12 October 1917: Map Reading D.21c, ¼ mile N/W of Zonnebeke Village

Arthur Montague Alchin.
From a postcard sent to his mother from France, dated April 1917
(Photo from Garry Smith's collection)

The battle of Passchendaele Ridge took place in terrible weather, with torrential rain that filled shell holes to neck deep and created mud so thick it often stopped men in their tracks and clogged their weapons.

Arthur Montague Alchin prior to enlistment
(Photo from Garry Smith's collection)

Private Arthur Montague Alchin, No. 2027, A.I.F. 35th Battalion, was among the shower of earth, mud and barbed wire that accompanied the German bombardment on 12 October 1917. Machine gun fire from pill boxes cut down soldiers as they emerged from trenches and shell holes. Many men were already suffering the effects of mustard gas.

Letter from Arthur Montague Alchin to his mother Louisa Susanna Alchin.
His father Albert Noah Alchin died in 1913.
From Goulburn Evening Penny Post, Thursday 26 October 1916, p. 2.

Arthur would have realised that every time he left a trench or shell hole he was leaving behind the battle field as he knew it and entering an unknown landscape. Machine gun fire across the landscape led to Arthur being wounded in the arm shortly after the hop over from a trench. Informants from his company reported seeing him being wounded but details of his death on that day vary.

Roll of Honour (part) inside the Murrumbateman All Saints Soldiers Memorial Church.
(Photo from Garry Smith's collection)

There is some agreement that Arthur was killed by a shell that exploded near him after he was wounded. Arthur Montague Alchin, the mail driver from Gunning, died on Friday 12 October 1917 and was buried near Zonnebeke Village, Belgium on 20 October 1917 but has no known grave. He was 17 years 11 months old; his widowed mother, Louisa Susanna Alchin, had given her approval for his enlistment for active service in July 1916.

War Memorial outside Gunning Post Office (Photo by Garry Smith)
The “two Sheridan boys” mentioned in Arthur’s letter home are named

Garry Norman Smith is a regular contributor to the Gunning & District Historical Society's blog. If you have an idea for an article or photographs you are willing to share, please contact us at gunninghistory@gmail.com.

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