Harry Patch remembers the advance at Passchendaele

Harry Patch remembered the advance through nearby terrain and faces, while struggling to connect village names, ridges, and an exact date many years later. Smoke and fire restricted his view even of the ground immediately around him. Royal Engineers provided narrow, canvas-covered pontoons across a flooded stream after a nearby bridge had been destroyed, and one pontoon had to be recovered and anchored when it broke loose. White tape marked assembly positions and the direction of advance across ground crowded with shell holes. The officer laying that tape was almost certainly Major Percy Norman, whose men laid 600 yards under fire, including 125 yards beyond the stream. Patch also remembered an officer with a drawn revolver and took his expression as a warning that anyone refusing to advance would be shot.