MESSINES, YPRES, AND AFTER.
1. THE BATTLE OF MESSINES.
The 11th Field Company was reserve company in the first stage of the
attack on Messines Ridge, and very early in the morning of the 7th of
June, 1917, marched from Pont de Nieppe to Weka Lines, in the little
village of Romarin, on the road to Plœgsteert village. With the
company moved a party of attached infantry from the 9th Brigade, which
had reported to Stuff Camp some days previously. The morning was still
and warm and there was a good deal of gas about the battery areas, so
that part of the march was done in gas masks, and until the sun rose
all ranks solemnly sat around the camp wearing them.
The attack opened at dawn, but the company saw little of the actual
progress of events until the 9th, when the unit moved into Bunhill
Row, in Plœgsteert Wood, and relieved the 10th Field Company, A.E. The
company bivouac was shelled and gassed heavily all the first night,
casualties being three killed and four wounded. Work was started
immediately in the battle area north of the River Douve, and every
effort was made to improve the communications through the “Crater
Fields” in order to facilitate the advance of the 11th A.I.Bde., which
had relieved the 10th A.I.Bde. in this area, and experienced hard
fighting in advancing to the “Green Line,” and afterwards holding it.
Enemy shelling was heavy, but the unit was fortunate enough to escape
with very light casualties. During one heavy burst of shelling, two
sections of the company sheltered in the same trench as a company of
infantry; the infantry suffered 23 casualties, while the sappers
escaped unhurt.
A special feature of the arrangements for the attack was the
organisation of a divisional pack train for the transport of
ammunition, food, water, and R.E. stores to the newly-captured areas.
The company contributed a considerable number of drivers and mules
under Lieut. J. M. Norton, to this train.
Pack mules were very successfully used independently by the company a
little later for transport to forward jobs. Driver A. A. Paget
received the M.M. for good work with the pack train, while 2nd Corpl.
C. C. Jones and Lance-Corpl. W. W. Evans were similarly rewarded for
devotion to duty with the sappers.
On 12th June the company moved to La Boudrelle, south of Steenwerck, a
most delightful place after the battle area, but on the 15th started
work on the so-called Black Line, south of the River Douve, in the
vicinity of Grey Farm. On the 20th this work was handed over to the
New Zealand Engineers, and the company marched on the 21st to Neuve
Eglise (camp at Stampkotmolen).
On the 23rd, the Messines sector was taken over from the 25th Division
and the company started work with the 11th A.I. Brigade, which was
holding the forward system on the whole divisional front from the
River Douve to the Blaupoortbeek. A very strenuous time ensued until
July 11th, the infantry of the Brigade carrying out a vigorous policy
involving pushing the lines forward and an enormous amount of digging,
under bad weather conditions, and consistently heavy enemy artillery
fire. The sappers, in addition to marking out much of the new trench
system and working in the trenches themselves, sank several wells,
repaired concrete dugouts, and improvised new shelters, erected
signboards, and made reconnaissances and maps. Ferme de la Croix and
Pine Avenue, Steignast Farm and Gapaard, will always be remembered in
connection with this period, “the 19 days.”
After relief by the 9th Field Company, the company had a few days
training at Neuve Eglise, and then marched to La Boudrelle for
pontooning on the Lys. While at La Boudrelle a very successful sports
meeting was held. The unit then returned to Neuve Eglise and took part
in the Windmill battle of July 31st. The preparations for this will be
remembered as a rush job at the eleventh hour. It was about this time
that night bombing by enemy aircraft first became troublesome.
La Boudrelle was visited for the third time on the 15th, the division
being in support, and work was started roofing in the big ammunition
dump at La Creche, but before the task could be completed, the unit
moved with the division to 2nd Army Training Area, south-west of St.
Omer.
Divisional Headquarters was established at Fauquembergues, and the
11th Field Company in the little village of Recquebrœucq on the River
Aa.
2. A SHARE IN THE 3RD BATTLE OF YPRES.
The visit to the training area was for the purpose of resting,
training, and re-fitting, in preparation for more strenuous days to
come; and lasted until September 25th. This was a very delightful
period, the accommodation for all ranks being good, the country people
very kindly, and the weather favourable. Opportunities for training
were also good, and the unit was in a very good state when it started
marching northward with the division on September 25th, to take part
in the Third Battle of Ypres.
Before leaving the training area the company attended two noteworthy
parades, one on the 19th September, when the Divisional Engineers
assembled with full transport, and carried out evolutions under the
C.R.E., and another on the 22nd, when the whole of the 3rd Division,
less artillery and transport, was inspected by the Commander-in-Chief,
F.-M. Sir Douglas Haig.
The march northwards with the 11th A.I. Brigade Group was viâ
Blaringhem, Eecke and Poperinghe, to Ypres, which was reached on the
30th September. The company took over from the 529th Field Company,
R.E. (3rd British Division) and billeted in cellars and shelters among
the ruins just south of the prison. The horse lines were at Brandhoek,
with, later, an advanced camp east of Ypres.
The night of the harvest moon at Poperinghe will always be remembered
for a remarkable display of bombing by enemy aeroplanes. Uncomfortable
as the situation was for troops crowded in tents, some amusement was
to be derived from the efforts of certain machine guns, which,
chattering hysterically whenever a Boche ’plane was caught in the beam
of a searchlight, threw streams of tracer bullets at a target some
thousands of yards out of range. No doubt it relieved the gunners’
feelings.
The great British offensive in the Ypres salient, to which the capture
of the Messines ridge had been a prelude, had opened on July 31st,
when the 3rd Australian Division captured “The Windmill” on the
extreme south flank of the battle. After some pauses and delays, it
was now, in the late autumn of 1917, in full swing. A constant
succession of heavy, but comparatively shallow pushes, it might almost
be called the Battle of the Roads, so much did the impetus of the
attack depend on the use of the highways converging on the ruined
town, and so enormous and impressive was the congestion of road
traffic. The great road from Poperinghe to Ypres was covered day and
night with streams of everything on wheels or feet which went to make
or help an army, all dribbling in clouds of dust and profanity through
the bottle-neck at Vlamertinghe. On the enemy side of Ypres the road
best known to the 3rd Division was that which led to Zonnebeke. Here
the congestion of traffic was complicated by the insistent attentions
of the enemy artillery, which periodically pitted the route with shell
holes and left the roadside littered with dead horses and broken
vehicles, and sometimes with more dreadful wreckage.
Besides the limbers taking ammunition to the nearer guns, ration
limbers and wagons laden with Engineer stores, the forward road was
thronged with pack animals, which in hundreds carried ammunition to
the less accessible batteries. On the outward journey they were led by
dogged men on foot; returning light with the men in the saddle, the
cavalcade stood not upon the order of its going, and no matter the
rank of the pedestrian, he unhesitatingly gave it the road.
Particularly after the rain came was the road past Mill Cot to Kink
Dump, Devils Crossing, and Zonnebeke, a place of evil memory.
For three weeks the company, working from Ypres, was continuously
employed in the battle area in the divisional sector north of the
Zonnebeke Railway. The 3rd Australian Division delivered a very
successful attack on October 4th, when the Broodseinde Ridge was
captured. When it was relieved by the 66th Division, the company
remained in the area working with this division until after its attack
of October 9th. The 3rd Division then returned to the line and
advanced again on October 12th.
Early in the month the weather broke and torrents of rain converted
the shell-torn earth into a dreadful quagmire. Tracks across the
wilderness of mud and shell holes had to be reconnoitred, marked out
and duckboarded wherever possible; roads patched up to carry the guns.
The tracks were all marked by distinctive letters or names; two
well-remembered ones were Jack and Jill. Strange materials were used
for road making; the dead body of a mule or two might be seen tumbled
into a shell hole and covered with the smashed up remains of some
vehicle. Piles of shells were known to be used in emergency to
hurriedly fill a hole in some urgently required roadway. Causeways
were built for mules and men across the bog which marked the original
course of the Zonnebeke stream, and many concrete dugouts repaired and
made habitable. On all these arduous tasks the company was engaged and
suffered a steady drain of casualties.
Under these conditions the possession of ample comforts funds,
supplied chiefly by friends in Australia, contributed considerably to
the comfort and efficiency of the unit, as it rendered possible the
supply of hot drinks and food at all hours to the different parties,
and of emergency chocolate rations to parties on exposed work.
Worthy of special note during this period was the work done by Lieut.
J. M. Norton and a small party of surveyors in laying down an
elaborate system of jumping-off tapes for the attack of October 4th,
and a similar task carried out by Lieut. S. W. Matters previous to the
attack of October 9th. On the 4th, Lieut. H. St. A. Murray and a party
of sappers and attached infantry (the 11th A.T. Brigade had supplied a
permanent working party of three officers and 100 other ranks who
lived and worked with the company) pushed forward on the top of the
Broodseinde Ridge immediately behind the attacking infantry, and dug
and wired a number of strong points. The transport, both pack and
wheeled, carried out very difficult and dangerous tasks under Captain
O. B. Williams and Lieut. W. H. Thomas, M.C., and the work of the
surveyors was also particularly arduous and valuable. Lieut. H. St. A.
Murray received the Military Cross, 2nd Corpl. C. P. Atkins the
Meritorious Service Medal, and 2nd Corpl. A. M. Stewart, 2nd Corpl. J.
J. Mace, Lance-Corpl. W. G. Toft, Driver A. H. Furniss, and Sapper F.
G. Bugden, the Military Medal.
3. REVISITING OLD HAUNTS.
On being relieved in Ypres by the 12th Canadian Field Company
Engineers, the company moved on the 22nd of October back to
Recquebrœucq (dismounted by train, transport by road), and rested and
re-fitted until 12th November, 1917, when the division once more went
into the line, in Flanders, re-visiting one of its old haunts in the
Le Touquet――Pont Rouge and Warneton sectors, taking over from the 8th
British Division.
The 11th Field Company A.E. was placed in reserve, took over a camp
near Wulverghem (28 T.10.a.5, 9), and commenced work on pipe burying,
artillery positions, drainage, and the like. Regular winter warfare
conditions commenced, and much useful work was effected.
While the company was in Wulverghem Camp (which by the way, the
sappers scornfully christened “Gutza Camp,” from its forlorn
appearance, but which proved not so uncomfortable) several daylight
bombing raids by enemy aeroplanes in force took place, and on one
occasion the company suffered the loss of Corpl. Gray, killed, and
C.-S.-M. Brander seriously wounded.
After a month in the line, the division was relieved by the 2nd
Australian Division, and went into Corps reserve, with headquarters at
Meteren, and the 11th Field Company, A.E., moved into Mahutonga Camp,
on Waterloo Road, near Neuve Eglise. A programme of training was
commenced, but most of the available strength was soon absorbed on
various back areas works, and finally the division somewhat
unexpectedly took over the Armentières sector from the 38th (Welsh)
Division. This unit went into the line with the 11th A.I. Brigade on
the right, and billeted in the big jute factory near the emergency
bridge over the Lys, on the outskirts of Armentières.
As usual, there was no lack of work for the sappers. The trench system
required a great deal of development, particularly with a view to a
step by step defence in depth, and a number of dugout jobs were taken
over from the 38th Division. Lys river bridges again came under the
company’s care, but on a stretch of the river a little south of the
crossings familiar during the previous winter. Charges had to be
overhauled, leads repaired and tested, magazines rebuilt.
The billets were comfortable, but, as usual, throughout the cold
weather, the fuel supply was a “burning” problem. In the jute factory
it was not incapable of solution, as alongside the boiler house there
were a large number of coal heaps. These were watched over by the
factory caretaker and liberally placarded with notices, “Not to be
touched,” but if each sapper in a section moving from cookhouse to
billets casually picked up a lump of coal, the section stove need
never go cold.
A holiday from the line work was granted on Christmas Day, and full
advantage was taken of it for seasonable feasting. The officers and
sergeants, who attended first their section dinners, and afterwards
the meals in their own messes, had rather a trying day.
The town of Armentières was much changed since the previous visit.
With the exception of a few caretakers, all the inhabitants had gone,
and dreadful tales were told of their experiences when the Boche
shelled the place heavily with high explosive and gas about the time
of the Messines Battle.
The stay in this sector was quite short, the 57th Division (British)
relieving the 3rd Australian Division on 3rd January, 1918, the 11th
Field Company, A.E., returning to Mahutonga Camp.
The next move was into the Le Touquet――Pont Rouge sector with the 11th
A.I. Brigade, the 11th Field Co., A.E., taking over from the 5th Field
Coy., A.E., 2nd Australian Division, on 31st January, 1918.
With the help of a permanent working party from the 11th A.I. Bde.,
great progress was made in improving the drainage and the whole system
of defences of the area. The Company lived very comfortably in the
familiar Weka Lines at Romarin, with the transport in the same camp.
The wagons had a busy time on this sector and delivered large amounts
of material to the dumps at Motor Car Corner and Le Gheer. The old
German system of trenches west of the river, which had sheltered the
enemy during the Company’s tenancy of this sector the previous spring,
were now occupied by us and were very little damaged, having been
quietly evacuated by the Boche after Messines. It was very interesting
to study his methods, and the concrete dugouts in particular were a
monument to his industry. In less then 3,000 yards of line, in the
front and support trenches alone――i.e., in a strip of country not more
then 300 yards deep――there were found over 70 concrete dugouts and
shelters. Many were small, but the smallest involved a great deal of
labour in this exposed and water-logged region.
The 3rd Australian Division was now due for its turn in the training
area and was relieved by the 2nd Australian Division on March 3rd.
The 5th Field Company took over Weka Lines and the sector from the
11th, which moved by train and road for dismounted personnel and
transport respectively, to Bainghem-le-Comte, about 14 miles from
Boulogne.