WINTER IN THE SOMME AREA
_9th October 1916 to 16th March 1917_
Divisional Artillery in Toc 7 Valley--Remainder of the Division
at rest--The Division in the line opposite Le Transloy--The
93rd Field Artillery Brigade made an Army Brigade--The
Sailly-Saillisel Line--The sector between Sailly-Saillisel and
Le Transloy--Signs of the coming German retreat.
(_Vide_ Map II.)
While the rest of the Division was out of the line the artillery
remained in action, covering in succession the 6th, 8th, 17th and
Guards Divisions, and supporting a number of attacks on the trenches
which crowned the ridge facing Le Transloy. The first of these was made
on the 12th of October by the 4th, 6th and 12th Divisions. The enemy
put up a barrage thirty seconds after the advance had begun and brought
very heavy machine-gun fire on to the assaulting troops, who were able
to make little progress. The 20th Divisional Artillery supported also
a minor operation carried out by the 6th Division on the 15th, and a
further attack by the 4th, 6th and 12th Divisions launched at 3.40
P.M. on the 18th. In spite of the hopeless state of the ground
and the difficulty of moving over it in the dark, the line was advanced
and some of the enemy trenches were taken. The French on the right
captured Sailly-Saillisel.
On the following day the 6th Division was relieved by the 8th, and the
12th Division on its left by the 29th. At the same time Brig.-General
Hotham handed over the Left Artillery of the XIVth Corps to the C.R.A.
Guards Division and took command of the Left Group, consisting of the
three brigades of the 20th Divisional Artillery and the 24th Field
Artillery Brigade of the 6th Division.
The 21st, 22nd and 23rd of October were spent in a bombardment of the
enemy’s trenches as a preparation for another attack. This was launched
on the 23rd at 2.30 P.M. and was very successful. The infantry
of the 8th Division, which by 9.55 P.M. had gained all its
objectives, reported that the artillery barrage was excellent. At the
end of the month this Division was relieved by the 17th.
On the 24th Brig.-General Hotham, who had done so much to create the
excellent _esprit-de-corps_ which existed in the 20th Divisional
Artillery, was invalided home and handed over command temporarily to
Lieut.-Colonel F. A. Wilson, D.S.O.
In the last week of October heavy rain made further operations
impossible. Toc 7 Valley had been heavily shelled throughout the past
month; the ground was worse than ever and the trenches waist deep
in water, making the life of an artilleryman at this time a most
unpleasant one. In this sector, too, the German aeroplanes seemed to
have very much their own way, and several times flew unmolested low
over the battery positions.
The Guards Artillery withdrew to rest on November the 10th.
Lieut.-Colonel Wilson then took command of the Left Artillery of the
Corps, consisting of the 91st, 92nd and 93rd Brigades and a brigade and
two batteries from the artillery of the 4th Division. Three days later
he handed over to Brig.-General W. B. Browell, C.M.G., who came from
the 14th Division to the 20th to take up the duties of C.R.A.
At this time the British line was extended on the right, where the
Sailly-Saillisel area was taken over from the French. In the consequent
rearrangement the Guards, who had taken the place of the 17th Division,
were relieved by a division of Australians. Headquarters of the 20th
Divisional Artillery and the 91st Brigade went back to Corbie to rest
on the 26th, and the 92nd and 93rd Brigades moved to positions north
of Combles, where they came under the C.R.A. of the 17th Division. The
92nd Brigade went back on the 10th of December to the Citadel, about a
mile and a half south of Fricourt, sending C/92 and D/92 Batteries to
Corbie to take the place of C/91 and D/91, which went as instructional
batteries to the Corps artillery school at Daours.
For two months, from the 9th of October to the 9th of December, the
Division was out of the line resting, training and bringing the much
reduced units up to strength again. The necessary refitting threw
considerable work on the D.A.D.O.S. and his staff. On the 14th of
October Brig.-General Shute was promoted temp. Major-General in
command of the Naval Division, and the 59th Brigade was taken over by
Brig.-General R. C. Browne-Clayton, D.S.O.
On the 15th of October, Headquarters moved to Corbie, on the 19th to
Vignacourt, on the 22nd to Belloy-sur-Somme, and on the 1st of November
to Cavillon, west of Amiens in the area of the XVth Corps, with the
various units billeted in the villages around. Here much time was
given up to recreation of all kinds. Divisional and brigade football,
tug-of-war, cross-country and boxing competitions were organised, and
several very successful race meetings were held.
During this period of rest, under the ægis of Lieut.-Colonel Dundas,
the A.A. and Q.M.G., the famous Divisional troupe of Pierrots, known
as the “Verey Lights,” was started. Thanks to the energies of Capt.
Henson, Capt. Gilbey and Bandmaster Eldridge, and with the able
assistance of Cpl. Fletcher’s paint brush, performers and scenery were
quickly produced. Thus began the career of the “Verey Lights,” which
from now onwards till 1919 continued, without a break, to do so much
to make the lot of all ranks a happier one. Although space forbids to
mention the long list of names of those officers and men who helped to
make the name of the “Verey Lights” a household word, it is felt that
special mention should be made of Capt. Gilbey, M.C., whose talent and
unbounded enthusiasm did so much to guarantee the continuous success of
their efforts.
The R.E. and the 11th D.L.I. were ordered on the 18th of October to
the Citadel for work in the forward area under XIVth Corps. The R.E.
Headquarters and the 84th Field Company rejoined the Division on the
25th of October; the D.L.I. returned on the 2nd, and the 83rd and 96th
Field Companies on the 11th of November.
After a fortnight at Cavillon the Division returned to XIVth Corps with
headquarters once more at Corbie, where it remained for some three
weeks, while battalions went at intervals to work under the C.E., and
the 61st Brigade spent ten days in the XVth Corps area west of Amiens.
On the 9th of December units began moving forward again to relieve the
29th Division in the left sector of the XIVth Corps front. On the 12th
Major-General Douglas Smith took over this sector, with headquarters
near the Briqueterie south-east of Montauban. The front line ran in
a curve on the south and south-west of Le Transloy and from 2000 to
1400 yards distant from the town. It was held by two groups of six
battalions each, the right group consisting of the 61st Brigade with
the 10th K.R.R.C. and the 10th R.B., the left group of the 60th Brigade
with the 11th K.R.R.C. and the 11th R.B. At the same time the C.R.A.
took command of the artillery covering the Division. The 91st and 92nd
Field Artillery Brigades remained at the Citadel and at Corbie till the
14th, when they both moved to Morlancourt, so that the only brigade of
the 20th Divisional Artillery under Brig.-General Browell’s orders was
the 93rd.
The fortnight that followed was comparatively uneventful. On the 13th
four prisoners were captured by the 7th Somerset L.I.; on the 14th
the right group was heavily shelled, and an attempt of the enemy to
leave his trenches was stopped by the artillery, which carried out
a very successful shoot on the following day. It was, however, one
of the most disagreeable times that the Division ever spent in the
line. The weather was cold and wet; rain and snow turned the ground
into bog which swallowed up all signs of roads and tracks. The only
communication trench to the front line was impassable, so that rations
and material were got up to the trenches with the greatest difficulty.
At first it took as long as nine hours to complete one of the reliefs,
and one stretcher party took seven and a half hours to get from
company to battalion headquarters. The trenches were very bad and kept
falling in, especially in the first few days spent in this sector,
and frequently men had to be dug out of the mud. The 11th D.L.I.,
composed chiefly of miners, and well known for their good work under
the worst conditions, improved matters so that before the Division was
relieved communication trenches could be used up to a certain distance.
The conditions were so trying that after a week the period which a
battalion spent in the front line was reduced from three days to two.
On Christmas Day the Division was relieved by the 17th and went back to
Corbie. Divisional Artillery Headquarters moved to Morlancourt, where
the 91st and 92nd Brigades were resting, leaving the 93rd in action
until the 28th, when the 91st relieved it.
About this time the 93rd Brigade became one of the (Army) Field
Artillery Brigades which were then being formed, and No. 3 Section of
the Divisional Ammunition Column consequently became the 93rd Brigade
Ammunition Column. D/93 was split up, one section going to each of
the other howitzer batteries. The 93rd Brigade remained for some time
longer in the XIVth Corps, but ceased to belong to the 20th Divisional
Artillery, which henceforth consisted of only the 91st and 92nd
Brigades.
By the 4th of January 1917 the Division had taken over from the Guards
a line running from south of Saillisel to north of Sailly-Saillisel.
Half of the former village and the whole of the latter were in our
hands. For the first week this was the right sector of the XIVth Corps
front, but after a readjustment on the 10th it became the centre
sector, with the 17th Division on the left and the Guards on the right.
The 91st Field Artillery Brigade was in the line. The 92nd came in on
the 10th, when Brig.-General Browell took command of the artillery
covering this sector, and consisting of the 20th and 29th Divisional
Artilleries, two batteries of R.H.A., and a Heavy Artillery Group.
Little occurred to mark the month spent in this sector. The front
covered by the XIVth Corps, however, was most important, and the
Sailly-Saillisel sector was the key of the position. The ridge along
which the front trenches ran not only flanked the enemy’s position at
Le Transloy, but also commanded all the approaches from Combles to the
front line system. The valleys on the north and east of the ridge,
as well as the large wood of St Pierre Vaast, gave the enemy covered
approaches in which he might collect his troops in order to assault our
line.
The front was held in two brigade groups, the 61st Brigade with the
10th K.R.R.C. and the 10th R.B. on the right; the 60th Brigade with
the 11th K.R.R.C. and 11th R.B. on the left. Divisional Headquarters
was at Arrow Head Copse. The front line trenches consisted of a series
of isolated posts, in some cases within 30 feet of the enemy, but they
were much better than the trenches in front of Le Transloy; nearly
every man had a shelter of some sort, and the number of sick was very
small.
Early in January a long list of New Year’s honours for the Division
was published, headed by Major-General Douglas Smith, who was promoted
to the substantive rank of Major-General. On the 6th, Lieut-Colonel
Maddocks, G.S.O.I., with several others who lived in the deep tunnel
dug-outs at Divisional Headquarters taken over from the French, was
suddenly taken ill with a severe form of influenza and invalided to a
base hospital. He was succeeded on the 10th by Lieut.-Colonel J. M’D.
Haskard, D.S.O., Royal Dublin Fusiliers.
In the early morning of the 17th, during a heavy bombardment, a small
party of the enemy advanced towards a post held by the D.C.L.I., at
that time the right battalion of the right brigade group. A bomb
falling into the post killed one man and wounded eight others, but the
garrison of the neighbouring post by bombing and the fire of Lewis guns
forced the enemy to retire in great disorder, leaving a number of dead
and wounded on the ground.
A long spell of very severe cold set in at this time. On the night of
the 16th/17th four inches of snow fell; on the 22nd, and again on the
26th, there were 20 degrees of frost. The front line was approached
by a line of duckboards which became so slippery that one unit coming
up for its tour in the trenches considered itself extremely lucky in
having only two or three casualties from men falling off. Snow fell
again on the 31st, and the hard frost lasted without a break until the
middle of February.
On the 22nd of January a raid was attempted against the 6th Oxford and
Bucks L.I.--the left battalion of the left group. The raiding party
was dressed in white so as not to show up against the snow, but was
nevertheless driven back with loss and in disorder.
The only other action in which troops of the Division were involved at
this time took place on the 27th. On that day the 29th Division, then
on the left of the 20th, made a very successful attack on the enemy’s
positions south of Le Transloy, taking all its objectives and about 400
prisoners. The 20th Divisional Artillery fired in support, and earned
the congratulations of the 29th Division for its valuable assistance.
The 60th M.G. Company with seven guns, reinforced by five guns from
the 61st M.G. Company in reserve, put a barrage on the flank of the
attack. In spite of the intense cold these twelve guns fired an average
of 2500 rounds per gun, doing most useful work, for which the company
was congratulated by the Corps, Division and Brigade, and by the 29th
Division.
The next day the 17th Division look over this sector and the 20th moved
back to rest, with headquarters at Heilly. The C.R.A. handed over to
the C.R.A. 17th Division, under whose command the 20th Divisional
Artillery remained in action. During February the batteries supported
two successful attacks by the 17th Division on the 8th and by the 29th
Division on the 28th. The result of these operations was to drive the
Germans from the last bit of high ground which they had held on the
Sailly--Sailly-Saillisel ridge.
By the 10th of February the Division was once more in the line, this
time in the left sector of the XIVth Corps front. The right flank
rested at the point which had marked the left of the line in January,
a little north of Sailly-Saillisel; the left was 1400 yards south-west
of Le Transloy. Again the front was held by two brigade groups, the
right group consisting of the battalions of the 61st Brigade with the
6th Oxford and Bucks L.I. and the 6th K.S.L.I., the left group of the
battalions of the 59th Brigade with the 12th K.R.R.C. and 12th R.B.
The 83rd Field Company R.E. was in the right group and the 96th in the
left; two machine-gun companies were in the line and one in reserve.
Brigade headquarters, which relieved each other in a regular sequence,
each spent sixteen days in the line and eight at Carnoy. The Divisional
reserve, under the command of the Brigadier at Carnoy, consisted of two
battalions from each group, the 11th D.L.I., the 84th Field Company
R.E., and a machine-gun company. The C.R.A. commanded the 78th and 79th
Field Artillery Brigades and the 28th Heavy Group, as the brigades of
the 20th Divisional Artillery were still covering the centre sector of
the Corps front.
A few days after the Division came into this line German aeroplanes
dropped about 200 bombs around Maricourt and Carnoy. The chief damage
they did was to set on fire the Plateau ammunition dump. Two very
big explosions were heard by troops in the front line some hours
afterwards, and the fire, which began at 5.30 A.M., continued
till nightfall, some undetonated shells being thrown a distance of a
mile and a half.
As part of the front line defences taken over by the left brigade group
there was a very isolated post, known as “B” post, some 300 yards in
front of the trenches and out of sight from anywhere in the line. This
was a very difficult place to hold, and even to approach. Owing to the
constant fire of the enemy’s machine guns throughout the night, the
only way in which reliefs could be carried out was by sending up two
or three men at a time. Even then the men had to crawl on their hands
and knees for the last seventy or eighty yards, finally entering the
post through a gap in the wire at the rear. All reliefs sustained many
casualties.
A request was therefore sent back for authority to give it up. On the
night of the 17th/18th the 10th R.B. relieved the 11th R.B. in this
part of the line. In order to reduce the casualties Sgt. L. Tatt of
the 11th R.B. volunteered to lay a tape to guide the relieving party.
Although he had to crawl about for several hours over ground which
was being swept by machine-gun fire and shelled by trench mortars,
he successfully carried out his task, for which he was awarded the
M.M. The next day at 4.30 P.M. the enemy put down an intense
barrage on this post, firing high-explosive and gas shells, trench
mortar bombs and rifle grenades. The bombardment caused a good many
casualties and did considerable damage; eventually all Lewis guns,
rifles and ammunition became clogged with mud. This put the garrison at
a great disadvantage when, between 5 and 5.30 P.M., the enemy
attacked in three parties, one from the front and one on each flank
working round to the rear, using two flammenwerfer and a huge number of
chemical and smoke grenades. All telephone communication was broken,
the S.O.S. rockets failed to work, and the first four men sent back
with messages were killed. When eventually information did get back to
battalion headquarters the post had been lost. The garrison fought to
the end and when for a short time the Lewis guns were got into action
killed many of the enemy before being finally overpowered.
Permission to evacuate the post had in fact been granted, but the
attack took place before the orders had time to get through.
Having taken “B” post the enemy tried to gain a footing in the front
line. The attack was driven back by a company of the 10th R.B., under
Capt. J. E. Trevor Jones, who was awarded the M.C.
About the middle of February the long frost broke and once more the
ground became a mass of mud, trenches began to fall in, and movement
was everywhere difficult.
The general situation had meanwhile undergone an important change. One
result of the battle of the Somme had been to leave the enemy in a
pronounced salient between Le Transloy and Arras, and during the winter
1916/1917 operations were carried out against the southern face and
the south-east corner of this salient. In November an advance on the
Ancre ended in the capture of St Pierre Divion, Beaucourt and Beaumont
Hamel, and of commanding positions south of the river. Operations were
continued early in 1917, and by the 17th of February we had gained the
high ground overlooking Miraumont from the south and from the west.
This gave us command of a further stretch of the Ancre valley and
threatened the enemy’s line north of the river, where he still held a
sharp salient at Serre. On the 24th the enemy began to evacuate his
forward positions, and by the evening of the following day the Fifth
Army had occupied a line from the north-east of Gueudecourt through
Warlencourt-Eaucourt and Miraumont to Serre and was established in the
enemy’s first defensive system. In the following fortnight the line was
pushed forward to Grévillers, Puisieux and Gommecourt.[5]
Prisoners taken in these operations stated that the Germans
were contemplating a retirement on a still larger scale to the
newly-constructed Hindenburg Line, which ran from St Quentin through
Havrincourt, eight miles south-west of Cambrai, and Quéant to the
original defensive system east of Arras. They said that this line was
to be reached by the 25th of March, that the water supply was being cut
off, and that all possible dug-outs were being mined in the area which
it was intended to evacuate.
Meanwhile British troops had taken over a considerable length of line
from the French; by the end of February the British right flank rested
at a point four miles west of Roye.[6]
On the 3rd of March the Divisional front was extended to the right
some 750 yards to include the village of Sailly-Saillisel. This was
due to the withdrawal from the line of the 29th Division, whose front
the Guards and 20th Divisions took over between them. The XIVth Corps
front was then held by two divisions instead of three, the Guards on
the right and the 20th on the left. On the left of the 20th was the 5th
Australian Division of the 1st Anzac Corps, belonging to the Fifth Army.
At this time the 91st and 92nd Field Artillery Brigades relieved the
17th Divisional Artillery, and came again under the orders of their
own division. The 91st Brigade, with two batteries R.H.A., formed the
right group, the 92nd Brigade, with one battery R.H.A., formed the left
group, and the 460th (How.) battery of the 29th Division was in reserve.
On the 7th the regular brigade organisation was resumed, with the 61st
Brigade on the right, the 59th on the left, and the 60th at Carnoy in
reserve. Each of the forward brigades kept two battalions in the line
and two at Guillemont.
On the 12th the 61st Brigade was relieved by the 60th and went back to
Carnoy. Here on the afternoon of the 15th the whole camp of the 12th
King’s was wrecked by an explosion between the officers’ huts and the
men’s camp. It is unknown what caused the disaster, but apparently
some explosives which had long been buried were detonated by accident.
Fortunately many of the officers and men were away at the time, either
at a football match or at the Carnoy Coliseum, where the “Verey Lights”
had been performing since the 20th of February. This must have saved
many lives. Nevertheless, three officers were killed and one wounded,
and nine men killed, 52 wounded, and one reported missing.
Since the beginning of March there had been increasing signs that the
enemy was preparing to withdraw along the whole of his front in the
Somme area. Arrangements were therefore made for an early advance.
Orders were issued for the formation of advanced guards; the lines on
which the operations should be carried out were laid down, and patrols
were kept constantly at work to give immediate information of any
retirement from the German positions along the Divisional front.