Passchendaele by Paul Ham

Author:Paul Ham
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Penguin Random House Australia
Published: 2016-04-15T04:00:00+00:00

The fighting ceased at 8.15 pm. A silent night ensued. The men rose from their holes like ghosts. The capture of Polygon Wood was the most complete Allied victory after Messines. Again, it came at a huge cost: 15,375 men killed, wounded and missing, for the capture of 3.5 square miles; in other words, 4400 casualties per square mile, far worse than Menin Road.88

Among the dead was Lieutenant Colonel Oswald Croshaw, a British officer serving with the Australians, whose chaplain called him ‘the bravest soldier, the most God-fearing christian, and the most perfect gentleman I have ever known’. ‘Gentlemen, your men before yourselves,’ Croshaw had told his officers before the attack. ‘God bless you lads, till we meet again.’ Unusually, he led from the front, until a German shell struck and killed him.89

The number of Germans killed, wounded and missing that day is unclear, though likely to be fewer than the Allies’. A German history calculates total German losses between 11 and 30 September at 38,500, and the British/Anzac at 36,000.90 Allied losses were in fact higher. Yet, in the last days of September, German casualties had been so severe that fresh formations were rushed to Flanders to relieve the exhausted troops: such was the importance the German commanders placed on Passchendaele Ridge.

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