A Lieutenant of the Royal Irish Fusiliers That Stormed Ginchy Paints
War’s Horrors in Vivid Language
It is well, once in a while, to take a square look at the grim, the
ghastly, the repellent aspects of war, the reality stripped of the
glamour, and realize that heroism is not always manifest in valiant
deeds, but is often expressed in endurance, in patient suffering, in
the play or poise of the inner forces in terrible circumstances.
The experiences at the storming of Ginchy through which Lieut. Arthur
C. Young of the Seventh Battalion, Royal Irish Fusiliers, passed and
which he embodied in a letter to a relative some days afterward, were
not perhaps exceptional,—but his description of them is. It is very
doubtful if a more literal, faithful yet graphically vivid picture
of war in its actuality has come from the battle front. In simple
direct language we get the horror, the awfulness of it—but we also get
reflectively the quality of manhood that produces heroes.
Lieut. Young was, at the outbreak of the war, a resident of Kobe,
Japan, and he promptly volunteered, returned to England and joined
the Fusiliers. He had had his share of fighting, knew right well what
it meant to go over the top, before the day at Ginchy which was the
subject of his letter.
The storming of Ginchy described by Lieut. Young occurred Sept. 9,
1916. He says:
“It had been taken once or twice before, I believe (some say four
times), but even out here it is so difficult to get authentic news
about things which are happening quite close to us that you will
have to make allowances for my possible inaccuracies. Each time,
however, it was recaptured by the Germans, for to them it was a most
important stronghold, particularly from their artillery’s point of
view. A gunner officer told me why this was. You must remember that
artillery fire is not very effective unless there is good observation,
for atmospheric conditions affect shooting considerably. Now, the best
sort of observation is that obtained from high ground in a forward
position—it is better even than airplane or balloon observation, so I
am told. Well, Ginchy was the last bit of high ground which the Germans
held, and now that they have lost it, they are dependent on their less
certain aerial observations, or, failing that, they must shoot by the
map, which is no better than guesswork. Hence the vital importance to
the Germans of Ginchy.
“On the night previous to the taking of Ginchy, my battalion had
to take up a position on the further slope of the valley. We were
some distance in rear at the time where the shells did not fall so
plentifully. We had had nearly a week of it already, and a more
horrible five days I have never passed in my life. We had been over the
top from Falfemont Farm on the Tuesday, and had been thanked for our
services in a special divisional order, but the price we had to pay for
that feat was a big one, as the casualty list printed by this time only
too well shows.
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© _New York Herald._