Hellfire Corner signpost
This bullet-damaged wooden sign was positioned at one of the deadliest places on the Western Front during WWI
This battered WWI sign stood at a deadly crossroads
Hellfire Corner was an important Allied transport junction on the Menin Road during WWI. The area was approximately 3.2 kilometres (two miles) from Ypres and was where the Ypres-roulers railway cut across the Menin Road near a crossroads. Known on contemporary maps as the ‘Halte’, this position was also the location where trams stopped and picked up passengers from local farms and cottages to take them to Ypres, Menin or Courtrai.
Because it was situated in a particularly exposed area, the position was continually observed by German forces on higher ground to the east and was within range of their guns. Anything that moved along the roads at this junction was exposed to shellfire, and the area was grimly nicknamed ‘Hellfire Corner’ by Brits.
With German gunners stood ready and their artillery preregistered, Hellfire Corner posed a significant threat to the British Army because the crossroads was a major supply route. It soon became standard practice for infantrymen to run, cavalry to gallop and motor vehicles to speed through the area. This death trap only became safe when Passchendaele was captured in November 1917 and the Germans lost their fixed positions.
In an area that was littered with dead men, animals and vehicle wreckage, signposts were important to aid the passage of supplies.
This wooden signboard is titled ‘Hellfire
Corner’ in red paint and also names ‘Ypres’, ‘Cross Roads’ and ‘Hooge’ underneath. It is believed to be the last signboard used at the position and shows signs of shell and small arms damage – a haunting indication of what conditions must have been like at the ‘most dangerous corner on Earth’. The Hellfire Corner signboard is on display in the National Army Museum in Chelsea, London. For more information visit: www.nam.ac.uk