238330 Rflmn. Edward James Westwood British Army 1/17th Battalion London Regiment from:Poplar, London Rifleman E.J. Westwood, my mother's father, was sent to France in October 1915, he joined his Battalion in the Loos sector.
He served with the Battalion until 22nd of March 1918. The battalion was part of the 140th Infantry Brigade of the 47th (London) Division, Third Army.
On the 21st of March 1918, the Battalion was serving in the front line near Villiers Plouich, a village in the Flesquieres salient first great 1918 Offensive, codenamed Operation Michael, against the British 3rd and 5th Armies. The battle began with an intense 5 hour artillery bombardment from 10,000 guns and mortars, which fired 1.2 million shells during that period using a mixture of High Explosive and Gas shells.
The weather over the sector was still and foggy, the smoke, fumes and gas from the shells combined with the fog to limit visibility to almost zero, this greatly favoured the attacking German Storm Troops, who succeeded in breaking the British lines in many areas.
The 1/17th Londons and neighbouring battalions were forced to retreat after stiff resistance, to a defensive position about 5 kilometres to the SW at Metz-en-Couture. Here they suffered a heavy gas bombardment and forced to retreat again.
The German P.O.W records show that they captured a wounded Rifleman Westwood in Metz, he was gassed and had a head wound and was taken to a German Field Hospital. He was later sent to the Zerbst P.O.W Camp in Saxony-Anhalt in NE Germany. This camp had 100000 registered prisoners but only held 15000 prisoners, those not in the camp worked in factories and on the land, my grandfather worked the rest of 1918 on a German farm. He was repatriated in early 1919 under the Danish Scheme. He lived until 1955 having experienced and survived 29 months on the western front only to lose two sons killed on active service in WW2
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