58614: Jack Dyson's last card to his wife before being killed on 07.09.1917

Re: Private John (a.k.a.Jack) DYSON: 35892 11th Battalion, Lancashire Fusiliers

Killed 7 September 1917, Bellewaarde Ridge “ name recorded on Tyne Cot Memorial (born Rochdale, Lancashire, 29 July 1889)

My husband and I made a trip in September 07 to Belgium and northern France, during which we visited the Tyne Cot Cemetery with its new Visitor Centre, the Memorial Museum Passchendaele in Zonnebeke and Ypres. It was all extremely impressive and deeply moving.

Our reason for going was to commemorate the 90th anniversary of Passchendaele and the death of my maternal grandfather, John Dyson, there (Bellewaarde Ridge) and to see his name on the Memorial at Tyne Cot, as he was killed on 7 September 1917. This was something my grandma and mother had never been able to do. The Commonwealth War Graves Commission had supplied us with relevant details and confirmed the date of his death; my grandma had always thought he was killed on 17th September. He was killed, we are informed, on Bellewaarde Ridge: we also visited this area, although we were not sure which part was the exact location where my grandfather was killed. We stopped at the end of Frezenbergstraat, 5 km from Zonnebeke and near the Princess Patricia's Canadian Light Infantry Memorial and the park just down the road.

We picked up the leaflet ˜Did your granddad fight in Passchendaele 1917? Did he give his life?', and sent the information we are now sending to you in Oxford to the organisers of the Passchendaele archive. We have been unable to discover where exactly he was killed on Bellewaarde Ridge, what exactly ˜support duties' were, the date he enlisted and other matters of interest.

In one of the sources we tapped whilst in Belgium (the Memorial register in the Tyne Cot wall or the computer-accessed information in the Visitors Centre?), his entry gives his date of birth as ˜unknown': our family history research gives this as 29 July 1889, so this could be used in your records, if you wish.

The last card he sent to his wife and baby daughter (two attachments “ one showing the face of the card, presumably supplied by the army, the second showing the message): we think this is interesting for its restrained and deep emotion and feeling for his wife and clearly not wanting to upset her too much; his concern for his health; and the insight into troop movements and the lack of money and the fact that even when conditions were so appalling, valued messages and gifts still managed to get through to the soldiers serving there. Would you know what the ˜draft of 300' refers to? [a draft is a movement of men to or from a unit. Ed.]

Comments and explanation relating to the postcard message.

Needless to say, my mother (now deceased) never remembered her father and for my younger sister and me, he was the grandfather we never had nor knew; this has always been a gap in our lives. By contrast, my husband was more fortunate in that both his grandfathers returned from the ˜14-18 war in northern France and Egypt and he knew them both into adult life. My grandmother had a hard life, particularly as she lost her second daughter so soon after she was born; she never remarried and was left to bring up her daughter alone. The text of the card is interesting, in that I was always told that it was my grandfather's last before he was killed. He ends with God Bless you BOTH, yet his second daughter was born on 7 April 1917: if this was indeed his last card, we might have expected him to say e.g. 'the three of you' instead. A small niggling problem but the card did in fact come from Belgium, where we know he was killed.

We are glad to be able to keep these original documents, as they are very precious, so we hope the scanned resolution is sufficiently high to be of use.

If there is anything further you think we might be able to help you with, please let us know. On a personal note, we are further pleased to help with you efforts, as my husband is an Oxford graduate.

With best wishes

Miriam Naylor (Mrs): grand-daughter Kathryn Ion (Mrs): grand-daughter