OUT IN FRONT FIGHTING
We had been "home" but a few days when we received rush orders to pack
up and march toward Ypres. There had been an intense bombardment going
on up that way and we soon learned the cause from straggling wounded
whom we met coming along the road. It was the second of June, 1916,
and the Germans had launched their great surprise attack against the
Canadians at Hooge. It was the beginning of what has been called the
Third Battle of Ypres, but will probably be recorded in history as the
Battle of Sanctuary Wood.
The enemy had gradually increased his customary bombardment and then,
assisted by some mines, had swept forward, in broad daylight,
overwhelming the defenders of the first and second lines by sheer
force of numbers and had only been checked after he had driven through
our lines to a depth of at least seven hundred yards over a front of
nearly a mile, including the village of Hooge, and was firmly
established in a large forest called Sanctuary Wood and in other woods
to the south. By the time we had arrived at our reserve lines (called
the G. H. Q. or General Headquarters Line), we were diverted and
directed to a position on the line just south of the center of the
disturbance where we "dug ourselves in" and held on for four days.
Shell fire was about all we got here, but there was plenty of that.
The rifle and machine-gun bullets that came our way were not numerous
enough to cause any concern although we did lose a few men in that
way.
Here the news of the fight filtered through to us. It seemed that the
Princess Pat's (unfortunate beggars), had got another cutting-up,
together with some of the Mounted Rifles, and Major-General Mercer and
Brigadier-General Victor Williams, who had been up in the front line
on a tour of inspection, had both been wounded and captured. General
Mercer afterward died, in German hands, but General Williams
recovered and remains a prisoner. It was said that less than one
hundred from each the Pat's and the Fourth C. M. R. came out of the
fight.
[Illustration: A Shell Exploding in Front of a Dug-in Machine Gun.]
At this place several of our gun positions were in the grounds of what
had been one of the most beautiful châteaux in Flanders--the Château
Segard, hundreds of years old but kept up in the most modern style
until the war came. Now the buildings were but a mass of ruins. Not
only this but the grounds had been wonderfully laid out in groves,
gardens, moats and fish-ponds with carefully planned walks and drives
throughout the whole estate which comprised at least forty acres.
There were trees and plants from all over the world; beautiful borders
and hedges of sweet-smelling, flowering shrubs and cunningly planned
paths through the thickets, ending at some old wondrously carved stone
bench with perhaps an arbor covered with climbing rose bushes.
All had felt the blighting touch of the vandal shells. The trees were
shattered, the roads and paths torn up, the ponds filled with debris
and the beautiful lawn pitted with craters, but in spite of all this
devastation, the flowers and trees were making a brave fight to live.
I could not but think, as I wandered through this place, how well the
little flowers and the mighty oaks typified the spirit of France and
Belgium. Sorely stricken they were--wounded unto death; but with that
sublime courage and determination which have been the admiration of
the world they were resolved that _they should not die_.
Along the main road leading up to the château was a charming little
chapel, handsomely decorated and appointed. It was the only structure
on the estate that had not been struck by a shell. We used it as
sleeping quarters for two crews whose guns were located in the
immediate vicinity. One night a big shell struck so close as to jar
all the saints and apostles from their niches and send them crashing
to the floor, but did no other damage.
This same thing happened to us once when we were sleeping in the
convent school at Voormezeele, when all the statues on the walls were
hurled down upon us by a large shell which struck the building.
The boys used to take these sacred effigies and place them on graves
of their dead friends. We were not a very religious bunch but I
suppose they thought it might help some--at any rate it proved their
good intentions and I never interfered to stop it.
For several days the fighting continued furiously, the Canadians
recovering some of the lost ground, including most of Sanctuary Wood,
and then things settled down to the old "siege operation." During this
time we had many opportunities to watch the splendid work of the men
of the ammunition columns taking shells up to the batteries in broad
daylight and within plain view of the enemy lines. It was one of the
most inspiring sights I have ever witnessed and brought back memories
of pictures I had seen of artillery going into action in the old days.
Down the road they would come, on the dead gallop, drivers standing in
their stirrups, waving their whips and shouting at the horses, while
the limbers bounded crazily over the shell-torn road, the men holding
on for dear life and the shells bursting with a continuous roar all
about them. It was the sight of a lifetime, and whenever they came
past our men would spring out of the trenches and cheer as though mad.
Time after time they made the trip and the escapes of some were
miraculous. A few were hit, wagons smashed and horses and men killed
or wounded, but not many, considering the number of chances they took.
The stories of heroism during that first day's fighting equal anything
in history. Batteries were shot down to a man but continued working
the guns to the last. One artilleryman, the last of his gun squad,
after having one arm shot off at the elbow, continued to load and
fire. Then a shell blew off about a foot of the muzzle of the gun but
he still kept it going. He was found, lying dead across his gun and a
trail of clotted blood showed where he had gone back and forth to the
ammunition recess, bringing up shells. One member of the crew
remained alive long enough to tell the story.
In another place, in Sanctuary Wood, were two guns known as "sacrifice
guns," as they were intended to cover a certain exposed approach in
case of an attack and to fight to the finish. How well they carried
out their orders may be judged from the fact that every man was killed
at the guns, _by German bayonets_, after having shot down many times
their own number of the enemy.
Our old friends of the Lahore Battery lost so many men that they were
having difficulty in maintaining an effective fire until two of our
machine-gun squads volunteered to act as ammunition carriers, which
they did for several hours, suffering heavy casualties.
Here occurred the only case of which I have ever heard where one of
our medical officers was apparently "murdered." Captain Haight, M. O.
of one of our western battalions was reported, on excellent authority,
to have been bayoneted and killed while attending the wounded.
While we were here, Major-General Turner, V. C., who was in command
of the entire Canadian Corps, paid us a visit. He came up unannounced
and accompanied by a lone Staff Captain. I was instructed to act as
his guide over our sector. During one trip along an exposed road we
found ourselves in the midst of a furious hail of shells. I looked at
the General to see if he wanted to take cover (I'm sure the rest of us
did); he never "batted an eye" but continued at an even pace, talking,
asking questions and stopping here and there to observe some
particular point. I overheard one of our men say: "_General_ Turner?
General _Hell!_ he ain't no general; _he's_ a reg'lar _soldier_."
On the night of the sixth we were relieved and, next day, took up our
quarters in Dickebusch. The Emma Gees had taken possession of a bank
building, about the best in town, and had strengthened it, inside and
out, with steel and sand-bags until it looked as though it would
withstand any bombardment. Fortunately it was not hit while we were
there, although many large shells fell very near; but when I again
passed that way, just a week later, I noticed that a big shell had
gone through our carefully prepared "bombproof" and completely wrecked
it. We only remained a few days and then received orders to go into
the front line at Hill 60 (south of Hooge), as an attack was to be
made to recover the trenches lost on the second.
_HOLLEBEKE TRENCH MAP_
_The map on the opposite page is a reproduction of what is known
as "Hollebeke Trench Map--Part of Sheet 28." Famous Hill 60 is
shown encircled by a contour line, just below Zwarteleen. The
road running off at top and left of map leads to Ypres. The black
and white line immediately to the right of this army road is the
railroad from Ypres to Comines. The fine irregular lines
represent the perfect network of main and communication German
trenches. Various signs indicate supply dumps, dug-outs, mine
craters, observation posts, earthworks, mine craters fortified,
hedges, fences or ditches, churches, mills, roads, footpaths,
entanglements, ground cut up by artillery fire, etc., etc. The
British front-line trench is shown very faintly on this
reproduction but can be picked up as it passes through the first
"e" in Zwarteleen and traced up past the figure 30. At the left
of Zwarteleen it can be seen crossing the railroad and army road.
This map, as were the others, was carried by Captain McBride and
the section shown represents about one-sixth of the total size.
It was made from photographs taken by Allied aviators. The
blurred line bisecting the map just below figures 35 and 36 is
one of the well worn folds in the map_.
[Illustration: Hollebeke Trench Map]
As we had never been in the sector it was necessary for the
non-commissioned officers to go in a day ahead to locate the gun
positions and be able to guide the section in. We went in in daylight
(the non-coms.) and found it to be the longest trip we had ever
undertaken on such a mission. From Bedford House, on the reserve line,
it is at least two miles to the front line, all the way exposed to
observation and fire. There had been a little trench tramway but it
had been wrecked by shells. By breaking our party up into twos we
escaped any severe shelling and the rifle fire was at such long range
that we ignored it. Beyond three hundred yards the German's shooting
is a joke.
We went over the position which extends from what was known as the
Ravine, to a point exactly opposite Hill 60. At some places the lines
were less than forty yards apart and it was possible to throw hand
grenades back and forth. It required the entire day to familiarize
ourselves with the wonderful maze of communication and support
trenches at this place, as we had never seen anything like it before.
We had become so accustomed to doing without communication trenches
that they were a distinct novelty. They, together with the many
support trenches, made a perfect labyrinth: like a spider's web, only
not quite so regular in form.
The next night we moved in. As the battalion was crossing the long
open stretch we came under fire from an enemy machine gun and some men
were hit. There's no use talking, no other weapon used in the war is
as deadly as a machine gun. Where you can walk through an artillery
barrage with a few casualties, the well-directed fire of only one
machine gun will pile men up as fast as they come along. When one of
them catches you in the open the only thing to do is to drop into the
nearest hole and stay there until the firing ceases.
We went in on the night of the twelfth and the attack was scheduled
for the night of the thirteenth, or rather the morning of the
fourteenth, as the preliminary bombardment was to commence at
twelve-forty-five and "zero" was one-thirty A.M.
This was the greatest place I have ever seen for rifle grenades and
"Minnies." They came over in flocks or shoals and one must be
everlastingly on the lookout to dodge them. But we had as many as they
and also a lot of Stokes guns which seemed to "put the fear of God"
into the boche. They sprung a new "Minnie" here, much larger than any
we had seen. It hurled a whale of a shell; not less than one hundred
and sixty pounds of pure T. N. T., and what it did to our trenches and
dug-outs was a sin. And the worst of it was, they had it in a hole in
a deep railroad cutting at the bottom of Hill 60, where our artillery
could not reach it.
At this time we had both the regular machine guns and also a lot of
Lewis automatic rifles. Shortly after, the latter were turned over to
the infantry companies, while the former were taken into the
newly-organized machine gun corps, an entirely separate branch of the
service, which was under the direct command of the Brigade Commander.
The guns were distributed along the line in favorable locations for
either defense or offense but, as there were no prepared emplacements,
the men had but little protection.
Here our work, as at St. Eloi, was to support the advance; in fact,
that is the normal function of machine guns in an attack, although the
lighter automatic rifles of the Lewis type are usually with the
assaulting troops.
Our "Higher Command" had learned a lesson from the St. Eloi experience
and had brought up many new batteries, including a fair sprinkling of
the "super-heavies" of twelve and fifteen-inch calibers. It has been
said, on good authority, that we had more than one thousand guns
concentrated on about a thousand yards of trench, or a gun to every
yard, and I am perfectly willing to believe it after hearing them all
at work. It was our first experience of that delightful situation
where we had "superiority of fire" and it made everybody happy.
Afterward, on the Somme and Ancre, it had become a permanent
condition; but to us, who had been "carrying on" under the
overwhelming odds of the German guns, it was a welcome change. It did
our hearts good to hear those monster thirteen hundred and fifty pound
"babies" coming over our heads with a "woosh" and landing in the lines
across the way, on Hill 60, where they left marks like mine craters.
We could put up with quite a lot just to see that, and although we
were suffering considerably from the rifle grenades and the "Minnies,"
every one appeared to be in a good humor.
With everything ready we waited for the "zero" hour. Exactly at the
designated time the artillery opened. It was as though all the hounds
of hell were let loose. Such a wailing and screeching and hissing as
filled the air, from the eighteen-pounders ("whizz-bangs"), which
seemed to just shave our own parapet, to the gigantic missiles from
the "How-guns," as the Howitzers are affectionately called, each with
its own peculiar noise. The explosions became merged into a continual
roaring crash, without pause or break. Then our Stokes guns joined in,
and, if there ever was an infernal machine, that is it. Vomiting out
shells as fast as they can be fed into its hungry maw; so fast,
indeed, that it is possible for seven of them to be in the air at one
time, from one gun, at a range of less than four hundred yards, it is
the last word in rapid-fire artillery.
Of course the Emma Gees started at the head of the procession and kept
up a continuous fire.
Fritz soon began to do the best he could but, what with the noise of
our own guns and the bursting shells, we were unable to hear his
unless they struck very close. He did give us trouble, though, with
that devilish Minenwerfer which sent over a wheel-barrow load of high
explosive at each shot. He blew the left end of our line "off the map"
for a distance of a hundred yards or more and made it untenable--for
any one but a machine gunner. The infantry was ordered to evacuate
that part and did so, but not the Emma Gees; they stuck until one of
the big "terrors," striking alongside, killed and wounded all the crew
but one and then he still stuck it, loading and firing until I was
able to get a reserve crew up to relieve him. He was a Scot, one of
the kind that doesn't know what it means to quit. Here's to you,
"Wullie" Shepherd, wherever you are!
The attack was carried off with absolute precision. At one-thirty the
barrage lifted and over the boys went, sweeping everything before
them, back to the original position and then a little farther for good
measure. By daylight they had the new line so well consolidated that
Fritz was never able to make a dent in it and the Canadian prestige
was once more established.
At the left end of our line, where the Minenwerfer had done so much
damage, was a mine shaft; one of many in that vicinity which our
engineers were driving under Hill 60 (they afterward blew it up), and
it seemed as though the boche knew of it and was endeavoring to cave
it in with the "Minnies." In fact, they did succeed in partly
destroying it, but the sheltering roof at the month of the shaft
remained in fair condition, and as it was the only protective covering
in that neighborhood, Bouchard and I were sitting inside, with our
feet hanging down the shaft, holding down that end of the line. We had
relieved the other crew, or rather I had sent them back about two
hundred yards along the trench as a precautionary measure and then,
feeling that some one _must_ remain to keep lookout, decided to take
care of the job myself. The boy, of course, insisted upon staying with
me. The big fellows were coming over with regularity (I nearly said
monotonous, but those things never get monotonous), and were bursting
too close for comfort. Bou had just made a proposition that we sneak
over after dark and try to locate the devil-machine and blow it up,
when we heard something moving below us in the mine-shaft, and a
moment later a mud-encrusted face came up into the light. With an
unusually fluent flow of "language," which sounded strangely familiar
to me, two men came up the ladder, and as the first one emerged into
the daylight he took a look at me and said: "Hello, Mac; it's a long
way to Ft. George, isn't it?" When he had removed some of the dirt
from his face I recognized a miner, named McLeod, who had once helped
rescue me from the Giscome Rapids and afterward worked for me up in
British Columbia. He and his partner had been caught in the shaft and
had been a day digging themselves out. After a rest of a few minutes
they went their way, down the trench, and I never saw or heard of them
again.
[Illustration: Lewis Machine Gun Squad Observing with Periscope at
Hill 60]
During the next hour or two I managed to work around through the
wreckage of this part of our line, searching for wounded and making a
list of the dead. I found none of the former, all having been removed
by their companions when they were ordered to evacuate, but I did find
a number of bodies which I examined for identification disks or other
marks and made a complete record which I afterward turned in to our
Headquarters. This is a custom that is always followed, if possible,
so that, in the event that your own troops do not return to that spot,
a record will be preserved and relatives notified. If this were not
done, many would be reported as "missing" which is, to relatives, far
more terrible than the knowledge that death has been swift and sure.
This is work in which many chaplains have especially distinguished
themselves, often working close behind the advancing lines during a
battle; writing last messages for the dying and compiling lists of the
dead who may or may not be buried at a later date.
In burying dead on the field, every effort is made so to mark the
grave that it may afterward be identified and a proper record obtained
for the archives of the Graves Registration Commission. The best way
is to write all the data, name, regiment and number together with the
date, on a piece of paper, place it in a bottle and stick the bottle,
neck down, in the top of the grave. If no bottle is available, the
next best way is to write the record on a smooth piece of wood with
an ordinary lead pencil which will withstand the action of water far
better than ink or indelible pencil.
Here I had my last talk with Bouchard. He was very anxious to go to
college and take an engineering course. I suggested Purdue, but he
thought he would find it necessary to spend a year or two at some
preparatory school. He had heard me speak of Culver and was very much
interested in that place, and when I left it was definitely decided
that, should he survive the war, he would spend at least four years at
any educational institution I might recommend.
As soon as darkness came our infantry returned, and by working hard
all night managed to restore the damaged part of the parapet. I went
back to my dug-out for a little sleep and had just made myself
comfortable when a six-inch shell struck the place and drove me out,
together with a companion, George Paudash, a Chippeway Indian and
corporal of our section. We had several Indians, there being two pairs
of brothers, all from the same reservation and all of them splendid
soldiers.
We had several men hit that night by rifle grenades. I particularly
remember two: Flanagan and McFarland. The former was hit in numerous
places, some of them really serious, but was most concerned over a
little scratch on his face which he was afraid would injure his
good-looks. McFarland, just a boy, about eighteen, had his left hand
terribly mangled and nearly twenty pieces of metal in other parts of
his body, but he laughed and called out: "I've got my Blighty; I've
got my Blighty." His brother had been shot through both eyes and
totally blinded a short time before. By the merest chance I saw
McFarland a few days later, as he was being taken aboard a hospital
ship at Boulogne and he then gave me his wrist watch, which had been
shattered and driven into the flesh, asking that I send it to his
father in Canada: I sent it by registered post, from London, but never
heard from it.
The artillery fighting continued for several days and on the night of
the eighteenth we were relieved and moved back to Bedford House, in
reserve.
Next morning I was summoned to Battalion Headquarters and informed
that I had been commissioned and was ordered back to England to act as
an instructor in one of the training divisions. Our Colonel at this
time also received his promotion to Brigadier-General and he promised,
as soon as he was assigned to a brigade, that he would request I be
transferred to his command as brigade machine gun officer. He did,
afterward, make an effort to have this done, but it was too late. I
had finally got my "long Blighty," and was out.
It was hard to part from that old crowd. I did not know when I would
get back, but we all knew, without question, that there would be other
faces gone from the ranks before we met again. When I did return,
during the Somme campaign, I was attached to another battalion and did
not often see the Twenty-first and when I did, I recognized but few of
them. They had taken part in the great advance of September
fifteenth, which captured Courcellette and numerous other towns--the
greatest gain ever made in one day on the Western Front until the
recent one at Cambrai--and had helped to add another glorious page to
Canada's brilliant record. But the cost was great. Many, oh, so many
of the bravest and the best fell that day and among them was "my
little boy," Bouchard, killed at the age of eighteen, after two years
of service.
Yes; a boy in years, but he worked like a man, fought like a man and,
thank God he died like a man--out in front, fighting.