WWI battle fields

Gerard H-B: General Directions: Philosophe lies between Bethune and Lens. From the Lens-Bethune road (N43), follow the D165E road for 400 metres to a right turn. The cemetery lies to the left 100 metres along this track. The first CWGC sign for the cemetery is at the junction of the N43 and the D165E.

Jack H-B: Out of a battalion strength of 668 who 'stood to' earlier on the morning of May 24, 1915, 647 were either killed, driven crazy from the effects of the gas or missing, presumed dead. They died fighting for each other and not for some glorious sentiment of country or empire. Those that survived suffered for the rest of their lives with damaged lungs.

Royal Dublin Fusiliers Association

The German infantry assault immediately followed the gas, but in only one part of the line near Mouse Trap Farm did they succeed in overrunning the British position.

Located half-a-mile north of Wieltje, originally a moated farm with outbuildings. It was first given the name 'Shell Trap Farm' by the British. The unhappy associations of this designation were held to be detrimental to the garrison's morale and the position was subsequently re-named by the Staff as 'Mouse Trap Farm'. On the morning of the attack on 24 May 1915 what was left of the farm after the bombardment ('a mere heap of mud and rubbish') was defended by two platoons of the Royal Dublin Fusiliers; being a mere 30 yards from the enemy trenches the rapid occupation of the farm by the quick-moving German infantry was little short of inevitable. (In the previous month's fighting Mouse Trap Farm had provided a location for the 3rd Canadian Brigade's Head Quarters which was shelled and burnt down on the afternoon of 25 April 1915.)

The distance to the positions held by the 2nd Royal Irish Regiment at Shell Trap Farm on the 24th May is 1.86 miles (3 kms), an unfeasibly long distance to have carried bodies for burial.