorkshire Trench? The Yorkshire Trench is one of a very few WWI front line trenches that still exist in its original position.
It is thought the trench was initially dug by
French soldiers in 1915. Maintenance of the trench was then taken over by the 49th West Riding Infantry Division, mainly soldiers from Sheffield, Leeds, Huddersfield and Halifax, who had been posted to the ‘quieter’ Ypres Salient after previous campaigns at the Somme, Pozieres and Flers- Courcelette. Then came the brutal Passchendaele offensive which sustained a catastrophic number of casualties.
The 49th occupied the trench until the end of the war in 1918. After that, it was lost for many years under a sea of brambles. That was until development of an industrial estate on the site in the early ‘90s uncovered human remains and team of archaeologists were drafted in to inspect. Originally, they found remains of 155 soldiers from British, French, German and Belgian troops. Only one of those could be identified, a French soldier called Francois Metzinge, whose metal dog tag hadn’t disintegrated. Most of the remains were thought to be from men aged between 18 and 25, which corresponds with the number of young men who conscripted voluntarily in WWI. After deciphering this was indeed the site of the former British front line, the trench was recreated at the turn of the millennium, with volunteers rebuilding the trench as the soldiers would have done almost 100 years before using sandbags and duckboards. They also found a bunker from 1917 in pristine condition which has not seen daylight in 80 years.
“The trench is really narrow and
claustrophobic, only a few hundred metres long. But it’s like a time capsule. It’s such an amazing place to visit and we want the public to be able to visit again. Standing water was a real problem in the war and still is today, which is what has caused the trench to disintegrate,” John says. John has built a good rapport with the team at Flanders Museum who were instrumental in securing the trench and have invested around €30,000 of their money into saving it. However, John is now crowdfunding to raise an additional £100,000 to preserve and restore the trench again to prevent it from crumbling into the history books. John joined the army after leaving school, working as a senior storeman and regimental catering warrant officer with the Yorkshire Officers’ Training Regiment at Carlton Barracks. Following 44 years’ service, in which time he did tours of Iraq and Bosnia, John retired in April.
“My school was the exact same as one from
the film, Kes. I liked art and history, but neither of those were a career opportunity I had at 15. We had a careers advisor whose only question was
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aroundtownmagazine.co.uk
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