Red Dragon Crater Incident ? Great War

[Monoped]

Hi,

You may notice from my other thread that I have been asked to sell some RWF jewellery.

Anyway, whilst finding out about the best place to go with the items a nice chap mentioned the RWF "Red Dragon Crater Incident" of the Great War. I mention it now as I am fascinated as to the history. Anyone here any information as to what the incident was during the Great War?

[Bob Bacon]

On the weekend of March 10th, 2000, the bodies of three British soldiers were unearthed at Givenchy, a few kilometres to the north of Cambrin, and to the east of Bethune, in Northern France. One body has an identity disk which identifies him as a Private of the 2nd Bn Royal Welsh Fusiliers who fell on 22nd June 1916. On this day the 2nd Btn lost 52 men killed in action. The incident is well chronicled in Frank Richards' 'Old Soldiers Never Die'.

On 17 June 1916 the 2nd Battalion the Royal Welch Fusiliers were billeted in the Chateau at Gorre preparing to relieve the 4th Suffolks in the front line north of the canal at Givenchy le Bassee. Lt Col Crawshay, the Commanding Officer, was entertaining the Officer Commanding the local Royal engineer Mining Company. Over a glass of port, the Commanding Officer's anxiety about the new sector was eased by the mining engineer's demonstration of how a recent camouflet had so damaged the German mining efforts, that it would take 6 to 8 weeks to repair the damage.

Reassured by the engineer's confidence the relief of the front line took place late in the evening of 20th June with a Coy on the left, then D and C and finally B Coy on the right of the front line. However the mood changed almost immediately when it was noticed that casualties amongst the Suffolks had been much lighter than normally would be expected in a sector noted for its ferocity and that the night was uncannily quiet. The 'old sweats' among the Battalion became uneasy. Just after midnight Capt Blair the Officer Commanding B Coy was busy inspecting his newly acquired trenches. His haunting feeling of unrest led him to order his Coy to prepare for action by placing additional Mills bombs on the firing steps with the pins pinched and positioning boxes of reserve ammunition close at hand. His anxiety was justified.

At 0205 hrs, Captain Blair stepped down from the fire step. Suddenly, as he wrote later "I felt my feet lifted up beneath me and the trench wall seemed to move upwards. There was a terrific blast of air which blew my steel helmet heavens know where". As tons of earth fell from the sky, half filling the eight foot deep trenches, the Germans opened up with an intense bombardment. After fifteen minutes the barrage lifted and hundreds of German Jager assault troops sprinted across no mans land heading mainly for the crater. Clearly, the Germans were after prisoners but after rush and counter rush and desperate hand-to-hand fighting they were eventually driven back by the Welch.

Two platoons of B Company were buried by the largest mine to be exploded on the Western Front to date. The shock reverberating from the underlying chalk blasted a huge crater approx 120 yards long, 70 yards wide and 30 feet deep. The crater became known as the 'Red Dragon Crater' after the Regimental symbol. It took all day and much of the following night to recover those who were partially buried, many lay exposed to fire in No Man's Land. In all two officers and forty six others lay dead under the blasted earth of the crater, whose bodies were never recovered. Amongst them were Pvt Richard Clarke and the two other unknown soldiers buried at Gorre British And Indian Cemetery on 26th May 2001 almost exactly 85 years since they were killed on 22nd June 1916.

[ap1]

A really good account of the incident is given in the classic Great War Book " "The War The Infantry Knew (http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/0349106355/202-3992307-5825445)" By Capt JC Dunn, who was the 2nd Bn's Medical Officer. IBSN 0-9547252-0-4

Below is a picture of "Hammer" Lane DCM(seated 3rd from left), at a reunion in Birmingham during the 50's. He is mentioned in most accounts of the incident, he fought the attacking Germans with his bare hands, after his bayonet got stuck in a german soldier. To read more check out this webpage http://www.citybatts.com/html/royal_welsh_fusiliers_regiment.html

http://rwf-forum.co.uk/vBulletin/weeklycaption/hl.jpg

Picture Courtesy: Graham Knight

[Monoped]

Thank you for the replies. I recently travelled around Northern France and gave silent thanks to God for all the men who fought and those who fell. It is very humbling.

[Aled Roberts]

Frank Richards' book "Old Soldiers Never Die" also has a good account of the Red Dragon Crater story.

Richard

[jungle1810]

Hello Richard,
Both books by Frank Richards have now been reprinted, with copious footnotes and maps, plus photos never seen until this reprint. I think I mentioned this to monoped.I expect you know about these books in any case.
Richard aka RBD

[jungle1810]

Hello Andy,
There are pictures and info on my web site re "The Red Dragon Crater"The info and pictures were provided by Graham Knight whose father won the M.M. in this incident. the site address is http://mdonovan.free. fr/rwf
Have a look and let me know what you think. Regards RBD aka "Don"

[Monoped]

Hi Don, The site link doesn't seem to work :( Is there another route to it?

[Bob Bacon]

The link is there, but hasn't been linked properly; I believe it is:

http://mdonovan.free.fr/rwf/

[jungle1810]

Hello Andy& Bob,
I think I dropped a clanger with my site address. I noticed on looking at it now the full address did not come up in blue as a site address should. Bob is not far off the mark. the correct address is

http://mdonovan.free.fr/rwf
Bob put a forward slash after rwf I do not use a slash after rwf.
Sorry about that.Hope it works now thanks to both Bob & Andy.

Regards Don aka RBD