THE 55TH DIVISION.
The West Lancashire Division was formed in the Hallencourt area under the
command of Major-General H.S. Jeudwine, and given the number 55. The
Battalion entered the 165th Infantry Brigade in this Division. This
brigade which was commanded by Brigadier-General F.J. Duncan, was entirely
composed of Liverpool battalions, namely, the 5th, 6th, 7th, and 9th
King's. In the Brigade the officers and men had the pleasure of meeting
friends they had known at home in Liverpool, comrades with whom they were
destined to serve for the next two years, principally in Artois and Ypres.
Friendly rivalry soon sprang up between the various battalions in the
Brigade which made for efficiency and put all on their "mettle." Everyone
naturally believed that his was the battalion par excellence, not only in
the Brigade but in the whole Division.
The 9th was first billeted in Hocquincourt, a little French village near
Hallencourt. Viewed from a distance the village looked picturesque, with
the red tiled roofs of the houses contrasted against the sombre winter
sky, but a closer inspection revealed a different picture. The houses were
rickety, the billets poor, and the conditions insanitary. So backward were
the peasants in agriculture that they still adhered to the use of the
old-fashioned flails for thrashing corn. The Battalion moved on the 20th
January to Mérélessart about two miles away, where better quarters were
found particularly for the Battalion headquarters, which occupied a
somewhat pretentious chateau replete with all modern conveniences
including baths, which were very unusual in private houses in the war
area.
Here the Commanding Officer, Lieutenant-Colonel Ramsay, D.S.O., left the
Battalion on his promotion to the rank of Brigadier-General. Before he
left he made a speech to the men and published the following "Farewell
Order":--
On relinquishing command of the Battalion to take over command
of the 48th Infantry Brigade, the Commanding Officer wishes to
express his regret at leaving the Regiment, which he has had
the honour of commanding for the last eight months, and his
gratitude for the loyal way in which all ranks have supported
him.
The Commanding Officer is very sensible of the fact that the
excellent work done by the Regiment has gained for him his
decoration and promotion.
Later in the war he received promotion and commanded the 58th (London)
Division as Major General.
While at Mérélessart the usual training took place. There was little work
done as a complete unit not much attention being paid to tactical work. A
rifle range was at the disposal of the Battalion on which the companies
were able to fire a few practices and so keep up their musketry.
It is worthy of remark that of the officers serving with the companies at
this time approximately two-thirds were subsequently killed during the
course of the war, while the survivors were almost all wounded at some
time or other.
Early in February orders came along to the effect that the Division was
to go into line, and on the 6th February the Battalion left Mérélessart
and marched to Longpré where the night was spent, and the next day it
reached Berteaucourt-les-Dames. A few days were spent here, during which
Major C.P. James took over the command of the Battalion, and afterwards it
marched via Doullens to Amplier, and after a night's rest in some huts
there it reached Berles-au-Bois the next day. En route it passed through
Pas, where there was a steep hill which presented such difficulties to the
transport section that they remembered it when they returned in two year's
time. At Berles-au-Bois the men were billeted in the ruined village. This
was the first experience the Battalion had of a really tranquil front.
This village lay within a mile of the front line, and it seemed uncanny to
be so near the enemy and yet to hear so few shots fired. Indeed it was
almost too good to be true. The unit did not take over the defence of this
area, and orders came soon that on the 15th the Battalion was to take over
a sector on the Wailly front, where it was to relieve a battalion of the
81ième Régiment Territoriale. Accordingly very early in the morning of
that day the Battalion marched to Monchiet in sleet and rain under cover
of darkness along roads which in daylight were exposed to the view of the
enemy, and on arrival the short day was spent in endeavouring to get dry.
Monchiet later became the location of the transport lines and
Quartermaster's store.
WAILLY.
Having sent an advance party to General Xardel's headquarters at Beaumetz
to effect liaison, and to meet French guides, the Battalion paraded
towards evening, left Monchiet, picked up the guides en route and marched
to Wailly. The day had been one of blizzards and the night of the relief
was black and wet. Added to these circumstances was the difficulty of
understanding the directions of the Frenchmen, the Battalion's knowledge
of their language being not very extensive. Towards midnight, thoroughly
drenched, hungry and weary after a heavy day, the men were ultimately put
in their proper stations, some in the village and others in the trenches.
From the appearance of the houses Wailly had been a prosperous farming
village lying within a short distance of Arras. Agricultural implements of
the latest manufacture were in evidence, and these could only have been
bought by peasants with some capital. This village was to be the
Battalion's home for the next five months. The Battalion first did a month
alternating in position between the front line and the village. For some
days while in the front line the Battalion was in touch with the 27ième
Régiment d'Infanterie, which had a sentry post in its area composed of men
from one of the companies who readily fraternised with the fantassins.
This regiment belonged to a division of the French Active Army, and in
consequence its efficiency was of a very high order. Nowhere had anyone
seen trenches so well revetted and so neatly constructed as those occupied
by this French regiment. The trenches stood out in marked contrast to
those actually taken over by the Battalion, whose former occupants, the
French Territorials, had left them in a very bad condition.
The trenches had not been revetted or duckboarded, and during the first
month of the Battalion's occupation there was a good deal of snow, and
when this melted the sides of the trenches commenced to crumble, making
them very muddy at the bottom. In consequence of this mud they became
almost impassable. For the men doing trench duty the conditions were bad
enough. The man on post had to stand on the fire step for hours in damp
clothes, shivering in the freezing cold, knowing that when his tour of
duty was over all he could look forward to was the cold damp floor of a
dugout on which to rest his weary body. For the ration parties the
conditions were almost worse. The meals were cooked in the field kitchens
in the village, and fatigue parties to carry up the meals were found by
the support company which was in a trench called by the French the
Parallèle des Territoriaux. Many of the men will never forget the
innumerable times they trudged heavily laden with a dixie of tea or stew
through the mud in the tortuous communication trenches Boyau Eck, Sape 7,
and the Boyau des Mitrailleuses. At times these trenches became so muddy
that on one or two occasions reliefs had to be carried out over the top
under cover of darkness. It was risking a good deal to line up a whole
company outside the trench a few yards in rear of the front line, knowing
that an enemy machine gun was located about a hundred yards away, and that
the machine gunner might fire an illuminating flare at any moment, and so
expose the men to his view.
It was during the first tour at Wailly that Major C.G. Bradley, D.S.O.,
assumed command on the 29th February.
After having done a month in the Wailly sector, the Battalion was taken
on the 14th March for a week in Brigade Reserve. Though the Battalion only
got into billets at 1 a.m., after a four mile march, a working party had
to be found at 8-30 a.m. for work on a Divisional show ground, which was a
place where model trenches were dug to show the uninitiated how things
ought to be done. Tasks like these were regarded as onerous by the men,
who were led to expect some period of rest when not in the advanced
positions.
After a few days in Beaumetz the Battalion returned to Wailly, and until
June continued to do three tours of duty at Wailly, two in the front line
and one in the village, to one in Brigade Reserve at Beaumetz, the whole
cycle lasting a month.
The enemy having in line opposite the 78th Landwehr Regiment, the sector
was very quiet, though the British did what they could to liven things up
in the way of artillery shoots and indirect machine gun fire at night on
the roads behind the enemy lines.
The general defence scheme at first was not very elaborate. Three
companies manned the front line with one in support. Great attention was
paid to bombing posts, and the defence scheme always contained a plan for
a counter attack by the bombers, who were organised as a separate section,
working directly under the orders of the Commanding Officer. They were
given simple schemes and exercises in counter-attack while in the
trenches. For example the non-commissioned officer in command of a squad
would be told that the enemy had entered a particular sector of the
trench. He would then block the trench or deliver an imaginary counter
attack along the trench with the object of dislodging the fictitious
enemy, as the case might require. The companies were trained to take
shelter in the dugouts in the event of a heavy bombardment and immediately
on its cessation to re-man the front line. In the village when the
Battalion was in support it held three centres of resistance known from
right to left as Petit Moulin, Wailly Keep, and Petit Chateau. Wailly Keep
was a fortified farm on the fringe of the village, with loop-holed walls
and the adjacent roads barricaded. It was a relic of the French defence
scheme and was sound.
The strictest precautions were taken against a gas attack. Each man had
two P.H. helmets which he had to keep with him at all times. Moreover,
sentries were instructed how to recognise gas and sound the alarm
immediately they noticed enemy gas. Large cartridge cases from the guns
were used as gas gongs, and Strombos horns were installed so as to spread
the alarm quickly should occasion arise. This was a much better scheme
than the one in which the bugler was to sound the alarm. As the lines were
near there was some danger of a flammenwerfer attack, so the whole
Battalion was taken on the 17th March to a demonstration, and shown what
to do should such an attack take place. One Lewis gun was given to each
company in place of the machine guns which were taken away from the
Battalion, and the Stokes mortar made its appearance in the trenches. This
was an over-rated weapon. Its range was very limited and it was soon
out-distanced by similar German weapons. Its bombs were essentially for
use against personnel at a range when rifles would have been cheaper and
more efficacious. Its bombs were not heavy enough for use against
earthworks, and wrought little damage on trenches. Its use and its
ammunition supply entailed large carrying parties which robbed the
companies of the men and sapped their energy.
In May steel helmets were made part of every man's equipment, and a square
green patch on the back of the tunic became the Battalion distinguishing
mark. The steel helmets were the means of saving many lives, and were
covered with the same material as the sandbags were made of, for purposes
of camouflage.
One night early in April a patrol consisting of a corporal and a private
was sent to examine and report on the enemy wire in front of a particular
sap head. At this point there were only seventy yards or so between the
British trench and the enemy sap heads, which were swathed in a dense mesh
of barbed wire. There were but few shell craters, little artillery fire
being directed on the front line when the lines were close owing to the
danger of short firing; and the grass being short there was little or no
cover. The night had been very quiet. Scarcely a rifle shot had broken the
silence. The patrol must have made some noise, and so aroused the
attention of the enemy sentry in the sap head who fired an illuminating
flare. The light betrayed the presence of the patrol to the enemy, who
opened fire and wounded both of the men. Afterwards the enemy kept firing
illuminating flares and maintained a lively rifle and machine gun fire, so
that any attempt at rescue was impossible. At dawn the enemy put up a flag
of truce and a party of them came out and gently lifted the wounded into
their own trench. It was noticed that the enemy were wearing the old blue
uniform of the German Army instead of the feldgrau uniform, and that they
carried tin canisters in which they had their gas masks. This rescue was
accomplished at great risk to the enemy as they did not know that the
British would refrain from firing; and the incident proves that at any
rate there were some among the Germans who would do the honourable thing.
When the Battalion was at Ypres about a year afterwards a letter came
saying that the graves of the two men had been found with an appropriate
inscription in the German language.
In this sector there was much work to be done. The trenches, which were in
a state of decay after the frosts and rains of the winter, had to be
duckboarded and revetted. Besides sandbagging the front line the
Battalion, in conjunction with the relieving unit, the 7th King's,
constructed a new support line known as Parallel B., in which was
accommodated, when it was complete, a portion of the front line garrison.
The wire needed attention as well. The French had covered the front with a
chain of _chevaux de frise_, but this was not considered a sufficient
obstacle, so that concertina wire and "gooseberries" had to be put out in
front of the _chevaux de frise_. The wiring parties had a very difficult
task, as they had to work about forty yards away from the enemy, who were
often engaged on similar work. Also the men had to work in front of the
_chevaux de frise_, and they would have had great difficulty in getting
back to their own lines should they have been surprised by the enemy.
Besides this, innumerable rifle racks, bomb stores, machine gun
emplacements and other works of a similar nature were completed. In
addition to this the men had to form large carrying parties to carry large
elephant sections and other material to the Quarry for use by dugout
construction parties of the Royal Engineers.
At this period the trench discipline attained a high standard as the men
had been together for some months and free from heavy casualties, and it
is well here to digress for a while and record what trench duty really
meant. "Stand to" would be at say 3-30 a.m., shortly before dawn. At this
time all would man the parapet and wait until it became daylight. The
rifles, ammunition, gas helmets, and feet of the men would be inspected by
the platoon officer. This generally took about an hour and a half.
Afterwards the men not actually on duty would wash and shave. Shaving in
the trenches was made compulsory in March, as it was thought that it kept
the men from deteriorating and would prevent any tendency to slovenliness.
There was little water for such a purpose, and consequently it was
particularly arduous in a muddy trench, and it is doubtful whether the
benefits derived were worth it. Breakfast would take place between six and
seven. Afterwards the men got what sleep they could during the day, but
they were constantly interrupted by sentry duty, meals, shell fire, and
occasionally a fatigue. The activity of night replaced little by little
the tranquility of the day. Towards sunset came evening "stand to" and
more inspections. After nightfall patrols would go out, and wiring parties
for the renovation and repair of the wire, ration parties for the food,
and working parties to keep the trenches in good condition would be
detailed. The men got no sleep at night, and in fact very little at all.
Trench duty was exacting and exhausting from a physical point of view
alone, but to this was added the continual attrition of numbers on account
of shell and rifle fire.
In May the weather was glorious and the face of the countryside assumed a
pleasant aspect. The trees were in full leaf. Wild flowers in profusion
adorned the trenches, and larks in numbers hovered in the clear blue skies
above the trenches and sang sweetly in the early mornings. The sunsets
viewed from the front line were particularly beautiful. The lines of trees
on the Beaumetz-Arras road became silhouetted black against the skyline,
reddened by the setting sun, which produced a wonderful effect.
As the summer advanced the front became more active. Shell fire increased,
and the British artillery, having a more liberal supply of ammunition,
expended it more lavishly than had been formerly the case. In July the
Battalion left the sector immediately in front of Wailly and took over
that in front of Blaireville Wood, which was held by the enemy.
On the 28th June a series of raids took place on the Divisional front,
which were covered by a discharge of cloud gas. A party from the Battalion
took part in the raid, and two officers were able to enter an enemy sap
but they did not manage to secure any prisoners. The junior of the two
officers was unfortunately killed, being shot through the head. In
retaliation for the raids the enemy brought up, on the 2nd July, what was
called a "Circus" consisting of several 150 m.m. and 210 m.m. howitzers on
railway mountings, with which he utterly destroyed the front line trenches
for a distance of two hundred yards, blew in several mined dugouts, and
inflicted heavy casualties on "D" Company. In some respects this was the
heaviest and most destructive bombardment that had been endured by the
Battalion up to this time, though it was not so prolonged as that of the
8th October, 1915.
On the 8th July, after five months continuous duty in the forward zone,
the Battalion went into Divisional Reserve at Gouy-en-Artois, where the
Battalion was housed in hutments close by the Divisional School.
The Somme Battle had commenced, and there was every likelihood of the
Division being called upon either to attack on the front it already held
or as reinforcements. In consequence the Battalion, which had had very
little training for the past five months, turned its attention to
practising the attack in some cornfields near the hutments it occupied.
The attack was henceforth to be made by successive waves of men and to
each wave was assigned a particular objective. Following these attacking
waves there came what were called "moppers up," whose task was to deal
with any of the enemy who might have hidden in dugouts and so escaped the
attention of the attackers. Recent lessons of the Somme Battle costing
many lives had brought about the necessity for the institution of moppers
up. The rear waves were also to act as carrying parties. One man had to
carry a coil of wire, another a spade, another a screw picket, and so on.
The reason for this was, that when the enemy trenches had been captured,
the enemy might cut off all supplies by means of an intense barrage on no
man's land, and it was necessary for the attacking troops to have
sufficient material at hand to enable them to put the captured positions
into a state of defence immediately, and thus be able to resist a
counter-attack. Model trenches were marked out and much good work was done
in the attack practices that took place. Large drafts arrived and the
Battalion was soon in excellent form. The cleanliness and smart appearance
of the men while in the village drew forth the special praise of the
Divisional Commander.
At Gouy a Battalion concert party was formed, and a concert was given in
a large barn which formed part of the Divisional Canteen. The doctor
composed some verses for the occasion in which there was plenty of local
colour.
In June a Divisional horse show had taken place at which the Battalion
again distinguished itself. "C" Company cooker again took first prize in
the Division, and the Battalion secured the second place for the total
number of marks gained.
The days spent in this sector were comparatively pleasant. The front had
been quiet, and although the work was arduous casualties were few, and
leave was regular. In the light of later experience the time spent in
Wailly was very comfortable indeed, and during the next two months many
wished they could return.
THE BATTLE OF THE SOMME.
About the 20th July the Battalion left Gouy-en-Artois for the scene of
battle. To begin with this meant a three days' march to the entraining
locality. The first day the Battalion got to Sus St. Leger where the night
was spent, and by the end of the second day the Battalion was at Halloy.
On the third day, after a long tiring march in hot weather along dusty
roads, the Regiment marched into Autheux. After a few days here the
Battalion entrained late one evening for the front, and next morning it
detrained at Méricourt. The first sight that the men beheld on quitting
the train was a prisoners' camp, in which were many Germans, living
evidence of the activity a few miles in front. The Battalion was billeted
in Méricourt for two days. Here there was every indication of activity.
Having been on a quiet front for several months the men were not used to
the whir of a busy railhead. All manner of vehicles, guns, and other
impedimenta of war were in evidence, and everyone was surprised to see
some of Merryweather's fire engines, which were probably required for
pumping purposes.
On the 29th the Battalion left Méricourt for what was known as "The Happy
Valley," outside Bray. During the march the soldiers saw a mile or two
away an enormous column of smoke ascend. Something terrible had taken
place. An ammunition dump must surely have been blown up. It was not a
very pleasant prospect for those who were new to that kind of thing. The
mystery of the column of smoke was never clearly elucidated. The Happy
Valley was scarcely correctly named. The weather was exceedingly hot,
there were no billets, and consequently the men had to bivouac. The Valley
had one great drawback; there were no wells in the vicinity from which
water could be drawn. Owing to this shortage, the water-men had a very
onerous task as water was obtainable only at Bray, and thither the water
carts had to go, making as many journeys as possible during the day, to
obtain water for the thirsty troops. The Battalion in this locality was in
touch with the French, from whom the officers managed to secure some of
the French ration wine which proved very acceptable.
On the 30th the Battalion moved to a place by Fricourt, and pitched a camp
which it left two days later for a bivouac area by Bronfay Farm, near
Carnoy. From this place the officers went forward on reconnaissance. They
saw for the first time Bernafay and Trones Woods, which then had achieved
great notoriety. To the neighbourhood of these woods the Battalion sent
forward night working parties. Only with the greatest difficulty did these
parties get to their rendezvous, and little work was done on account of
the intensity of the enemy shell fire.
In the evening of the 3rd August the Battalion paraded and marched towards
the fighting, leaving behind a small percentage to form a nucleus should
all its fighting personnel perish. The march was wearying. The enemy guns
were active, the weather hot, and packs heavy. After a long trudge the
Briqueterie was reached, a dangerous and dreaded spot, for it was
periodically swept with shell fire. At last the companies got to their
allotted stations in the reserve trenches. Many had not yet experienced
the terrors of heavy shell fire, which by its very nature was intended to
produce an unnerving effect. The next day started fairly quietly. On the
right the men could see what was known as Death Valley. This was rightly
so called. Being obscured from the enemy's view, it was a covered means of
approach to the infantry positions in front, and afforded at the same time
cover for the guns. On this account it was never free from shell fire, and
was littered with corpses of men and horses.
In the afternoon the Battalion had to take over the front line in the
neighbourhood of Arrow Head Copse in front of Guillemont. Passing along
Death Valley the Battalion got caught in heavy shell fire, and sixty
casualties took place almost immediately. It required a stout heart to
march cheerfully forward when seeing one's companions who had gone a
little in front coming back on stretchers, or lying dead alongside the
path.
When the two leading companies arrived at Arrow Head Copse they manned
trenches varying in depth from a few inches to three feet, which afforded
little protection against shell fire. The dead, many of whom belonged to
the Liverpool Pals Brigade, were visible lying stark and numerous on the
battlefield. The weary desolation, and the unmitigated waste of equipment,
clothing, and life passes all description. This was the Somme battlefield,
of which one had heard so much. To those who had seen much of the war, the
thought came that nothing could be worse than this.
The next day was a day of incessant shell fire on both sides. On the
British side it was the bombardment prior to the attack on Guillemont. The
fire was terrific. The terrible concussions of the high explosive shells
assailed both ears and nerves, and kept up a pall of dust over the
trenches. The whizzing and swirling of the shells was incessant. Some
whined, others moaned, and others roared like express trains. Light shells
passed with an unearthly shriek. It was useless taking any notice of the
lighter shells. They had come and burst before one realised what had
happened. The heavier shells, particularly those that were timed to burst
in the air, were very trying, and when they burst over Trones Wood the
noise reverberated through what remained of the trees, and so became
extraordinarily intensified. To expect the explosions of the shells
knowing they were on their way and to hear them coming, not knowing
whether they would be fatal or not, was the worst part of the ordeal. Such
a condition of turmoil and torment must have been meant by the words of
Dante in his description of Hell.
"La bufera infernal che mai non resta."
Every now and then a man was hit. Those killed outright were perhaps
spared much agony, and the wounded were lucky if they reached the aid
post alive. Many got shell shock which affected men in different ways. One
would be struck dumb, another would gibber like a maniac, while a third
would retain possession of his reason but lose control of his limbs.
For two days in the sultry heat the Battalion endured the terrible strain
of this awful shell fire, the men receiving no proper food and water being
unprocurable. Then the Battalion was relieved and taken into support,
where three or four days were spent, and on the 10th two companies moved
to the Maltz Horn position. The next night the two remaining companies
moved up. The devastation in the neighbourhood of Cockrane Alley was worse
than at Guillemont. Here the men witnessed the full terrors of the
stricken field. Living men dwelt among the unburied dead. Booted feet of
killed soldiers protruded from the side of the trench. Here and there a
face or a hand was visible. Corpses of dead soldiers with blackening faces
covered with flies were rotting in the sun, and the reek of putrifying
flesh was nauseating. Added to this the heat was overpowering, the
artillery was firing short, and there was little or no water obtainable.
The Battalion was in touch with the French, and there were a few Frenchmen
in the trenches with the men. On the 12th August the French attacked with
great success and captured the village of Maurepas.
Between the two armies there was a wide broken-in trench running from the
Allied towards the German lines. For some time before zero the Allied
artillery kept up an incessant barrage on the German lines. The shells
fired by the French were noticeable by a much sharper report. At zero the
French attacked on the right of Cockrane Alley, advancing at a run in
small groups of from eight to twelve men, and they got a good distance
without any casualties. Then one by one the Frenchmen commenced to fall,
and on reaching the enemy line the French company immediately on the right
of the Battalion met with strong resistance. None came back and it is
thought that almost every man perished. Meanwhile the two companies of the
Battalion attacked in waves on the left of Cockrane Alley. They got eighty
or ninety yards without difficulty, when the enemy opened a heavy machine
gun fire, and the ground being convex the attackers formed a good target.
The Commander of the right company who led his company from the right so
as to be in touch with the bombers in Cockrane Alley, though twice
wounded, still continued the advance until he was shot dead. His example
was emulated by the Company Sergeant Major who perished in similar
circumstances. Meanwhile the bombers were endeavouring to work their way
down Cockrane Alley. The trench became shallower, and on reaching a road
it disappeared. As the bombers emerged on to the road they were shot down
one by one. The enemy then turned their machine guns on to Cockrane Alley,
and raked it with fire until it became a shambles. Most of the men of the
two companies were casualties, and many were killed. A few stragglers who
were able to take cover in shell craters managed to return later under
cover of darkness.
What became of the wounded lying out between the lines was never known, as
any attempt at rescue was impossible. As most of the stretcher bearers
with the companies were themselves incapacitated through wounds the rapid
evacuation of the wounded even in the trenches was impossible, and
moreover the aid post at Headquarters was under heavy artillery fire, so
that it was only at great risk to the bearers that the wounded could be
cleared at all from the trenches.
For the French the day had been very successful. They had captured
Maurepas, but for the Battalion it was a total failure. However, the work
done earned for the Battalion the praise of the Corps Commander, expressed
in an order published the next day, which was as follows:--
The Corps Commander wishes you to express to the Companies
engaged last night his admiration, and that of the French who
saw them, for the gallant and strenuous fight they put up.
Had the ravine been captured by the French, there is no doubt
our objective could have been realised.
13th August, 1916.
On the 13th the Battalion was relieved and the men, tired out, slowly
wended their way down Death Valley to Maricourt, passing many corpses, and
then to the bivouac area near Bronfay Farm they had left about ten days
before. Many who had marched away in the fullness of their health and
strength did not return. The next day a short move was made to
Ville-sur-Ancre, one of the few villages which contained a shop. Shortly
afterwards the Battalion moved by train to Ramburelles, not far from the
coast. Of all the villages the Battalion had ever visited, this was
perhaps the most insanitary. The men lived in barns almost on top of
manure heaps, and in consequence of the heat the number of flies was
great. Baths of late had been very few and consequently the men suffered
considerably from lice.
Arduous training was the order of the day. Seven or eight hours each day
were devoted to work, while what the men most needed was rest. They were
exhausted after their late experience, and they were overworked by the
excessive training. Many were further weakened by the fact that septic
sores were very prevalent owing to the insanitary conditions among which
the men lived.
At this period the Battalion routine orders, which were supposed to be
issued early in the afternoon were, for some unknown reason, always
received very late in the day and sometimes after ten o'clock at night. As
the Company Commanders had then to issue orders it meant that much
unnecessary waiting and work was caused.
At Ramburelles so as to evade the heat of the day the Battalion paraded at
7 a.m. for a four-hours' parade, and then left off until late in the
afternoon. This scheme worked well only in theory. A lot had to be done
out of parade hours, which meant that the officers and men were very much
overworked. Sunday brought no respite. The Sunday previous to leaving the
place, the men were engaged on a work of supererogation until 8-30 p.m.,
digging bombing trenches which were never used.
While at Ramburelles seaside leave was granted to some of the officers,
who were able to spend two or three days away from the Battalion and enjoy
for a while the comforts of a seaside town. One or two, acting in the
belief that the Battalion would not return to the fight for some time,
postponed their trip, and on the very day that they arrived at Delville
Wood they remembered that that was the day they should have been basking
in the sun at Le Treport. Such is the folly of procrastination. On the
28th August the command devolved on Major P.G.A. Lederer, M.C., as the
Commanding Officer had been evacuated sick. On the 30th August the
Battalion marched by a tortuous route to Pont Remy, where it entrained and
arrived next day at Méricourt. It eventually was installed in close
billets at Dernancourt for a few days.
On the 4th September the Battalion marched to Montauban. On the march
Major H.K.S. Woodhouse took over the command, and the officers were
introduced to him during the dinner halt. Montauban was not a very
pleasant place, particularly as the weather was rainy, and as the
companies were distributed among the field guns they came in for
considerable shell fire.
On the 7th September the Battalion moved up to the front positions between
Delville Wood and High Wood. The shell fire in this area was terrific. The
enemy guns never stopped firing day or night at the means of approach to
the Battalion's position along the side of Delville Wood. At night the
Battalion had to send working parties into the neutral ground between the
lines to dig what were somewhat incorrectly known as strong points. When
these were finished they were garrisoned by a platoon in each case. The
small garrisons of these strong points were quite cut off during the day
as no movement was possible on account of snipers. Food and water could
only be brought up at night, and were a man wounded he would have to
remain without attention until darkness. A prisoner was taken belonging to
the 5th Bavarian Regiment, which showed that the Bavarians were in line
opposite.
On the 9th there was a big attack by the British. The 16th Division
attacked on the right in front of Delville Wood, and the 1st Division on
the left, and consequently the Battalion was in the very centre of the
fight. The garrisons of the strong points being cut off as they were, did
not receive news of the attack. Suddenly in the afternoon after a
comparatively quiet morning the artillery on both sides became very
active, both the British and German artillery developing intense barrages.
To the men in the strong points this presaged an enemy attack, and the
order was given to be ready to fire the moment the enemy should come into
view. The members of these small garrisons knew there would be no hope for
them, as they would soon have been surrounded and annihilated, and most
probably all of them bayoneted. Fortunately the attack was by the British
and these eventualities did not arise. The Battalion was relieved during
the next two days and went into reserve at Buire-sur-Ancre. After a few
days here it moved to a bivouac area at E. 15 a., outside Dernancourt.
Though this was some considerable distance behind the front line the enemy
forced the Battalion to evacuate this area by firing at it with a
long-ranged gun. In the evening there was a cinema show in the open, at
which were shown pictures of the Somme Battle. It was very strange to see
the soldiers keenly interested in the pictures of what shell fire was like
when there were actual shells falling about half a mile away, and they had
been shelled out of their camp that very afternoon. The British Army had
made a successful attack on the 15th September, and on the 17th the
Battalion went into line again at Flers, where two miserable days were
spent in an incessant downpour of rain and very heavy shell fire. On
relief it came back to the transport lines at Pommier Redoubt.
On the 23rd the Battalion paraded, leaving behind its surplus personnel
and moved up to Flers for the attack. Orders were received the next day
that the attack was to take place on the 25th, and that zero was to be at
12-35 p.m. The objective allotted to the "Ninth" was from Seven Dials to
Factory Corner, which meant an advance of 1,000 yards. At 7-30 a.m. the
barrage commenced and lasted for hours, and increased in intensity as the
moment for the advance drew nearer. At zero the Battalion advanced in four
waves, the distance between the waves being 100 yards. The first wave had
to keep close to the creeping barrage of shrapnel. Of the last wave
scarcely a man survived, as it came in for the enemy barrage which the
leading waves had escaped. The bombers took an enemy strong point and
fought their way along Grove Alley and got to work with the bayonet,
inflicting many casualties on the enemy and taking several prisoners. This
was the first experience the men had of advancing under cover of a
creeping barrage of shrapnel and the first occasion that they saw tanks in
action. The attack was a great success and reflected no little credit on
the Battalion. Everyone of the Headquarters personnel present will
remember the Advanced Headquarters being blown up and the signallers and
runners sustaining many casualties. During the same evening two companies
of another unit came to the trench occupied by Headquarters. They tried to
enter the trench at the same spot and crowded close on each other. At this
time the enemy suddenly dropped four 5.9 shells among the crowded men.
Next morning forty-seven dead were counted.
The next day the Battalion was relieved, and by small stages the remnants
of the companies made their way to Buire-sur-Ancre. This was the
Battalion's last time in action on the Somme, and it presented a very
changed aspect to its first arrival on this battlefield. Companies were
reduced to the size of platoons, and platoons to sections or less. During
the battle about 650 casualties had been sustained, including fifteen
officers dead. This was a large incision into the fighting strength, and
it was a long time before these losses were made up.
For the Battalion the Somme Battle with its terrible holocausts, incessant
shell fire and continuous slaughter, was at an end, but there was no
respite for the weary soldier. There was to be no rest or period for
recuperation. The Regiment was ordered to Ypres immediately. Tired and
exhausted, the men were taken out of the Somme inferno, having lost many
of their comrades, and with weary bodies and heavy hearts they faced the
prospect of the untold terrors of the fatal city of Ypres.
The journey to Ypres was long. First the Battalion entrained at Méricourt
in the afternoon of Sunday the 1st October. At midnight the men detrained
at Longpré and marched to Cocquerel, arriving at 3 a.m. the next day. The
men then bivouacked until reveille at 6-30 a.m. At 8-30 a.m. the Regiment
was again on the march to Pont Remy, where it entrained for Esquelbecq,
where it arrived at 9-30 p.m., and marched to billets at Wormhoudt. Two
days were spent here, and this afforded the men the rest they so badly
needed. The state of the Battalion can be gauged from the fact that at
Wormhoudt only one company commander had a subaltern.
YPRES.
On the 4th October the Battalion entrained on a light railway, and soon
reached Poperinghe, where it remained until darkness and then entrained on
a broad gauge train at Poperinghe Station for Ypres. It was a new
experience for the men to be in a train and yet within range of the
enemy's artillery. The personnel detrained just by the railway station at
Ypres and went into billets close by. Little could be seen of the city in
the dark. Stillness pervaded the area that night, and after the Somme
Battle the quietness was uncanny.
The next day the men had an opportunity of seeing the city that had
suffered so much in the war. It must have been subjected to many a tornado
of shells, for there was not a single house untouched and very few had
roofs. A few shells fell in the Square during the morning, but that was
all. To the men it was a great relief to be in a quiet area after such a
place as the Somme. Ypres was not as bad as had been expected.
The trenches were to be taken over at once. The officers reconnoitred the
line during the afternoon, and towards evening the Battalion paraded and
marched along the Rue de Stuers, the Rue au Beurre, past the Cloth Hall,
through the Square, and the Menin Gate towards Potijze. Afterwards it took
over the sector from the Roulers Railway to Duke Street with Headquarters
in Potijze Wood. Four days only had elapsed since it had left the Somme
railhead. This area was to be the Battalion's battle station for several
months to come, and many times were the companies to repeat the journey
they had just completed. It was to take part in two big battles in the
vicinity and add greatly to its honours and leave many of its members
entombed in soldiers' graves in what was to be perhaps the biggest
graveyard of its kind in the world.
The Ypres sector was very quiet, but there was every danger of a gas
attack, and the Battalion received the strictest warnings from the
relieved unit, which had lost many men two months before through
inattention to precautionary measures. The first night that the Battalion
went into the line there was an alarm, but as the wind at the moment was
in a safe quarter its falsity was immediately recognised. The men at this
time had only the then out-of-date P.H. helmet. These helmets were changed
in the course of a week or two for the more efficacious box respirators,
which remained with slight modifications until the end of the war as the
soldiers' protection against enemy gas. The enemy artillery was very
quiet, and obviously the British had the artillery ascendancy, and it was
surmised that this was attributable to the fact that he had removed his
artillery to the Somme. The minenwerfers were active and so were the enemy
snipers. After a tour in the line the Battalion repaired to Ypres. A few
days afterwards it went to take over the "L" defences at Brielen, with
Headquarters in Elverdinghe Chateau. Only one tour was done here and the
Battalion then returned to Ypres. Until January it did three tours of duty
in the line, either in Ypres itself or the front line to one in reserve at
Brandhoek.
While in the front line the routine was practically the same as at Wailly,
but the conditions were different. In the Salient it was not possible to
dig deep trenches as the land was so low lying that water was met on
reaching a depth of about two feet. Trenches were not feasible, so it was
a case of breast-works. The defences therefore consisted of sand-bag
revetments held in position by wooden frames over which expanded metal had
been spread. These frames were called "A" frames or "Z" frames. The former
were used for preventing narrow ways from staving in, and the latter were
to face sand-bag walls. They were not easy to use and the men had to learn
how to fix them, and their employment entailed many long and tedious
carrying parties. The breast-works were divided into fire bays by
traverses which were situated every few yards. These fire bays, which were
all numbered, had firing platforms made of wood or well-revetted sandbags.
The parapet was sufficiently high to give good command over the ground in
front. During the winter it silted down and in many places it became not
even bullet-proof. The parados was fairly good, though in many places
there was none at all. For shelter the men had small recesses like dog
kennels in the parapet or parados; these were usually roofed by a sheet of
corrugated iron and were very small, uncomfortable, and infested with
rats. There were not sufficient shelters to accommodate all the men, and
the surplus had to sleep as best they could on the firing platform with
only greatcoats as coverings.
The men had endured much and many were war weary. They were tired of
fighting, and their former enthusiasm had cooled, especially as there was
no immediate prospect of a rapid termination of the war. Among those who
stood to arms in the whizz-banged trench in the cold raw hour of dawn were
many who had given up assured positions--skilled mechanics, master
printers, clerks, university men, solicitors, and others of several
professions and callings who had sacrificed their various situations and
appointments, and whose wives struggled on a very meagre separation
allowance. Fully aware were they also that while they were manning the
trench as infantrymen and receiving as remuneration a miserable pittance,
munition workers in England were receiving excessively high wages for
congenial work and enjoying freedom from all discomfort and danger of the
trenches.
The water-logged ground between the British and German lines was pitted
with shell holes and overgrown with rank grass and weeds. Numerous trees
lopped of their branches were still standing, while many others were lying
on the ground. Exactly half way across to the enemy lines were the remains
of what had been a moated farm, which was a favourite objective of
patrols. Railway Wood, which was situated on slightly higher ground on the
right of the Battalion's sector, was a minehead and in consequence the
scene of much activity. At one time there had been a wood, but so intense
had been the artillery fire that not a single tree or trunk higher than
three or four feet was left standing. Almost every afternoon, about 4-30
p.m., the usual trench mortar "strafe" would commence, and would last for
an hour or so. A few months later Railway Wood became a scene of much
mining activity, and mines and camouflets were sprung either by the
British or the Germans almost daily. In the Battalion area there was
situated what was known as Number 6 Crater, a deep mine crater half full
of water, and said to be then one of the largest in France. In the
vicinity of this crater there were some overhead traverses to prevent the
enemy snipers from enfilading the trench, probably constructed after
several casualties had been incurred.
Company headquarters were close to the front line, and never consisted of
anything more than a small shelter. The cooking was done in cook-houses in
the company areas, fatigue parties being detailed to bring up rations and
water in petrol tins. Battalion headquarters were housed in dugouts in the
wood adjoining the White Chateau at Potijze, in front of which was a large
cemetery. While in Ypres itself three companies were billeted in the
cellars of the gutted houses in the neighbourhood of the Boulevard Malou,
which was a better class district once inhabited by the more wealthy
citizens. Headquarters and one company were housed in the cellars of the
Ecole Moyenne, which was erroneously called the Convent. These billets
were not bad, though in many cases damp.
For the companies there was a parade in the morning, and every evening
several working parties paraded at the Convent, and marched out afterwards
through the Menin Gate for work in the Brigade area. The biggest working
party numbered 100. It moved off at 5-30 p.m., drew shovels, picks, and
gum boots at Potijze Dump, and then worked until almost midnight in
constructing Cambridge Trench. The work was inadequately supervised by the
Royal Engineers, who left the task to a second corporal and a few sappers,
and consequently little progress was made and most probably the trench was
never properly completed. The men had their last meal at 4-30 p.m., and as
a consequence they could not work with proper efficiency right up to
midnight. After a while they became very tired and were unable to
continue. As a considerable quantity of material was requisite to keep the
trenches in repair, large carrying parties were necessary. These could
have been to a large extent obviated had light Decauville railways been
constructed, such as the Germans were discovered later to have been using.
For the comfort of the men there was a Divisional canteen near the billets
in Ypres, and another in the Infantry Barracks. There was a recreation
room in the Prison, where Church parades were held later. There were also
baths in the Rue d'Elverdinghe, so that the men were able to keep clean.
During the day there was very little movement at Ypres, but at night this
was different, as the transport lorries had to bring up stores and
ammunition for the guns. They used to go through the city at a great pace
for fear of being caught by the enemy shell fire, and it is interesting to
record that on one occasion a complaint was made by the Battalion to the
effect that the streets were unsafe at night on this account. This of
course was in addition to the unsafety resulting from enemy fire.
When in reserve the Battalion was stationed at "B" Camp at Brandhoek, on
the Poperinghe-Ypres Road. Here the officers and men were accommodated in
very comfortable wooden huts, from which Poperinghe, with its shops and
cafes, could easily be reached. Attention should be directed to the
rigorous sanitary measures which obtained in this Corps, chiefly due to
the insistence of the Corps Commander. Great progress had been made in
this direction since the beginning of the war. Latrines and ablution
places were kept scrupulously clean. All rubbish was cast into the
incinerators, and billets had to be kept clean and tidy. On relief each
unit had to obtain a certificate from the relieving unit to the effect
that the billets had been left in a clean and sanitary condition. These
measures, though rigid, were beneficial and kept down sickness to a large
extent.
On Christmas day the Battalion was in Ypres, and one of the Churches in
the Boulevard Malou was decorated, and proved a useful dining room, in
which the men partook of a good Christmas dinner which was thoroughly
enjoyed. After the meal the Commanding Officer ascended into the pulpit
and treated the soldiers to an inspiring address, but it can be safely
assumed that the men enjoyed the meal much more than the lecture.
The New Year was heralded by an intense bombardment by the British, and in
anticipation of the enemy retaliation the front line was cleared, except
for the officer on watch, and Lewis gun teams. The line was badly knocked
about by the enemy fire, but was built up again by the Battalion in one
night.
In January the first Divisional rest for ten months commenced, and it was
spent by the Battalion first at "Z" Camp and then at Proven. The weather
at this time was intensely cold, and as the men in "Z" Camp had only
Nissen huts they suffered greatly in consequence. These huts were made of
unseasoned timber, and large gaps appeared in the floors through which the
cold east wind entered, reducing the temperature to a figure well below
zero.
The first week or so was devoted to training. There was a fear at this
time that the principles of open warfare might easily be forgotten during
the long periods of stagnation in the trenches. Consequently exercises in
open warfare were ordered by the Higher Command, and the Battalion carried
out several tactical schemes, and also some night operations. These latter
struck the men as rather unnecessary, as they had all been on night
patrols in the neutral ground between the lines, which after all was what
might be called the real thing. The other exercises were very beneficial,
as were also the attack practices which took place.
At Proven the men discovered that the term Divisional rest was a misnomer.
Reveille was before six, and in the dim light of the early morning, the
men had to wash and shave in icy cold water in the teeth of a bitter east
wind. There followed a meagre breakfast cooked on an unsheltered field
kitchen in the dark, and often in the rain. The men paraded at seven, and
went out on a working party for the rest of the day. Their tasks were to
load earth on railway trucks and then off-load it after a short train
journey, to serve as ballast for another portion of line that was in
course of construction. The earth was frozen several inches deep and it
was necessary to loosen it by means of a pick before it could be shovelled
on to the trucks. Towards the evening the men returned, cold, weary and
tired, to a draughty barn, with the dismal prospect of a similar day on
the morrow.
For the officers there was a lecture by the Commanding Officer on a
pamphlet recently brought out called "The Division in the Attack." The
lecture took place every evening at 5 p.m. in the village school, and this
meant that in many cases the officers were on duty for twelve hours
continuously. During the day time there was also a Lewis gun class for the
officers who were not on the working party, and they studied the weapon
assiduously. While at Proven the Battalion was visited, while working on
the railway, by Lord Wavertree, then Colonel Hall Walker, the Honorary
Colonel, to whom the officers were presented. It seemed a long time since
they had seen him last at Sailly Labourse, and his presence was very
welcome to all the old members.
An outbreak of scarlet fever prolonged the Battalion's stay for a few
days, but on the 23rd February it left Proven, detrained at the Asylum at
Ypres and moved into billets at the Prison, with two of the companies in
the Magazine. While in the Prison one of the officers facetiously remarked
that it was a much better gaol than he had been used to, and observed that
it was built on the panopticon principle. The next day the Battalion moved
to its old haunts at Potijze, and resumed duties as before. During this
tour Lieutenant-Colonel F.W.M. Drew took over the command in succession to
Lieutenant-Colonel Woodhouse. At this time so short was the Battalion of
officers that "D" Company had only one officer, who was the Company
Commander, and as his company was disposed partly in a sector of trench
known as X3, Potijze Defences, St. James' Trench and the Garden of Eden,
he had a good deal to do.
On the 4th March a successful raid took place on an enemy post opposite to
Number 5 Crater, in the vicinity of the Railway. The sentry post was in a
sap head around which the wire had been cut up by shell fire. A shrapnel
barrage was directed against the post for a few minutes, while the raiding
party was waiting in no man's land. The barrage lifted suddenly, and the
small raiding party rushed in and, taking the sentries by surprise,
secured them as prisoners. On the 19th March the enemy successfully raided
the Battalion, and unfortunately captured about ten prisoners. The plan
adopted was ingenious. The night had been exceptionally quiet, when
suddenly about half an hour before dawn the enemy opened with a barrage of
all calibres on the sector immediately on the left of the Battalion, with
the intention of diverting the attention of the British artillery to that
sector. The enemy raiding party meanwhile was lying in no man's land. The
enemy suddenly opened with a devastating fire on the Battalion's trenches
for a few minutes, lengthened the range, and under cover of this barrage
the raiding party entered and surprised the men in the front line. Orders
had lately been received that the officer on watch was not to fire the
S.O.S. signal to the artillery until he was sure that the enemy had left
their trenches. But as it was dark he could not ascertain this, and
consequently the signal was not fired. The Company Commander sent back the
S.O.S. signal, but the message was not delivered through the foolishness
of a signaller who was afraid to use the power buzzer, fearing that the
enemy might intercept the message. The Germans left one of their men dead
in the trench and another just in front of the parapet. This was an
incident which had to be avenged, and soon the Battalion by means of two
successful raids secured enough prisoners to equalize.
Towards the end of the month another raid was expected. To frustrate this
the Commanding Officer decided to have a body of about sixty men lying in
the middle of no man's land, in such a position that they would escape the
enemy barrage and intercept the raiding party and take them by surprise.
This was a sound scheme, but it was very exhausting for the men who had to
lie for four or five hours on the frozen ground. Moreover, the anticipated
raid did not eventualise.
The 13th March was the anniversary of the advent of the Battalion to
France, and as the Battalion was then at Brandhoek, the sergeants invited
the Commanding Officer and the remaining original officers who had landed
at Le Havre with the Battalion to attend a smoking concert. The officers
spent a short time at the concert, during which the usual eulogistic
speeches were made.
About this time the platoons were reorganised in accordance with a
training pamphlet that had lately been issued. Henceforth they were to
consist of a Lewis gun section, a section of bombers, another of rifle
grenadiers, and a fourth of rifle-men, and the men were taught the new
formation to be adopted for the attack which was known as the "Normal
Formation," one consisting of lines and waves of attackers.
In April, when the Battalion's turn came for a period in reserve, two
companies had to remain in Ypres to assist the Royal Engineers with
working parties, so that the personnel of these companies missed their
period of rest. At this time one of these companies had its headquarters
in a house in a terrace called the Place d'Amour. In the gardens of the
houses a battery of field guns was installed, and there was another just
close by. The headquarters of these two batteries were also in the Place
d'Amour--one on each side of the infantry company headquarters. One
morning the enemy decided to annihilate one of the batteries and commenced
to fire ranging shots over the terrace. The artillerymen knew what was
coming, and told everyone to leave the billets, but to uphold the honour
of the infantry, the men refused to leave the billets until after the
gunners had evacuated the position. They got away just in time.
On the 17th April the Battalion moved to the Ecole, a place outside the
city on the east, which had apparently been a large technical school, and
after a few days here it moved to Railway Wood sector where things were
very active. After a tour here and a few days in reserve it returned to
Potijze sector once more. On the 11th May a very successful night raid was
carried out by two officers and forty other ranks on Oskar Farm. Under
cover of a barrage two parties entered the enemy positions. Some Germans
were found in a dugout, which was then bombed and six Germans surrendered.
A small bombing party was counter-attacked by six Germans, and the
sergeant in command shot three and bayoneted one, while the other two
escaped. The War Diary states that on the way back some of the prisoners
became unruly and were effectively dealt with, which means that they were
killed. At least ten Germans were killed besides those in the dugout that
was bombed. The prisoners belonged to the 1st Matrosen Regiment of the
German Naval Division.
On the 17th May the Battalion went to Bollezeele, where it remained for a
month. This was a clean, well-built village, where the men were very
comfortable. The training ground was about an hour's march away, and so
the Battalion paraded in the main street every morning with the drummers
in the centre, and marched to the training ground where the companies were
placed at the disposal of their commanders for drill and instruction. A
meal was taken at noon and when the afternoon's work was done the
Battalion reformed and marched back to billets. The weather at this time
was very fine. Never had the men witnessed such beautiful blue skies, and
scarcely a drop of rain marred the stay in the village. The Brigade sports
were held early in June, and the Battalion did very well in the military
contests, winning three out of four events, but unfortunately not quite
so well in the others.
On the 11th June the Battalion left Bollezeele, and early the next morning
arrived at Ypres, and immediately went to the usual sector at Potijze. As
the shell fire in this area had become much more severe of late, to move
troops through Ypres or even around it was done at great risk, and all
were glad when the move was over.
By a chain of unfortunate circumstances, leave for officers had been very
slow. In January it had been stopped as it was considered necessary for
the officers to be with their men during training while out of line.
Difficulties of transport brought about the closing of leave from January
to June. It opened again in June, but as all could not go at once it
happened that some officers did not get leave for nine or ten months.
After a few days in Potijze sector the Battalion sidestepped to the
Wieltje sector. The tour here was characterised by intense enemy artillery
activity. Heavy batteries constantly countered each other, and day and
night were punctuated by cannonades of varying intensity. Ypres itself was
shelled by the celebrated 420 m.m. Skoda howitzer. The enemy drenched the
area with the old lachrymatory gas shells, as well as a new gas he had
lately introduced known as "Yellow Cross" or "Mustard" gas. Bilge Trench
came in for special attention, and on one day it was estimated that 1,200
heavy shells fell in its vicinity.
It was a time of great aerial activity also. Richthoven and his squadron
visited the sector quite frequently--generally in the early morning--and
fired machine guns at the men in the trenches. His squadron could be
easily distinguished, as the bodies of the aeroplanes were painted red.
Also they flew very low, and the anti-aircraft gunners did not dare to
fire, leaving it to the infantrymen to defend themselves with Lewis guns
as best they could.
During the tour in Wieltje the Battalion dug Hopkin's Trench in no man's
land, under machine gun, granatenwerfer and rifle-grenade fire, which were
the cause of several casualties. Fortunately there was a very good mined
dugout at Wieltje containing many rooms which were lighted by electricity.
The shelter it afforded reduced considerably the number of casualties that
would otherwise have taken place, and it was a pity that there were not
more like it.
Though very good work was done by the companies during these months of
trench duty, it should be remembered that perhaps the most dangerous task
was the bringing up of rations and water. Ypres was approachable from
Poperinghe by one road only, along which came almost all the supplies for
the troops in the Salient. From a point on the road called Shrapnel
Crossing to the city it was within convenient range of the enemy
artillery, and being well aware that the road was much used at night, the
enemy subjected it to considerable fire, and caused casualties nightly.
Once arrived in Ypres the Battalion transport had to pass the Square and
the Menin Gate, which were well known danger points, where there was no
cover, and then proceed to Potijze along a road that could easily be
enfiladed by the enemy gunners. No matter how heavy was the enemy shelling
there was no night on which the transport section failed to deliver the
rations.
At the beginning of July the Battalion went to Moringhem to prepare for
the great battle. This was a very small hamlet, and there must have been
a great concentration of troops in the Pas de Calais, as this little
place had to accommodate two battalions. The men were placed under canvas,
and some of the officers lived in tents, while the remainder were
accommodated in billets. The training was mainly devoted to the attack.
The British and the enemy trenches were taped out on some cornfields, in
propinquity to the hamlet, and the forthcoming attack was rehearsed time
and time again by all the battalions in the Brigade. Great attention was
paid to synchronisation of watches, and the immediate reporting of all
information. Maps and aeroplane photographs of the ground were studied
with meticulous care, and a model of the Battalion's sector over which it
was to attack, showing Uhlan Farm, Jasper and Plum Farms, Pommern Castle,
and Pommern Redoubt, was constructed outside the camp to explain the lie
of the ground to the men. Tanks were represented by half limbers during
these practices, and the shrapnel barrage by drums.
During the stay at Moringhem the officers were able to ride into St. Omer
on one or two occasions, and there dine at the restaurants, where a
welcome change in their usual menu was obtainable.
THE THIRD BATTLE OF YPRES.
On the 21st July the Battalion left Moringhem, and once more found itself
at "B" Camp at Brandhoek. This was a very different place from what it had
been during the winter, and being full of troops, the Battalion had only
one-third of its former area in which to accommodate itself. Anti-aircraft
batteries, tunnelling companies, transport lines, field hospitals, and
observation balloons were everywhere.
The training was complete. Everyone knew the orders and it was merely a
case of waiting for "Z" day, the day of the attack. On the 29th July,
which turned out to be "X" day, the fighting personnel left Brandhoek, and
moved to Durham Redoubt, an area just west of Ypres, where the men
bivouacked for the night. The next day illuminating flares, iron rations,
spare water-bottles, bombs, and maps were given to the men.
Though all knew the rôle of the Battalion and its allotted objectives, no
one in the Battalion knew the extent of the attack, or which divisions
were attacking, or what was to happen if all objectives were captured. It
was believed that if the attack succeeded, there were other divisions in
rear ready to exploit the success. Wild rumours began to filter through.
One of the most prevalent was that eighty mines would be sprung at zero,
and this was inspiring to all, and infused new courage into the men.
Towards evening the companies left the area, and slowly in the darkness
moved via the Plaine d'Amour past the Dixmude Gate and the Dead End to
Oxford Trench, where they took up a position and waited. This waiting was
very unpleasant, as the enemy was obviously expecting an attack and
shelled the whole area almost all night. There was little shelter, as the
trench was shallow and wide, and several were wounded before the fight
commenced.
The objective allotted to the Battalion consisted of a section of the
enemy second line called the "Stutzpunkt" Line, comprising Pommern Redoubt
(called "Gartenhof" by the Germans) to Bank Farm, known to the enemy as
"Blucher." The distance of the objective from the Battalion's zero
position was approximately a mile and a half, which was at that period of
the war a big distance to be called upon to cover in one day.
Two hours before zero it became known that the artillery was firing gas
shells on the enemy batteries, so that at zero the enemy would not be able
to work their guns. The drone of the gas shells passing overhead, and the
knowledge of this device on the part of the British artillery, was very
reassuring to the waiting troops.
For a few minutes before zero all was tranquil, and the men were quietly
waiting. Zero was at 3-50 a.m., at which hour it was quite dark. Suddenly
there was heard the firing of an 18-pounder battery. It was a battery
firing just a second or two early. There followed a deafening roar. All
the guns had fired together, and their shells were racing across the sky.
A sheet of flame covered the enemy trenches. The fight had begun. The men
rose from their positions slowly and went over the top to the front line,
where according to plan they waited twenty-five minutes. The advance then
continued. They should have advanced in waves, but that was impossible
over the shell-cratered ground, as the going over the churned-up earth was
very difficult, particularly in view of the heavy loads the men carried.
All cohesion was soon lost, and the men sauntered forward in little groups
endeavouring as best they could to keep the proper direction. No one knew
what was happening. After passing the enemy front line all danger from his
barrage was over, but his machine guns were active, and every now and then
a man dropped--in many cases not to rise again. At length the river
Steenbeek was reached. Numbers were few and hopes of success were rapidly
vanishing. How the fight had progressed on the right or left no one knew.
In front was a strong position on the other side of the Steenbeek Valley,
which turned out ultimately to be Bank Farm.
The enemy in the dim light was firing his machine guns and causing
casualties, but with a final rush the men were in the centre of a German
strong point. The companies were weak, one consisting of only a dozen men
or so, and the Germans were in occupation of the position as well, and
fired coloured lights to encourage the support of their artillery. They
were dealt with by the bombers, and one sensible private, who soon used up
all his available bombs found a store of German bombs, which he employed
to advantage. About the same time another party of the Battalion captured
Pommern Redoubt, while the 7th King's on the right got into Pommern
Castle. In all about eighty prisoners were taken, which considerably
exceeded the numbers of the men that first dashed up to the objective. The
prisoners belonged to the infantry regiments of the 235th Division, and a
few of them were artillerists belonging to the 6th Feldartillerie
Regiment.
The taking of Pommern Redoubt was specially commented upon in the Dispatch
of Sir Douglas Haig dealing with this battle, though the Redoubt fell much
earlier than was therein stated.
Among the dugouts several things were found, such as field glasses,
medical apparatus, rifles, bombs, and so on. In one was a store of bottles
of aerated water. In another there was a store of rations which were
ultimately consumed, and strange to relate, in one dugout there was a copy
of a recent number of the "Tatler."
The position was consolidated, trenches were dug and manned by the men. A
captured German machine gun was turned round and got into action. Four or
five hours after the capture of the Stutzpunkt position another brigade
continued the attack, but though the efforts of its members were
successful at first they had in consequence of their exposed flanks to
retire at nightfall, and the Battalion was then holding the line without
anyone in front. Rain commenced to fall, and the ground having been
churned up by countless shells, the whole area soon became dissolved into
a morass of spongy earth pitted with innumerable shell craters half full
of water. The trenches that had been dug soon filled, and the men were wet
through. They were utterly exhausted, and some of them had to get what
sleep they could, huddled up in these wet trenches, with their feet
several inches deep in water.
Cooking was impossible, and it was only with the greatest difficulty that
any food at all could be supplied to the men in the advanced positions.
Added to this was the fact that the enemy artillery was exceedingly
active, and the shells killed many in the exposed trenches. The British
heavy artillery also fired short, which had a most demoralising effect on
the men in front.
On the 2nd August it became known that the enemy intended definitely to
recapture the Stutzpunkt line. The men were informed of this, and told to
resist to the last. All available men were sent up from the transport
lines to reinforce the men in front. These reinforcements suffered
considerably from shell fire on the way up, but their advent inspired and
cheered the weary men who had been through the whole fight, and whose
rifles were in many cases so choked with mud as to be unserviceable.
Towards midday the enemy developed a heavy barrage. He was about to
attack, and everyone was waiting for the anticipated onslaught without
fear, as all felt that any counter-attack would be repulsed with great
loss. The S.O.S. signal and machine guns were ready, but the artillery
observer saw the enemy first, and the artillery barrage of the British
soon dispersed the attack.
Owing to the insufficiency of the number of surviving stretcher bearers,
the evacuation of the wounded was exceedingly difficult. These were
collected in a dugout at Bank Farm, where they lay for a long time after
having received some slight attention. Two wounded Germans whom the
stretcher bearers had been unable to clear were handed over to the
relieving unit. The Battalion Aid Post was at Plum Farm, where the Medical
Officer and his staff worked to the limit of their powers in attending and
evacuating wounded.
Major E.G. Hoare, who was in command of the Battalion during the
operation, wrote a poem which describes the conditions of the Ypres
battle, and it is here given in full:--
THE VALLEY OF THE SHADOW.
31ST JULY, 1917.
Down in the valley the Steenbeek flows,
A brook you may cross with an easy stride,
In death's own valley between the rows
Of stunted willows on either side.
You may cross in the sunshine without a care,
With a brow that is fanned by the summer's breath.
Though you cross with a laugh, yet pause with a prayer,
For this is the Vale of the Shadow of Death.
Down in the valley was rain and rain,
Endless rain from a dismal sky,
But the valley was Liberty's land again,
And the crest-line smoked like a Sinai.
Rain that beat on the tangled mass
Of weeds and pickets and broken wire,
And astride the stream was a brown morass,
In the valley of water and mud and fire.
Down in the valley the barrage fell,
Fountains of water and steel and smoke,
Scream of demons and blast of hell,
The flash that blinds and the fumes that choke.
The mud and the wire have chained the feet,
You are up to the knees in swamp and slime,
There's a laugh when the crossing is once complete,
But a setting of teeth for the second time.
Down in the valley the shambles lay
With the sordid horrors of hate revealed,
Tattered khaki and shattered grey
And the splintered wrecks of a battlefield.
Thank God for the end that is sure and swift,
For the fate that comes with a leap and bound,
But what if God leaves you alone to drift
To the lingering death in the pestilent ground?
Up on the slope was a line hard pressed
By bullets and shells and relentless strain,
An enemy massing behind the crest
And a trench that crumbled in fire and rain.
Sleepless, shelterless, night and day,
Drenched and weary and sniped and shelled,
The word was given that come what may
The line must hold, and the line was held.
But all who pass to the crumbling trench
Must go in the spirit that games with fate,
With feet that stumble and teeth that clench
Over the valley of hell and hate.
Over the knees in water and mud,
Up to the waist if you miss the track,
You shall know your path by the trail of blood,
And silent figures shall guide you back.
Down in the valley the waters flow,
You may jump the brook with an easy stride,
They cross it in silence, they who know
What happened that day upon either side.
In the voice of the brook are their comrades' tones,
In the summer's breeze they shall feel their breath,
For under the grass we have laid their bones,
Here in the Vale of the Shadow of Death.[A]
[Footnote A: Copied by permission from "Dawn and Other Poems" by
Lieut.-Colonel E. Godfrey Hoare, D.S.O. Publishers: Erskine Macdonald,
Limited.]
The Battalion was relieved on the night of the second-third, and the men
drifted down in small parties through the mud to Potijze. Some hours were
spent here, during which several casualties took place, as the enemy
subjected the area to the fire of 8-inch shells. Towards evening the men
were told to rendezvous at Vlamertinghe. There was no need to pay much
attention to the means of getting there. That could be left to the men
themselves. Everyone was ready to give them a lift, for their muddy
appearance showed that they had just been in the fight, and consequently
practically all arrived in motor lorries. At Vlamertinghe, rum was issued
and later all embussed for the Watou area, which they reached shortly
after midnight. After debussing there was a short march to billets. For
some even this was too much, and about thirty were unable to walk, and had
to be sent to hospital. The remaining men were put into billets, and at
4-30 a.m. the officers sat down to dinner, the first proper meal they had
had for several days. Afterwards they lay down to sleep for six or seven
hours.
What had been done by the Battalion during the last few days, at the
commencement of the struggle for Passchendaele, was then perhaps the
greatest achievement the Battalion had accomplished. Undoubtedly it had
done well, and the following message was received from the Brigade
Commander:--
To Officer Commanding,
9th King's Liverpool Regt.
Will you please congratulate all ranks of your Battalion on
the great gallantry they displayed during the recent
operations? They not only captured all their objectives, but
also helped other troops to capture theirs. The magnificent
way in which they captured the position and held it against
all counter-attacks makes me very proud to have such a
Battalion in my Brigade.
L. BOYD MOSS,
Brigadier General,
165th Brigade.
4th August, 1917.
On the 6th August the Battalion was taken by train to Audruicq, and
billeted near by in a hamlet called Blanc Pignon, where the next six weeks
were spent. The troops were well housed in this place, which was very
clean in comparison with the other villages in which the Battalion
sojourned from time to time. Each man was given a new suit, deficiencies
in kit were made up, and the companies soon began to resume their normal
appearance. Leave opened, and it was possible for those who wished to have
day trips to Calais, and one or two of the more fortunate managed to get
seaside leave at Paris Plage or Wimereux. The time spent at Blanc Pignon
passed without special incident, except that one night there was a bombing
raid by which the Germans obviously hoped to blow up the ammunition dump
which was in close proximity to the billets. Fortunately, although many
were dropped, not one of the bombs was effective enough to explode the
ammunition. During the raid a large Gotha aeroplane was caught in the beam
of one of the searchlights, and this was the first occasion the men saw
this particular type of machine.
Despite the training the men had undergone before the battle, there was a
good deal of time devoted to field work, as in view of the experience
gained and the lessons learned in the recent attack new tactics had to be
evolved. Until the Third Battle of Ypres, the chief obstacles to the
advance of the British had been the German wire entanglements. The fuses
on the British shells had always permitted the shells to bury themselves
to some extent before exploding. This meant that a crater was formed, and
though the enemy wire in the immediate vicinity of the crater would be
destroyed, the obstacle effect of the whole entanglement remained almost
in its entirety. A new fuse which was known as No. 106 was introduced in
1917, by means of which the shells would explode instantaneously on
impact, and the splinters would destroy the wire over a much bigger area
than had formerly been the case. The artillery could now ensure the proper
cutting of the enemy wire entanglements, and it had been anticipated that
in the attack of the 31st July the troops would not encounter serious
obstacles in the way of wire entanglements, particularly as they were to
be supported by tanks. It is true the artillery had cut the wire, but
several units had nevertheless been held up. The Germans had anticipated
to some extent the British methods of attack and invented a system of
defence to meet it.
The Commander of the Fourth German Army which was defending the Ypres
sector, Infantry General Sixt von Arnim, was a commander of high standing,
inasmuch as the British Higher Command had thought fit to publish some
observations of his on the Somme Battle. In the Ypres sector he had
adopted the plan of holding the forward zone with few troops well disposed
in depth, with strong reserves in rear which could be used for an
immediate counter-attack before the British could consolidate any
positions they had won. His advanced troops were carefully echeloned in
fortified farms, each strongly concreted and armed with several machine
guns. The advantage of this scheme was that it afforded few definite
targets to the British artillery, and gave every opportunity to the
Germans to ambush and enfilade advancing British infantry. Tanks were of
little avail against these block-houses, which in reality formed a belt of
small fortresses which could only be overpowered one by one. At any rate
they could easily break up the force of an attack, and inflict a large
number of casualties at a small loss. The reserves could then be used to
counter-attack the British before they had properly put the positions won
into a state of defence. Such a method of defence was indeed a difficult
obstacle to the advance, and its efficacy had been learnt at great cost in
the last fight. This system of defence meant that new tactics had to be
evolved to combat such a scheme. The German method of defence was
explained in printed sheets and the explanations were retailed to the men.
In the numerous tactical schemes and attack practices that took place the
men were taught to encircle enemy strong points rapidly and close in on
them. These exercises were supervised by the Divisional Commander in
person.
While in this area another Divisional horse show took place, the third to
which the Battalion had sent entries. It was rather a good show, and there
was some very fine jumping, in which Belgian cavalry officers took part.
The Battalion secured two first prizes for a water cart and limbered
wagon, two second prizes and two third prizes. It obtained the third place
in the Division for the total number of marks gained.
All good times come to an end and the 14th September was the Battalion's
last day at Blanc Pignon. The occasion was marked by great festivities,
and most of the men apparently consumed large quantities of beer. For this
they could not be blamed as they were going into action, and might never
survive to indulge so freely again. The next day the Battalion moved by
train to Vlamertinghe, where the men bivouacked in the open, having for
shelter large bivouac sheets.
The orders were that surplus personnel had to be left here, and all the
officers who had taken part in the Battle of the 31st July were, with one
exception, left behind. On the 17th the Battalion moved up from
Vlamertinghe to Ypres, turned left at the Water Tower, skirted the Plaine
d'Amour and proceeded along No. 5 Track to the neighbourhood of Warwick
Farm. The next day the Battalion headquarters and two companies moved up
to Bank Farm and took over the front shell crater position. Though two big
attacks had taken place since the Battalion was last in this area, the
front line was approximately in the same place as when the Battalion had
left it in the early days of August. A fortified farm called Somme had
been captured, and that was about all. Hill 35 was still in possession of
the enemy. The Battalion with its sister regiments in the Brigade was to
succeed where others had failed.
The Battalion held the shell crater position from the evening of the 18th,
and it was obvious that the enemy expected an attack as he searched the
whole area with heavy artillery fire at dawn on the 19th.
The two remaining companies moved up after nightfall on the 19th. It
commenced to rain and the difficulties of placing the men in their proper
places were great. The night was black and there was nothing by which one
could locate oneself. After several hours a tape was placed along the line
of shell craters to serve as a jumping off mark along which the men were
duly aligned.
The _rôle_ of the Battalion was to capture Hill 35 and Gallipoli, which
was a strongly fortified centre of resistance in such a position, situated
on rising ground, that it commanded a large area to the north. After its
capture other units in the Brigade were to pass through the Battalion and
continue the attack. The distance of the attack by the Battalion was from
four to five hundred yards, and it was to be made in four waves, a company
to each wave. It was anticipated that though the position might be fairly
easily captured the enemy would make a desperate effort to dislodge the
attackers.
The attack was evidently anticipated, as the enemy shell fire for a few
minutes before zero was particularly heavy. Meanwhile the British
artillery maintained a silence in which the gunners were able to prepare
for the impending barrage. Zero was at 5-40 a.m., and at that time
suddenly there opened an enormous crescendo of fire from the British guns,
together with a machine gun barrage, which latter some attributed
erroneously to the enemy. At this time it was fairly light, and one could
see from a hundred and fifty to two hundred yards, quite light enough to
enable the German machine gunners to inflict many casualties.
Owing to the fact that the men had to jump off from shell craters, and
many were anxious to advance quickly so as to evade the enemy shell fire,
and that there was some mixing of units, the waves were somewhat confused.
The German artillery was ready and intensified its fire. The enemy machine
gunners opened fire at once and the attackers began to fall almost as soon
as the attack was commenced.
On the right of Hill 35 the Germans had manned a derelict tank and could
not be dislodged. Even though surrounded they did not surrender for some
time. The men, however, pressed gallantly forward and eventually got as
far as Gallipoli Farm. The Germans here were very stout hearted and
refused to surrender. One had a machine gun on top of a concrete dugout
and, for some reason or other, perhaps excitement, the men could not bring
him down. Following the brilliant example of one of the company
commanders, the men eventually closed in and after a fierce hand to hand
encounter, in which bomb and bayonet were freely used, the place fell.
On Hill 35 a 90 m.m. field gun of an old pattern manufactured by Krupps
was captured, and altogether eight heavy and light machine guns fell into
the hands of the Battalion. About forty prisoners were taken belonging
chiefly to the 2nd Reserve Division of the Prussian Guards. The enemy
machine guns were soon turned round and got into action against the
Germans by those of the men who understood their use.
Towards 5-30 p.m. in the evening the enemy opened fire with a heavy
barrage of all calibres. The fire was particularly intense at Gallipoli
Farm, where the company commander had himself relieved the sentry on
look-out at his headquarters, until he was blown almost senseless by the
violence of the concussion of a shell which burst almost on top of him.
Afterwards the Germans advanced, but they were seen by the men and
repulsed by machine gun fire. A party of Germans was observed carrying a
stretcher and a white flag. It was a favourite device of the enemy to
pretend that they were carrying a stretcher when they were actually
carrying a machine gun, and in consequence this particular party was soon
dispersed.
Towards dark on the 21st the enemy put down another heavy barrage on the
line of Somme Farm. He was apparently delivering another counter-attack.
After it had been kept up some time great consternation prevailed at
Battalion headquarters. No word had been received from the troops in
front. Perhaps the enemy had captured the front positions, and that the
line was lost. The barrage was still intense, and anyone who should dare
to advance through it would expect to meet with almost certain death. Yet
some one had to go to ascertain if all was well or ill. The Commanding
Officer made arrangements to burn all papers and told everyone they must
fight to the last where they stood. The Second in Command ultimately
managed to get to Somme Farm and came back with the information that all
was well, which was of inestimable worth, for had the British barrage
lines been withdrawn, as had been suggested, the troops in front would all
have been sacrificed.
On the 22nd September the Battalion was relieved. The greatest care was
taken to get the captured machine guns that were not needed for the
defence back to the transport lines. They were collected at Battalion
headquarters and carefully escorted to the neighbourhood of the old
British front line near Potijze, where they were met by the transport
officer, and duly delivered to Divisional headquarters.
Having been relieved the men made their way back in small parties to
Vlamertinghe, where the night was spent. The next day the Battalion moved
by train to a camp by Watou. Two or three days were spent here, and then
the Battalion detrained to go down south to join General Byng's Third
Army.
LEMPIRE.
The train journey lasted all day and the Battalion detrained at Bapaume,
and by a night march on a bright moonlight night marched to a Nissen hut
camp between Barastre and Haplincourt, where it sojourned for a few days.
During this time a few of the non-commissioned officers were able to visit
the Somme battlefield, and locate a few of the graves of the men who had
fallen a little over twelve months ago. A day's march on the 1st October
brought the Battalion to Aizecourt-le-Bas, and after a night's rest it
proceeded to St. Emilie, where the men were billeted amid the ruins of
what had formerly been a sugar factory. During the march it was made
plainly evident to all with what thoroughness the work of destruction had
been carried out by the Germans. The villages were not merely in ruins.
Every house and every room had been rendered useless as a billet or
shelter of any kind. The cellars had been filled with stones or refuse,
so that even these were of no use. The trees had all been wantonly
destroyed. Even small fruit trees of only a few years' growth did not
escape the axe. The wells had all been blown in, and in many cases they
were poisoned as well. The churches were treated exactly the same as the
houses. The whole region was desolate. There were no civilian inhabitants,
and soldiers were the only occupants of this wilderness.
After a few days in the Sugar Factory the Battalion moved to the forward
positions at Lempire. This sector was very different from any sector the
Battalion had occupied. There was no trench system comprising front and
support trenches. The front was held by means of isolated posts occupied
by a platoon or a company as the case might be, and these posts were
linked up by means of communication trenches, so that they could be
visited. There being little artillery on either side, the whole sector was
very quiet, and as the lines were far apart there was little sniping.
The Battalion did one tour in Cat, Fleeceall and Grafton Posts in front of
Lempire, and then moved up to the Ossus sector. Though the Germans had
destroyed all buildings behind the British line, the buildings behind the
German lines were intact, and the men experienced the unpleasant sight of
the comfortable chateaux and houses in which the German troops were
billeted when they themselves were very badly off in this respect.
Three companies had been in the front in the Lempire position, and as
three companies were necessary to take over the Ossus sector, one company
had to do two successive tours. It was a poor relief to have to move from
one portion of the front line to another, especially as this company had
only one subaltern. The sector held by the Battalion was roughly 2,000
yards, and consequently the three front companies each had from six to
seven hundred yards. The trench strength of the companies was somewhere
between eighty and ninety, the numbers not having been made up after the
Ypres casualties, and consequently there was a great amount of work for
everyone to do.
On the 18th the Battalion moved to reserve at Vaughan's Bank by Epéhy,
from whence on the 22nd it moved into reserve at Tincourt. The American
Railway Engineers had constructed a light railway from Epéhy to Tincourt,
and they expressed their readiness to convey the Battalion there by rail.
Their offer was gladly accepted, and the Battalion duly arrived at the
station and entrained. There was a slight incline to commence and the
numbers that arrived exceeded the haulage capacity of the only serviceable
locomotive at the station, and consequently no progress was made. As there
was no telegraph a message had to be sent on foot for another engine,
which came along after a long wait, and eventually a start was made. The
couplings were bad and the train soon broke into three portions. As the
way was downhill the various sections glided down to the next station
independently. Here there was another train and a loop line, and it also
happened that one train was too long for the loop. Nothing daunted, the
railway engineers indulged in a considerable amount of shunting, and
decided to take a portion of the waiting train back with the troop train.
All went well until the next incline was reached. There was a great strain
on the engine, but eventually after charging the hill three or four times,
accompanied by much racing of engines and skidding of wheels, the top was
reached, and the Battalion got to Tincourt having taken on the journey
twice the time it would have taken to march the distance.
At Tincourt a pleasant week was spent, after which the Battalion returned
to the Birdcage sector, the portion of which immediately in front of Eagle
Quarry was the scene of much minenwerfer activity.
THE BATTLE OF CAMBRAI.
No particularly arduous duty was assigned to the Battalion in connection
with the operations on the 20th November. To divert the attention of the
enemy from other troops who were attacking the Knoll, a few hundred yards
on the right, the Battalion was ordered to place a dummy tank and dummy
men out in no man's land in front of the vicinity of the Birdcage, and
shortly after zero these were put in operation by means of wires.
Naturally the Battalion came in for a good deal of the retaliatory fire of
the enemy, but few casualties took place. Incidentally the enemy claimed
to have repulsed an attack on this front, from which it follows that the
dummies had been efficacious.
The Germans had been driven back by the surprise attack of the British,
and Cambrai was nearly reached. The fighting died down in a few days, but
on the 30th Cavalry General von der Marwitz delivered his counter-attack.
He selected not the apex of the salient that had been driven into the
German line, but the portion of the line to the south of it, which was so
weakly held. On the morning of the 30th the Battalion was in support to
the 165th Brigade in some dugouts in Lempire.
A warning had been received during the course of the night that an enemy
attack was imminent, and the order was given to "stand to" well before
dawn. At "stand to" all was perfectly quiet. The expected attack had not
developed. The men stood down and a normal day was anticipated. At
breakfast time there sounded a heavy barrage a mile or two to the north,
and afterwards shells began to fall in the village. Large gas shells were
creating a cloud near by, and a rumour came that the Germans had broken
through at the Birdcage. The troops had such confidence in the other
battalions in the Brigade that the rumour was not believed. Later a
message came from Headquarters that the line further north had broken.
Lempire must be held at all costs, and the Battalion was ordered to dig a
line running east and west on the high ground to the north of the village,
so as to command the ground as far as Holt's Bank. This was then in the
possession of the Germans, who were within a few hundred yards of Epéhy,
and if this latter place had fallen the Battalion would have been in great
danger of being surrounded. The men dug in under shell fire, and in full
view of the enemy, while a large squadron of enemy aeroplanes circled
overhead, and turned their machine guns on the men as they were digging.
Fortunately few casualties were incurred. In the afternoon one company was
sent to form a defensive flank at Priel Bank, and another to reinforce the
6th Liverpool Rifles at Cruciform Post. On the 2nd December the Battalion
took over from the 6th Liverpools, and had the task of putting the line
from Heythrop Post, Cruciform Post, to Priel Bank in a state of defence.
These places were almost isolated during the day, and it was only at great
risk that they could be visited. The post at Catelet Copse was almost a
bait to the enemy, one of whom walked up to it. Even the Battalion
headquarters at F.4. Central were under close rifle fire. In fact there
were no troops in front of Headquarters, and it can be said that on this
occasion the Battalion headquarters were in the front line.
On the 5th December the Battalion was relieved by a battalion from
Brigadier-General Ramsay's 48th Brigade, and he visited his former command
next morning at St. Emilie. Of the officers that had served under him in
the 1st Division, only two then remained, and they were pleased to see
their former commanding officer once more. That day the Battalion went by
motor lorry to billets in Péronne, where four days were spent. A few
civilians had returned to this ruined town, and had opened shops at which
fish and vegetables could be bought. These civilians were much impressed
by the nightly retreat sounded by the bugles and drums which had attained
a high pitch of efficiency. A long tedious railway journey on the 10th
brought the Battalion to Maroeuil. The night was spent in "Y" hutments,
and it then entered General Horne's First Army.
It left Maroeuil on the 12th and marched to Bailleul-aux-Cornailles, a
village it was to visit later in August, 1918. The next day Eps was
reached, and on the following day the Battalion arrived at its destination
at Lisbourg, where it was to remain until the end of January, which meant
a six week's rest.
Here the men were billeted in the peasants' byres, which were in rather a
dilapidated condition. The training was chiefly devoted to musketry. The
bomb had gone out of fashion, and it was realised that the principal
weapon of the infantryman was the rifle. According to the orders of the
Divisional Commander each company built a thirty yards' range for itself,
and a two hundred yards' range was allotted to the Battalion. Snow fell
but that made no difference to the training programme. The men had to lie
on the frozen snow to fire the various practices, and bearing in mind that
the rifles were very cold to handle, the results attained were excellent.
Christmas was spent here, and the Christmas dinner which took place in the
school and a large barn was a great success, and demonstrated the good
feeling that existed between the officers and men. A few days afterwards
the Battalion was visited by Lieutenant-Colonel Luther Watts, O.B.E.,
V.D., the Town Major of St. Pol, and who had commanded the Battalion prior
to the war, and at Dunfermline and Tunbridge Wells. Those of the officers
and men who had served under him in England were pleased to see their
former commanding officer once more.
While at Lisbourg efforts were made to induce the men to invest in War
Saving Certificates. At first they were somewhat reluctant, saying that
they did not wish to hand back their pay which they had earned. Lectures
on the subject were delivered to them, and when the scheme was fully
explained, and they understood the necessity for money in order to carry
on the war, they readily responded, and over £1,000 was subscribed by the
officers and men, which was the highest figure attained in the Division.
This was an achievement of which the Battalion was justly proud, and shows
the keenness and interest the men displayed in their Regiment, and the
cause for which they were fighting.
In consequence of the reduction of the number of infantry battalions in
the organisation of the British division from twelve to nine, the "first
ninth" being the junior battalion in the Brigade was split up. A selected
party of the officers and men was detailed for the second line Battalion,
and they were regarded with envy by the less fortunate. The remainder was
split up into drafts for the 1st, 4th, and 12th King's. The day of the
break up was a very sad one indeed. To a soldier his regiment is his home,
and to be called upon to leave it, to sever his friendships and to lose
his comrades of many a tragic day is for him very bitter. It is not untrue
to say that as the drafts were leaving and comrades were saying "Goodbye,"
several of the soldiers, who had braved nearly inconceivable terrors, were
almost in tears. As was feared at the time the "Goodbye" in many cases was
for ever, as many were killed shortly afterwards by the German offensive
in March. The Divisional Commander and several officers from other units
came to say "Farewell" to the Battalion they were never to see again. A
note of sadness is struck in the following order which was issued:--
55th (West Lancashire) Division,
Special Order of the Day.
31st January, 1918.
On the departure from the Division of three Battalions, the
1-8th The King's Liverpool Regt. (Liverpool Irish), 1-9th The
King's Liverpool Regt., and 1-5th Loyal North Lancashire
Regt., I wish to assure all officers, warrant officers,
non-commissioned officers and men belonging to them, how
greatly I, and I am sure, everyone in the Division, regrets
their loss.
Some, I am glad to say, remain with us.
As to the battalions themselves, I refuse to regard the
separation as permanent, and I look forward confidently to the
day when they will rejoin their old Division.
They have had their full share in all the hard fighting of the
past two years, and have helped to make and maintain the
reputation which the Division has gained, a reputation which,
I am sure, makes every member of it proud of belonging to it.
As for myself, to have commanded it during these years is the
highest privilege.
I hope that eventually the Liverpool Irish, the 9th King's,
and the 5th Loyal North Lancs. may rejoin our ranks, and that
the final blow may be given shoulder to shoulder with them.
Till they come back again I wish them, on the part of the
Division and myself, all good fortune and success, and can
assure them that we shall watch their career as keenly as if
they were still with us.
H.S. JEUDWINE,
Major General,
Commanding 55th Division.
Unfortunately the hopes of the Major General were not realised. He never
saw this Battalion on parade again.