Private Walter Slassor

Private Walter Slassor, 1st/4th ( Territorial ) Battalion, Northumberland Fusiliers. He was killed in action in Belgium on 26th October 1917, aged 31, during the Third Battle of Ypres. He was the husband of Annie Slassor of North Lodge Cottage, Blagdon, Seaton Burn, Newcastle-on-Tyne and he had enlisted in Earlston where he was working as a gardener at Mellerstain Gardens. His Battalion was in the 149th Brigade and part of the 50th ( Northumbrian ) Division. The photographs show the utter desolation of the Flanders battlefield where the incessant shelling had destroyed the drainage systems. The colour photo shows the impressive Memorial raised to commemorate the 50th ( Northumbrian ) Division of which the Battalion was part until July 1918 when it was reduced to cadre and assigned to lines of communication duties. It was erected near the village of Weiltje in the Ypres Salient where nearby on the 26th April 1915 the Division had fought its first action of the War only days after landing on the Continent.

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