TOM MORGAN

Hellfire Corner and the National Army Museum

NEWS UPDATE
The following article first appeared around November, 1996.  The news was that one of the original Great War signs from Hellfire Corner had been discovered in Scotland.  The latest news is that the sign is about to go on display (May12th., 1997) in the "recent acquisitions" showcase at the National Army Museum. Scroll down this page to read the original article.

Hellfire Corner was a simple cross-roads on the Menin (Menen) Road. A light Railway also crossed the road at this point in those days, passing across the fields to Railway Wood. The position was therefore accurately marked on all maps of the area and the German artillery, on slightly higher ground to the East, could shell it accurately at any time, day or night.

Long poles were set up on the side of the road facing the Germans and screening material was hung from them, so that any artillery observation posts would not be able to see when traffic was crossing this junction. At night enemy observation was less of a problem, but the amount of traffic increased immensely.

There is an account of crossing Hellfire Corner at night in Day 7 of my Somme Diary.

This is one of the most famous photographs of Hellfire Corner, taken in the Autumn of 1917. Now, almost eighty years on, an original sign from Hellfire Corner has been donated to the National Army Museum.
(Not the sign in this picture - this one is part of the collection of the "In Flanders Fields" in Ypres.)

PRESS RELEASE sent to HELLFIRE CORNER:

An original "Hellfire Corner" signboard from Ypres has been donated to the National Army Museum by a relative of the man who brought it home from the Great War. Having rescued the battered sign from its position outside Ypres, Lieutenant William Storie displayed it in a shop window in Prince's Street, Edinburgh where he lived. The board then disappeared to the back of a cupboard in the family home and was only recovered last year- still in the original white canvas cover in which it had been transported back from Flanders.

Mr R MacArthur was left the board by his wife's aunt last year Miss Storie knew and decided to donate the board, with papers and photographs relating to it, to the National Army Museum. He says; 'Miss Storie knew  I was interested in military history and wanted me to ensure a good home for this prized item.'

At present, the sign is undergoing conservation work before being put on diaplay at the Museum. I am a firm believer in the power of words, and learned  the name "Hellfire Corner" at a very early age from relatives who had served. The idea that there was once a place called "Hellfire Corner"  and another called by the mysteriously technological name, "Hill 60" fascinated me then and still does today.  This sign was a trivial thing, but tens of thousands must have glanced at it, in passing,  in those times. I look forward to seeing it for myself.

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