17th July 1917 Tuesday

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Continuing the theme of place names that don’t reflect the modern spelling, Douglas and his men left Steenbecque for Hondeghem, via Hazebrouck. In the modern world it would take about two and a half hours to walk the journey, giving some measure to the amount of congestion the men were encountering on the journey.

“On Tuesday 17th July we left at 8 a.m. for Honenghem, seven miles off. It took us four hours to reach our destination owing to the phenomenal amount of traffic on the roads. A whole Australian Army was on the move with us. We went through Hazebroucke. At Honenghem we messed in a farmhouse and slept in tents in an orchard. The weather was warm and sunny.”

The Road to Hondeghem

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