Aeroplane Photo of Opposing Trench Lines, YPRES.
Aeroplane Photo of Opposing Trench Lines, YPRES.
The following night we hit back; Major Crump, who was in command in the absence of Lieutenant-Colonel Hindle, who was commanding the Brigade, organised a raid, carried out under an artillery barrage by Second Lieutenant Tautz, three N.C.O.’s, and 20 men, who entered the enemy’s lines and bombed dugouts. The party had great difficulty in getting through the wire, and our casualties were two men wounded of the party and one in the trench; three of the raiders were at first reported missing, but Private Metcalfe turned up at dawn, having got entangled in the wire and badly wounded, and in the evening another, Private Cooper, came in, having spent the day in a shell hole.
That day, the 20th, leave reopened, having been closed since January, and everyone began to calculate their chances.
About this time we were encouraged to use our Lewis guns against hostile aircraft, and special mountings and fittings were issued to us for that purpose—it was impossible for people behind to deal with machines flying low over our front line. This aeroplane shooting was rather good sport, and though very few were actually brought down by Lewis gun fire, they soon learned to keep out of range. At this time the aeroplane activity in the SALIENT was great on both sides—on a fine day machines swarmed like midges in the sky.
On the night of the 20th we were relieved by the 1/4th KING’S OWN, and on relief we marched to A Camp, just behind VLAMERTINGHE, leaving Captain Harris and 200 men of B and D Companies in YPRES as a working party. They had rather a lively time, as YPRES was being heavily shelled daily—a shell actually entered a cellar where several men were sleeping, ricochetted and buried itself in one of the walls without exploding or touching anyone. During the next few days five men were wounded.
On the night of the 26th we relieved the 1/4th KING’S OWN in the POTIJZE sector, C and A Companies in front, B in support, and D in reserve, and began at once a series of works designed to mislead the enemy and make him think an attack was intended on our front. How much he was deceived appeared from the amount of attention we received from this time onward until the battle of MESSINES.
The opposing sides gained much of their knowledge of the other’s intentions from aeroplane photographs, which show up with great clearness any newly-dug earth. It was our task then to open up all the disused trenches on our sector, placing along the top a row of new sandbags, and to dig saps out into NO MAN’S LAND, at the same time annoying the Hun by every means in our power. Two were killed and three wounded during the next four days, during which we kept throwing things at the Hun—trench mortars, grenades, bullets, etc.—and we really did stir him up. Then came the news that we were not to be relieved, so Companies changed over.
On 1st June the gas strafe started; our people started it with a discharge of 500 gas drums on enemy reserves. We heard afterwards that so sudden and concentrated was the attack that a whole Company were poisoned where they stood. The enemy retaliated on us, killing one man and wounding three, using everything he had; then he began to bring up gas shells and use them, chiefly at night on lines of communication. The sighing of gas shells going over never ceased during three successive nights before the show, yet the damage done was very slight. But the Companies in the trenches kept getting odd ones, and the veering breeze kept clouds of various gases drifting about for quite a long time, and we had a few anxious vigils. The Hun was very angry and horribly afraid and therefore shelled everything he could think of, and we appeared to occupy some of his thoughts, for we certainly got our full share and he took his toll of us.
On the 2nd we sent over more gas drums, and again the Hun retaliated, doing a lot of damage to trenches and killing two men and wounding five others.
On the 3rd we treated him to a combined smoke, artillery, and machine gun barrage, and he replied, but more feebly, killing one man and wounding two; but during the night, from 10 p.m. to 4 a.m., he drenched YPRES with gas shells, our transport suffering slightly. He also, on the following day, put 67 “Minnies” on to B Company, killing one man and wounding Second Lieutenants Hall and Johnson and 11 others. We were glad to learn that Lieutenant-Colonel Hindle had been awarded the D.S.O. in the Birthday Honours List.
That night a minor enterprise by the 1/5th NORTH LANCASHIRE REGIMENT on our right caused some shelling on our right front Company, and a party digging saps in front escaped by a miracle; he also sent a few Granatenwerfer over into the middle of another party engaged in sap digging, causing several casualties, the total being 14 wounded for the two days. On the 14th both sides were active. We were preparing an elaborate programme of smoke and other bombs, to be discharged at the same hour as the MESSINES battle was timed to start, also putting scaling ladders against the parapet—this work was under Captain Harris. The Hun shelled YPRES pretty heavily in the evening, and set two large dumps on fire.
At 3 10 a.m. on the 7th the Messines battle started with a literal earthquake—19 mines being blown up at once, the barrage starting at the same time on our front among others. The enemy shelled us for about half an hour, by which time he found out that we were bluffing him and stopped. Our casualties were five killed, Second Lieutenant Agostini and 10 others wounded.
On the 8th the enemy shelled the roads with 5.9’s and gas shells in the early morning, our guns doing wire cutting with the 106 fuse, a very sensitive fuse which bursts on graze without burying itself; a good many “shorts” fell on our trenches due to defective ammunition, which was just as dangerous to the gunners as to us, as muzzle-bursts were not infrequent. A gunner Officer going round the line was at a loss for words when he saw a shell case, which had fallen short, stuck up over a dugout with the inscription, “A present from the R.F.A.!” SergeantThompson was killed by a nosecap from one of these “shorts,” and during the day four men were wounded.
Oblique Aeroplane Photograph Showing Trench Lines at YPRES. Taken April 23rd, 1917.
Oblique Aeroplane Photograph Showing Trench Lines at YPRES. Taken April 23rd, 1917.
In the afternoon A and C Companies relieved B and D in the front line.
At 11 9 p.m. the 39th Division on our left sent over gas from Projectors; we caught some of the retaliation on POTIJZE ROAD—5.9’s and gas shells.
On the 9th we had a fairly quiet morning, but the artillery livened up in the afternoon; the 1/4th KING’S OWN carried out a successful raid on our front, bagging six unwounded prisoners, who seemed glad to be taken. The enemy was taken by surprise in mid-relief. We had six men wounded during the day.
Things remained lively during the next two days, five men being wounded, but on the 11th the blessed word “Relief” was whispered. Imagine the joy of men who had never had their clothes off for nearly three weeks—more, in some cases. The relieving Battalion, the 1/9th King’s Liverpool Regiment, did not arrive till after 3 a.m., so relief had to be carried out in daylight in very small parties, but it went off without a casualty, and we marched to a canvas camp behind YPRES, where we rested till noon on the 12th, when we marched by Companies to POPERINGHE, leaving by train at 2 45 p.m. and reaching ESQUELBECQ at 4 45 p.m.; here we were joined by part of the transport, and after dinner had been eaten we marched on to BOLLEZEELE, where we occupied our old billets.
The next three days were spent in cleaning up, bathing, and a little training.
On the 16th the Brigade marched via Watten to BOISDINGHEM; it was a broiling day and the sky was like brass, and as the march started at 9 a.m., when the sun was high up, and was mostly uphill, a large number of men were affected with sunstroke and fell out, but the 9th Wing R.F.C. were very good to us and lent us lurries to bring in the stragglers. Here we found the accommodation poor and totally inadequate, but we crowded in somehow, many preferring to bivouac in the open fields rather than occupy the buildings allotted to them: the village lay on the top of the downs not many miles from our old area HOULLE, almost out of the sound of the guns. About this time the Diarist, reviewing recent events, writes:—
“To be within two or three yards of a big shell when it bursts sounds like sudden death, but it isn’t—necessarily; it happens daily to lots of people who survive; I have been several times as close as that, closer in one case; the shock and noise absolutely deafen one for some minutes afterwards, but it seems to pass off; but there must be a good solid bulwark of earth between you and the shell! if there isn’t, well—shell-shock is the best you can hope for!”
On Sunday, the 17th, we had a Church of England parade out of doors, the cornet player of the Drums leading the hymns. Second Lieutenants Easterby and Rigby joined us. The following day we were inspected in mass by the Brigadier, who gave us a good rating about Saturday’s march. We thought this a little unkind, as it might have occurred to the Staff to make a start early in the morning and get it over in the cool of the day, instead of expecting men who were weak from a long spell of trenches to march 15 miles heavily laden in the middle of a hot June day; however, we had no doubt that those responsible would be duly ticked off,so we swallowed the rating with outward calm; after all, the men who fell out had in some cases done so without asking leave, being long past caring what happened, and this was a breach of march discipline.
The remaining days of the month were spent in training; we received a large number of reinforcements, including Second Lieutenant Brooke. Captain Houghton, who had picked up trench fever during the last tour, was sent to Field Ambulance, Captain Harris taking over A Company.
On the 2nd July we marched to LUMBRES, thence we went by rail to BRANDHOEK, and marched from there to DERBY CAMP. At dusk D Company moved forward to a post called L 4 on the YPRES Road, A and C Companies to a strong point called P 1, and two Officers and 50 Other Ranks to YPRES for water duties. Second Lieutenant H. Whitehurst joined us as a reinforcement. Two men were wounded on the 3rd and one on the 5th, on which day Captain Ord rejoined us from the Divisional School, Major Crump leaving the following day for a three months’ course at the Senior Officers’ School, Aldershot.
On the 9th we relieved the 1/4th KING’S OWN in the line; there was considerable enemy activity during the night, and we had one killed and one wounded.
On the 10th, although considered “quiet,” we had three men wounded, while on the 12th, though he put two of our Lewis guns out of action with Minenwerfers and shelled our trenches intensely, we had no casualty. At 11 p.m. he began to shell Battalion Headquarters steadily and went on till 8 30 a.m.; a wiring party from our left front Company had three men wounded by “Minnies,” and had to come in.
One man was killed and eight wounded during the day, one of the wiring party being missing. On the 13th two men were wounded during desultory shelling of our lines, and five on the next day, which started quiet, but things on both sides woke up at dusk, our guns bombarding enemy batteries, the Hun sending gas shells on to us, and barraging the front line, stopping all work, wounding three men and gassing two others that day. In the early morning 20 yards of the front line parapet was knocked in, one man killed and five wounded. Things were getting very hot indeed, and our strength was daily being whittled down, but relief was not yet.
The casualties at this time would have been far heavier than they actually were but for the fact that the N.C.O.’s in the front line had learnt that NO MAN’S LAND was the safest place in a bombardment and used to take their posts out in front of our wire as soon as the Hun opened out.
Oblique Aeroplane Photograph Showing Objectives in the 3rd Battle of YPRES.
Oblique Aeroplane Photograph Showing Objectives in the 3rd Battle of YPRES.