The Royal British Legion Kingsbridge and District Branch will be holding a short service to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the Battle of Passchendaele.

The service and wreath-laying ceremony will take place at the Kingsbridge War Memorial on Friday, July 28, at 10.30am.

Branch chairman Leon Lock explained that “it was felt that because it was recorded that the Second, Eighth and Ninth Battalions of the Devonshire Regiment fought at Passchendaele, it should be a date to be commemorated by the local branch of the RBL.”

Mr Lock has invited anyone to join the RBL at the memorial, especially those who know that past family members were involved in this battle.

According to the BBC History website, Passchendaele became infamous “not only for the scale of casualties, but also for the mud”. Officially known as the Third Battle of Ypres, the flatness of the area made stealth impossible, and as with the Somme, the German lines “knew an attack was imminent and the initial bombardment served as a final warning”.

The bombardment lasted two weeks, with 4.5million shells fired from 3,000 guns, but they again failed to destroy the heavily fortified German positions.

“The infantry attack began on 31 July. Constant shelling had churned the clay soil and smashed the drainage systems. The left wing of the attack achieved its objectives but the right wing failed completely.

“Within a few days, the heaviest rain for 30 years had turned the soil into a quagmire, producing thick mud that clogged up rifles and immobilised tanks. It eventually became so deep that men and horses drowned in it.”

The attacks continued in August, September and October, making little progress. “The eventual capture of what little remained of Passchendaele village by British and Canadian forces on 6 November finally gave Haig [Field Marshall Haig - commander of the British Expeditionary Force on the Western Front] an excuse to call off the offensive and claim success.

“However, Passchendaele village lay barely five miles beyond the starting point of his offensive. Having prophesied a decisive success, it had taken over three months, 325,000 Allied and 260,000 German casualties to do little more than make the bump of the Ypres salient somewhat larger.

“In Haig’s defence, the rationale for an offensive was clear and many agreed that the Germans could afford the casualties less than the Allies, who were being reinforced by America’s entry into the war.

“Yet Haig’s decision to continue into November remains deeply controversial and the arguments, like the battle, seem destined to go on and on.”