ARTILLERY FIRE
It may be desirable to indicate the various kinds of shell fire to
which trench men are exposed. (I pass over rifle fire which is harmless
so long as men keep their heads down and avoid corners from which they
can be enfiladed.) No amount of caution will save a man from shells
if they happen to be falling in his neighbourhood. The most frequent
visitor of the shell variety is of course the shell from the field
gun. The British use an 18-pounder, the French a 75 millimetre, and
the Germans a 77 millimetre--all shells of about the same calibre (3
inches). Of these the best gun is undoubtedly the French, which is a
perfectly marvellous piece of mechanism. But all of them are deadly in
their effects. They may fire either shrapnel or high explosive--always
spoken of in the army as H. E. In the former case, the shell that is
fired contains a nose that comes off at the time for which it is set,
and liberates hundreds of small round leaden bullets. These go out in
cone shape and spray the ground round about. Shrapnel is very effective
against men in the open but of little use when they are entrenched, for
very few of the bullets from any shell will enter the ditch itself.
When the British army first took the field they had very little H. E.
Shrapnel had been used successfully in South Africa, and it was thought
it would do in France. The proportions used were 96 per cent shrapnel
to 4 per cent H. E. We learnt our lessons dearly--as we usually do--and
in time we came to realise that for breaking down parapets shrapnel was
absolutely useless. The proportion that is now used is about 90 per
cent H. E. to 10 per cent of shrapnel.
The soldiers used to call the 77 mill. shells of the Germans
"Pip-squeaks." They used to give a "pip" and then a "squeak." If you
heard the first and did not hear the second you were dead, while, if
you heard them both you could consider yourself still alive. Another
familiar name for them was that of "Cheeky Charlies," from the fact
that they had the habit of coming in without being announced.
In addition to the field guns there are the "Mediums" or guns of
about 5 inches calibre. The familiar name for the German shell fired
from them was "the Crump"--by reason of the fact that they sat down
alongside you with a terrific "Crump" as their greeting. As in the
former case, those who could report having heard the "Crump" were still
alive.
Then there are various long range guns between five and nine inches in
calibre. But long range guns do not play the part that high-angle or
Howitzer guns do. The Germans wasted a good many shells in firing at
targets even as far away as twenty-three miles, but nowadays shells are
usually kept for targets that there is a fair chance of hitting and not
for blind firing.
The Howitzer that has come to play a very large part in the operations
of the British is the gun that is familiarly called "Mother"--a gun of
9.2 inches calibre and which projects a very weighty shell. The Germans
have a corresponding gun of a little larger bore.
Last of all there come the great guns of 15 and 16 inch calibre.
These guns need concrete foundations and cannot be set up in a hurry.
Fortunately--for them--the Germans had a number of these foundations
already prepared in unsuspecting France and Belgium long before the
war. Our own gun of this size we call "Grandmother." The shells that
fall from the German guns of the largest size we call by various
names--either "Bertha Krupps" from the name of the proprietress of
the great gun works at Essen; or "Fat Berthas" for the same reason;
or "Jack Johnsons" from their hard-hitting capacity; or "coal boxes,"
"black marias," etc., etc. The effect of these shells was terrific,
as may be imagined, but there were many occasions when they pierced
so deep into the soft ground that a good deal of the force of their
explosion was lost. Of course for work against forts there is nothing
like them. They opened the eyes of the world from their terrible
destructive force shown at Liége and Namur.
Akin to shells in their effects are the now familiar bombs. These are
of all varieties and sizes. They range from the small hand grenade
that is about the size of an ordinary lemon and is simply heaved into
the opposing trench by the soldiers, to the immense bombs weighing
two hundred and fifty pounds that are thrown from trench mortars, or
guns of short barrel and very wide mouths. It was a long time before
the British army appreciated the value of bombs and we could not get
a supply of them. The "Tommies" set to work to manufacture them in
the trenches and a good many lives were lost there through premature
explosions.
Practice is absolutely necessary before a man is fit to be allowed to
handle a live bomb. He should be trained first of all to throw a tin
filled with stones, and learn the trick of letting it go at the correct
moment. The first time a man throws a bomb he is simply anxious to get
rid of it without any regard for the time the fuse has been burning.
Most fuses now are five seconds and that time must be calculated to a
nicety to get the best results. If a bomb is thrown too soon, the enemy
may pick it up and throw it back--this has happened many hundreds of
times. It should be retained in the hand during the first and second
seconds at least and then thrown so as to explode OVER the enemy trench
on the fifth second. Our men were taught to get out of the way of bombs
coming into the trenches if they could--there is no use staying to be
blown up under ordinary trench conditions--but if they were under such
circumstances that they could not get out of the way they were supposed
to catch them and throw them away, or throw them back as hastily as
possible. Men become experts in this just as they do in catching base
balls. Where a bomb could not be picked up and endangered the lives of
men in the trench who could not get away from it, men have often thrown
their bodies upon it, and thus, in a most gallant and self-sacrificing
way, given their lives for their comrades.
Of course catching them is out of the question when it comes to the
large bombs. Absence of body then is better than all the presence of
mind. When they actually hit the trench--which is a very difficult
thing to do--they do frightful damage. But when they miss their mark
they usually open up a lot of earth either before or behind the trench,
and perhaps lay out a man or two with concussion.
Of the same variety are aerial torpedoes which are simply bombs with
flanges on their tails to give them direction.
Sometimes the bombs that were sent over were not H. E. in the sense
that they exploded a steel shell that sent its various pieces large
and small hurtling through the air, but were simply large oil drums
with a quantity of H. E. in them. Men were killed right and left,
not from being hit with anything, but merely from having been in the
neighbourhood when they exploded.
Rifle grenades are a form of bomb on the end of a stick that fits into
the muzzle of the rifle and is then discharged by means of a blank
cartridge. They are effective only at short distances. Indeed, even
with trench mortars, the projectiles can seldom be hurled more than
four hundred yards, so that they are almost always used on the fire
trenches and are never directed to trenches farther back.