looking for info on a WW1 battle

J

jimfalcon

New Member
hi there

i am looking for info on a specific battle during the first world war.

i know the following facts

- it was at the very least containing german, british and canadian forces.

- it was during late at night in the middle of a town / city which from reports was in a blaze setting everything around the soliders in a red glow.

- heavy close quarter and hand to hand combat

- IM ASSUMING HERE but i think from what others have said, it may be around france, belgium, germany boarders.

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the reason i am asking is because i have something which frankly scares me shitless at times. i get memories of another life. they are few and vauge but some are gruesome. you can believe me or not but thats the truth. i am asking for info on this battle because this is where my "past life" died. i know i was fighting germans, and everything around me was dark and on fire. im assuming it was close quarter combat because my throat was slit... yeah something i dont like remembering... :?

anyways any help would be greatly appreciated, thanks in advance
 
Unless he has a recolection of his past life in which he reads a paper,it would be hard for him to date, not so?
 
hmmm ill see what i can do here.

im assuming it was about half way through the war because i have recolitions of moving around ALOT, from fight to fight, and also being in some "trench" for some time, but it wasnt your typical trench, looked like it was made by some 5 year olds with alot of sparre time. it wasnt straight, falling apart and there was no board walks.

as for the city/town im trying to recall, i can remember it was large, not some small farm town. (ive been trying to read up on ww1 but no very little so i have no idea how big ypres is.) most of the 'main' roads were only a few meters across. alot of the buildings were at least 2 stories, the largest i recal would have to be the church (but wasnt that the case with most places back then?)

sorry i cant be more precise :? umm as for the fight, the germans were already in it... kindof. we aproached and enter the city with little to no resistance and after a few blocks in started getting hammered with fire. most of the germans were on the streets since alot of the buildings were already a blaze. oddly only the roofs or top floors were on fire, i rarely can recall i first floor fire.

nothing was organized about the fight. there were times we saw germans run right by us at an up coming intersection.

i hope that helps. and thanks for the help so far. never considered ypres because my history teachers always refered to it as an open field, trench fight.
 
jimfalcon said:
hmmm ill see what i can do here.

im assuming it was about half way through the war because i have recolitions of moving around ALOT, from fight to fight, and also being in some "trench" for some time, but it wasnt your typical trench, looked like it was made by some 5 year olds with alot of sparre time. it wasnt straight, falling apart and there was no board walks.

as for the city/town im trying to recall, i can remember it was large, not some small farm town. (ive been trying to read up on ww1 but no very little so i have no idea how big ypres is.) most of the 'main' roads were only a few meters across. alot of the buildings were at least 2 stories, the largest i recal would have to be the church (but wasnt that the case with most places back then?)

sorry i cant be more precise :? umm as for the fight, the germans were already in it... kindof. we aproached and enter the city with little to no resistance and after a few blocks in started getting hammered with fire. most of the germans were on the streets since alot of the buildings were already a blaze. oddly only the roofs or top floors were on fire, i rarely can recall i first floor fire.

nothing was organized about the fight. there were times we saw germans run right by us at an up coming intersection.

i hope that helps. and thanks for the help so far. never considered ypres because my history teachers always refered to it as an open field, trench fight.
Click to expand...

While this isnt a great link it does have the names of some of the WW1 battles Canadian troops took part in, it may be something to base research on.

http://www.rootsweb.com/~ww1can/battles.htm?o_xid=0039432393&o_lid=0039432393&o_xt=39432393
 
sorry for the absence and thanks for all your help

i just have on last problem.... i cant seem to find ypres on any modern day map... ive checked maps from france and belgium and see nothing on either.... is the town destroyed?
 
jimfalcon said:
sorry for the absence and thanks for all your help

i just have on last problem.... i cant seem to find ypres on any modern day map... ive checked maps from france and belgium and see nothing on either.... is the town destroyed?
Click to expand...

I suspect your problem is that there seems to be three ways of spelling Ypres (Iepers, Ypern and Ypres), I have tracked down a city map http://www.ieper.be/eng/

As to its location try this map (its a bit basic but should give you a rough idea) http://www.liv-coll.ac.uk/pa09/europetrip/brussels/images/ypreslocmap.gif

Happy hunting...

I would however suggest that rather than looking in Ypres itself you may want to check some of battles for towns and villages around the Ypres salient ie http://www.greatwar.be/eng/mainnav.html
 
Most likely not Ypres

As others have said, you could match this memory to any number of fights to take various villages. But one point I will make is that the Allies and Germans never actually fought IN Ypres; the fighting there took place in the salient (a bulge into enemy territory) that encircled Ypres, running in a semicircle roughly north to south, in trenches several miles outside of the town. I say this only because in your first posting you described a hand-to-hand fight in a burning town, and that did not happen at Ypres.
 
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