page_title: Tottenham Royal Engineers
section_title: 1917
hierarchical_section_title: Tottenham Royal Engineers / Service / 1917
caption_attribution_description: English: The Battle of Passchendaele, July-november 1917 A packhorse being loaded with duckboards at Wieltje, 12 October 1917.
context_page_description: The 33rd Divisional Engineers or Tottenham Royal Engineers was a battalion-sized unit of the British Royal Engineers raised in Tottenham, London, during World War I as part of 'Kitchener's Army'. Together with other RE units recruited from Tottenham, it served in the great battles of 1916–18 on the Western Front, including the Somme, Arras, Ypres, the German Spring Offensive and the final Hundred Days Offensive.
context_section_description: The 33rd Division was engaged at the Battle of Arras (1917), including the  First  and Second Battles of the Scarpe (14 and 23–23 April) and subsequent actions on the Hindenburg Line (20–30 May). During these operations the division suffered heavy casualties, including a number of RE officers. It was then transferred to the Flanders Coast where it took part in operations on 18–28 August.
  33rd Division transferred to the Ypres sector in September, in time to take part in  the Third Ypres Offensive. The division's preparations for the Battle of Polygon Wood were badly disrupted by a German surprise attack on 25 September, which caused heavy casualties and took many of the jumping-off positions. Nevertheless, the attack was reorganised overnight and went in on schedule the following morning, when 33rd Division took all its objectives.
  The division then spent a terrible winter, doing tours of duty in the Passchendaele Salient. While the infantry attempted to make small gains, the engineers constructed concrete dugouts, underground galleries and drainage systems. Important achievements were the construction of a double duckboard track (the 'Mule Track') as far into the salient as Tyne Cot, and a Decauville narrow-gauge railway as far as Crest Farm.
caption: A packhorse being loaded with duckboards, Ypres Salient, October 1917.
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