Artillery Positions at Ypres 4 PM 22 April 1915
The 100th Anniversary of the Battle of 2nd Ypres is fast approaching. So we decided to see if we could peer into the past and generate some map references that you could visit. The aim is ease of access and not too complex.
We use LINESMAN by www.greatwardigital and wereusing Ozie Explorer by http://www.oziexplorer.com/ in a trial version. Ozie Explorer is very interesting and we were able to generate some map data with it.
A series of maps exists concerning the battle in the St Julien area of Belgium and this is where the 1st Canadian Division was located in the 3rd week of April 1915. The maps we used are at this link. http://www.valourcanada.ca/
Specifically focussing on the Artillery (we need to get the unit/subunit names right), we came up with the images below. The new map is below (Linesman is on the top and the old map using Ozie Explorer in trial mode is on the bottom). It maps over (pardon the pun) very well – such that if you were walking to a gun position which was silent – you would get there quite easily.
Now – if you wanted to walk to all the gun positions today – what would you do? Call on your trusty Linesman program to plot your route – hopefully you get back before any surprises!
The route will look like this and your route card is below. All gunners should have a great trip to St Julien at their next opportunity. Targets? To be revealed.
| Leg | Name / Position / Elevation | Bearing | Distance | Ascent | Time |
| 0 | H Bty | ||||
| 50°53.480’N, 2°55.055’E | |||||
| 23 m | |||||
| 1 | 10 FA | 066°T | 1.75 km | 6 m | 0:19 |
| 50°53.856’N, 2°56.425’E | |||||
| 19 m | |||||
| 2 | 12 FA | 119°T | 699 m | 4 m | 0:07 |
| 50°53.671’N, 2°56.944’E | |||||
| 23 m | |||||
| 3 | 459 How Bty | 177°T | 353 m | 0 m | 0:03 |
| 50°53.481’N, 2°56.955’E | |||||
| 18 m | |||||
| 4 | 458 How Bty | 144°T | 642 m | 5 m | 0:07 |
| 50°53.199’N, 2°57.272’E | |||||
| 22 m | |||||
| 5 | 5 FA | 184°T | 1.03 km | 10 m | 0:12 |
| 50°52.645’N, 2°57.203’E | |||||
| 25 m | |||||
| 6 | 8 FA | 274°T | 200 m | 0 m | 0:02 |
| 50°52.653’N, 2°57.033’E | |||||
| 23 m | |||||
| 7 | 7 FA | 291°T | 216 m | 0 m | 0:02 |
| 50°52.695’N, 2°56.861’E | |||||
| 22 m | |||||
| 8 | 6FA | 285°T | 112 m | 0 m | 0:01 |
| 50°52.711’N, 2°56.769’E | |||||
| 20 m | |||||
| 9 | 11 FA | 331°T | 732 m | 2 m | 0:08 |
| 50°53.059’N, 2°56.474’E | |||||
| 19 m | |||||
| 10 | 9 FA | 326°T | 566 m | 0 m | 0:06 |
| 50°53.315’N, 2°56.211’E | |||||
| 14 m | |||||
| 11 | H Bty | 282°T | 1.39 km | 11 m | 0:16 |
| 50°53.480’N, 2°55.055’E | |||||
| 23 m | |||||
| Totals: | 7.69 km | 38 m | 1:26 | ||
Please send comments. We’d love to hear from you.
Ozie Explorer and the new maps for Linesman make tracing these historic actions easy.
