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Grave in Chester Farm Cemetery of Second Lieutenant Ernest Harold Swallow 6th attached 4th Battalion Duke of Cambridge’s Own (Middlesex Regiment) killed in action 10th October 1917 aged 19 years. 4th Battalion part of 63rd Brigade part of 37th Division, the 63rd Brigade was involved in the Battle of Broodseinde 4th October 1917 but not the Battle of Poelkapelle beginning on the 9th October and the First Battle of Passendale did not begin until the 12th October. Headstone bears inscription “Demy of Magdalen College Oxford. Called to higher service.” “Demy” denotes he was a Foundation Scholar at Magdalen College so called because their commons (a definite portion of victuals supplied from the college kitchen at a fixed price) was originally half that of a Fellow. Son of Ernest A and Florence Swallow of 17 Warham Road Harringay London.
Coxyde Military Cemetery, West Flanders is about a mile from the coast, to the west of the village of Koksijde on the road to De Panne and about 10 miles East of Dunkerque. The village (then Coxyde) was used for rest billets and the cemetery was used especially at night for burial of the dead brough back from the front line from June to the end of 1917. Records 1,452 U.K., 19 N.Z., 18 Aust., 14 Can., 2 S.A., and 1 B.W.I., lso 10 German burials..
No. 2715 Private William John Maguire 2nd Battalion Royal Inniskilling Fusiliers killed in action 19th September 1917 aged 22 years and is buried in Coxyde Military Cemetery, West Flanders.
Born Shankhill County Antrim 1895 son of William Marshall Maguire and Eliza Anne Maguire, husband of Mary Anne Maguire of Belfast.
After the Franco-Prussian War 1870-1871 military thinking, to counter the ever increasing power of artillery, was to make existing fortresses even stronger using steel-reinforced concrete. In Belgium in particular belts of fortresses had been constructed around the cities of Liege, Namur and Antwerp. Those located on the eastern border of France, at Givet south of Namur, Les Ayvelles near Mezieres, would simply be avoided by a German advance through Northern France and Belgium. Antwerp had been chosen by the Belgian government as the National Entrenched Camp rather than the capital, Brussels, Antwerp to become the operational base and national refuge for the Belgian Field Army, the city being one of the most important seaports in the world and a commercial centre second to none. All of the three crumbled when 21 cm., 28 cm. and 42 cm. howitzers were used. The forts at Liege were reduced between the 8th and 16th August 1914, the capital Brussels was occupied on the 20th August 1914 when 5 divisions of the Belgian Army fell back on Antwerp, the bombardment at Namur began on the 21st August and the last fort fell on the 25th. A hastily trained and inadequately armed Naval Division was sent to stiffen resistance at Antwerp but Antwerp was surrendered to the enemy on the 9th October. By October 1914 most of Belgium was in the hands of the invader and the Belgian Army had been forced to withdraw by way of Ghent and Bruges west to the River Yser, the last natural barrier on Flemish soil which flowed North from the area of Ypres through Dixmude to Nieuport to reach the North Sea at Nieuport-Bains. The German advance towards Dunkirk had been resisted by the Belgian Army until on the 27th and 28th October 1914 locks and sluices which kept water levels in canals including the Yser River and other inland waterways at the optimum height for navigation, irrigation and drainage of the Polder Plain were opened by the Belgian Army so flooding and producing a man-made sea 8 miles long and 6 miles wide which prevented any German advance in the area South of Nieuport and Dixmuide about 7 miles further south.
At the outbreak of the War, the 2nd Battalion Royal Inniskilling Fusiliers was at Dover in 12th Brigade, 4th Division. The Battalion landed at Havre on the 22nd August 1914. Private Maguire landed in France on the 2nd November 1914 and was probably in a draft of about 200 men who joined the Battalion then in the area of Nieppe, about 3 miles North West of Armentieres, towards the end of November 1914.
On the 26th January 1915 the Battalion was moved to 5th Brigade, 2nd Division until the 22nd July 1915 when it became part of 3rd Army troops. On the 18th November 1915 the Battalion was moved again to 14th Brigade, 5th Division and then finally on the 24th December 1915 to 96th Brigade, 32nd Division where it remained until February 1918 when it moved to the 36th (Ulster) Division.
The Spring of 1916 was spent in preparation for the great offensive on the Somme which began on the 1st July 1916. The Battalion was in Brigade Reserve at the beginning of 32nd Division’s assault on Thiepval on the 1st July but during the course of the day one company was sent forward and later other units but all suffered the same fate as the leading waves of the 96th Brigade’s attack, cut down almost immediately after leaving their trenches.
The Third Battle of Ypres was the major British offensive in Flanders launched on 31 July 1917 and continued until November. The ultimate aim was the destruction of German submarine bases on the Belgian coast but encouraged by the success on the 7th June 1917 when the 2nd Army smashed the ‘impregnable’ German defences along the Messines-Wytschaete Ridge General Sir Douglas Haig believed that the German Army was close to collapse and prepared for a conventional breakthrough attempt. The Battle was not designed merely to rob the Germans of command of the high ground surrounding the salient by capturing the immediate ridges, and Passchendaele Ridge and Klerken Ridge beyond that, but to thrust north-east to Roulers, the centre of a German railhead and transport network, and Thourout and then swing due north towards the Belgian coast.
As part of this offensive the British planned an amphibious landing behind German lines on the Belgian coast. This was to be subsidiary to the main advance from Ypres and envisaged landing one British Division, the 1st Division, on the beaches near Westende, about 2 miles North from the estuary of the Yser River, and Middelkerke another 2 miles further North again to advance along the coast to Ostend. This operation by Fourth Army depended on the successful advance of the Second and Fifth Armies across the Passchendaele plateau, the amphibious landing not to be implemented until the British had reached the area of Roulers.
The coastal sector had been held for a long time by the XXXVI French Corps and it was necessary to relieve this Corps by British troops as the operations would involve a combined naval and military landing. The British XV Corps was sent northwards and took over from the French on the 11th June 1917, the 1st Division holding the sector about 2000 yards, from the coast inland and the next 3000 yards facing Nieuport itself down to St. Georges (East of the flooded area) – Ramscapelle (West of the flooded area) was held by the 32nd Division, the 2nd Battalion having moved with its Division to this coastal sector.
To support the amphibious landing, two more divisions, the 32nd Division and the 66th Division were to attack from the area taken over from the French fanning out to gain touch with the Belgian troops on the right advancing from Dixmude. The land attack depended on the Yser bridgehead, North, North East and East of Nieuport as the river deep and tidal was 100 to 200 yards wide.
Apparently the Germans believed that the replacement by British units of the French represented the possibility of an attack in that area and on the 6th July 1917 began a bombardment of the British positions, the bombardment continued on the 7th and 8th and throughout the morning of the 10th July increased in density, 3 floating bridges (the only communication across the Yser estuary to the positions in the dunes) were destroyed and all telephone communication to the forward defences north of the river were destroyed. The shelling was particularly severe against the 1,400 yard sector in the sand dunes and the coast and at 8 p.m. the German infantry attacked and the infantry from the 1st Northamptonshire Regiment and the 2nd Battalion King’s Royal Rifle Corps suffered 70% to 80% casualties. This action severely compromised the proposed land based attack and led to a colossal artillery battle which continued throughout the summer and autumn of 1917 until November 1917.
On the 16th July the 1st Division was withdrawn to a special camp at Le Clipon 6 miles west of Dunkirk for its special training for the amphibious landing and its place at the front was taken by the 66th Division.
In July 1917 the 2nd Battalion Royal Iniskilling Fusiliers was in the St. George’s sector of the trenches around Nieuport. A gas attack – the enemy using a new gas discharged by shells – caused very heavy casualties, one officer and 243 other ranks being affected but there were few fatalities. The Battalion remained in this sector until the end of November 1917 alternating tours in the trenches in the Nieuport and other sectors with welcome spells at Coxyde and other coast camps. Private William Maguire was killed on the 19th September 1917 his body being taken back to the billets at Coxyde Camp for burial in Coxyde Military Cemetery. The cemetery is to the West of the village, now called Koksijde, and about 12 miles East of Dunkerque.
The Third Battle of Ypres officially ended on the 10th November 1917 but by mid October 1917 the amphibious landing had been called off.
The 1st Division remained at Le Clipon until the 21st October 1917 and the remaining Divisions left the coast on the 3rd November returning the area back to the French.
Private William Maguire was awarded the Victory and British War Medals and the 1914 Star.
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