Commanding the Battalion August 1916–January 1917 and October—December
1917.
]
The 72nd Brigade was on a two-battalion front, holding the left sector
of the 24th Divisional front. We shared the right subsector with the 1st
North Staffordshire Regiment. The trench system consisted of a front
line running along the Lens-La Bassee road, a close support 40 yards in
rear, a support line “Reserve Trench” 600 yards behind, and a reserve
line “Tenth Avenue” for the Battalion in support about 1,000 yards
behind “Reserve Trench.” The Battalion in Divisional Reserve was in
billets at Philosophe. The forward trenches were fairly good except on
the left, but they had been recently knocked about considerably, and one
portion of the front line on the centre company front, which jutted out
rather prominently into No Man’s Land, was practically extinct. A trench
called New Cut was dug across later on to replace this. There was
another very bad place 200 or 300 yards in length between the centre and
left companies which was unoccupied. The communication trenches on our
front, Posen Alley, Broadway, and Vendin Alley, were very poor.
We found the Hun was very out of hand on this front. On our right
company front No Man’s Land was about 100 yards wide, and it increased
to about 300 yards on the left company front. The enemy had a different
treatment for each company. On the right, where the enemy held Posen
Crater, a big chalk mound where a mine had been blown some time before,
he had developed his light trench mortars, “Grenatenwerfer,” or
“Pineapples,” to an extraordinary extent. On the centre company, where
our trenches were bad, he used medium trench mortars, “Rum Jars,” very
extensively, particularly on the roof of Company Headquarters. The left
company used to be shelled a good deal, and medium trench mortars
dropped there quite frequently as well. We went into the line in the
early morning of October 25, A Company on the right, B Company in the
centre, D Company on the left, and C Company in support in Reserve
Trench. Battalion Headquarters were in dug-outs in Curzon Street, 500
yards behind Reserve Trench. During the day all was quiet, but as soon
as it got dusk in the evening the fun began. On the right the Hun fairly
let fly with his “Pineapples,” in the centre he began to drop “Rum Jars”
with startling accuracy on the roof of Company Headquarters, and on the
left he served up all kinds of stuff. We had very little means of
retaliation, and something had to be done. By the second night we had
arranged one or two artillery concentrations, which could be switched on
to various parts of his trenches, and on the right we had got one or two
rifle-grenade batteries in position for retaliation for his
“Pineapples.” On this night 2nd Lieut. F. G. Yeo, who had just joined A
Company, was killed by a “Pineapple,” and his platoon sergeant, Sergt.
Champion, was badly wounded and died a few days after. For a fortnight a
desperate duel for supremacy in these trenches went on. At first we
could only manage to give him about two rifle grenades for each
“Pineapple” he sent over, with a mild artillery strafe if things got
very bad. But by the end of the fortnight he must have been getting
twelve rifle grenades for every “Pineapple.” Also, our artillery liaison
had been greatly improved. Officers who were with the Battalion at that
time will remember the code words, “Air,” “Love,” “Hate,” “Fortnum,” and
“Mason,” among those used to bring down fire and brimstone on the head
of the Hun. The Stokes mortars were really being used as a mobile
weapon. We made temporary emplacements all along the trench during the
daytime with a few sandbags, and during the night 2nd Lieut. H. J. Dunn,
with a party of men, used to carry a mortar along from emplacement to
emplacement, firing off a couple of rounds as required here or there.
The rifle-grenade batteries were manned all the time, but no firing took
place until the friendly Boche saw fit to commence.
It was a most amusing fortnight. It would be difficult to say how many
hundreds of rifle grenades and Stokes shells fell into the Hun trenches.
One morning, when all was quiet, a company commander was looking at some
old boxes of Mills bombs in the front line. In order to test them, he
threw one over the parapet. It exploded all right—but the parties with
the rifle-grenade batteries in the support line thought it was a
“Pineapple” going off, and before you could say “knife” a hail of rifle
grenades dropped into the unfortunate Posen Crater. By the end of the
first week in November the Hun had given it best, and he was kept well
in his place during the rest of our stay in this sector. We got on
steadily with improving the trenches, and a lot of new wire was put up,
and constant patrolling gave us the complete mastery of No Man’s Land.
Normal tours up here were six days in the line, six days in support in
Tenth Avenue—with rat hunts and working parties galore to keep us busy;
six days in the line again, and then six days in reserve at Philosophe.
We remained in the sector for nearly four months, and it was on the
whole a very happy winter.
[Illustration: