1/ A short thread on what seems to be a regular topic for me - 28th Division casualties at the Second Battle of Ypres in April - May 1915. Please do have a read as the figures involved are humbling #WW1

2/ I've posted before that 28th Division sustained over 15,500 casualties in a calendar month - more than the entire infantry complement of the division. Here's the table from the British Official History. Astonishing.

3/ As I was working on 2/King's Own material last week I was looking at their part in the Battle of Frezenberg on 8 May 1915 - a truly dark day for the British. On 4 May the 2/King's Own left Ypres to take over new positions on Frezenberg Ridge (between Ypres & Zonnebeke).

4/ At 7am on 8 May German artillery fell heavily on the King's Own trenches, "blowing them in, and rendering them untenable". This was followed by German infantry attacking and capturing British positions.

5/ The CO, Lt Col Martin was killed and a further German assault at 10am pushed the beleaguered British back. It sounds like chaos as the surviving elements fell back to Potijze.

6/ Losses were enormous. 83rd Infantry Brigade casualties were 128 Officers & 4379 Other Ranks.   

4500 men from one brigade. That's the brigade gone, simple as that.

7/ The 2nd King's Own war diary records casualties for 4-9 May as:

Officers: Killed 4, Wounded 5, Wounded and Prisoners 2, Wounded and Missing 1, Missing 4.

Other Ranks: Killed 36, Wounded 110, Wounded and Missing 31, Missing 721.

8/ The regimental history records the battalion was "Eleven hundred strong at the beginning of May 8, by the end of that day it could only muster sixty-seven...casualties were eventually found to be fifteen officers and eight hundred and ninety-three other ranks on that day alone

9/ The casualties suffered by the Regiment on that day were the worst in its history. 15 officers and 983 men - in one day.

Bloody hell, that's unbelievable.

10/ There are over 900 men of the King's Own commemorated on the Menin Gate and one third of these, 303 men, are 2nd Battalion soldiers who died on 8 May 1915.
A third of all missing from one regiment from just one day's fighting.

11/ War is SO much more than casualty figures and there are myriad stories and aspects that are rarely studied but since I have been looking at 28th Division soldiers of late I have been genuinely startled at these losses. They are simply horrific.

12/ I've said before that the mud & horror of Third Ypres overshadow the two earlier battles. But, as these losses show, it shouldn't.