REMEMBRANCE Sunday coincides with the 90th anniversary of the end of the 1917 British offensive in Flanders - from which some 400 men from Trafford did not return.

Research by local historian George Cogswell has unearthed the names of the Trafford servicemen who died in the bloody conflict.

Unlike the debacle of the first day of the Battle of the Somme - a British offensive in 1916 - when around 20,000 British and Commonwealth men were killed, most of them before breakfast, the first day of the 1917 offensive started well for the Allies - but it was not to last. Like the Battle of the Somme 1916, the Flanders offensive was a series of engagements, taking place over several months. Again like at the Somme, this one also ground to a halt in early November, as winter set in.

The offensive began at 03.10hours on the morning of June 7 1917, along the entire length of the Messines Ridge situated to the south of Ypres.

Nineteen huge underground mines were detonated blowing up thousands of German soldiers as they sat in their trenches. The sound of the explosions was heard in London and Eastern Counties.

Ten engagements comprised the Briitish offensive. They were: Messines, June 7 to 14; Pilkelm 31st July 31 to August 2; Westhoek, August 10; Langemark August 16 to 18; Menin Road September 20 to 25; Polygon Wood September 26 to October 3; Broodseinde, October 4; Poelcappelle, October 9; First Battle of Passchendaele October 12; Second Battle of Passchendaele October 26 to November 10.

George said: "The name Passchendaele is synonymous with totally waterlogged shell cratered ground as all the land drainage systems in this low lying area of Flanders had been destroyed in the shelling. It is impossible to describe the conditions that the Allied troops were fighting in - if they slipped off a duck-board they drowned - if they were wounded and slid into a crater, they drowned. Many that died there have no known grave, if they were not blown to pieces, they disappeared into the mud."

One hundred and ninety-five men from Altrincham, Partington and Sale died in Belgium during the offensive - and 101 have no known grave.

There were another 184 fatalities from the Stretford and Urmmston areas, of whom 61 have no known grave.

George added: "These figures only include those that actually died in Belgium, others would have died of their wounds in France being transported back to base hospitals and others would subsequently have succumbed to their wounds back in Blighty'.

"There are undoubtedly others that I have not yet been able to identify as having died in this offensive."

The largest British Commonwealth Cemetery in the world is at Passchendaele, in the Tyne Cot Cemetery at the village of Zonnebeke where 11,954 men are buried - 8,367 of whom are unknown.

The Tyne Cot Cemetery also contains the Tyne Cot Memorial to those men who died on or after August 16. The Menin Gate Memorial situated on the eastern side of Ypres contains the names of those who died in the area before August 16 At 8pm every night of the year, once the local Belgian Police have closed the road through the gate, at least two members of the Ypres Town Fire Brigade turn out to play the last post - a moving ceremony that is often attended by hundreds of people. The short ceremony has taken place since 1927, with the exception of during the Second World War, when it was deemed not to be politically correct and banned. The fire brigade buried their bugles to hide them from the occupying Germans and resumed the ceremony as soon as they left Ypres in 1945.