|
The Salient
22nd June, 1915 - 1st Oct., 1915.
On the 22nd
June, 1915, after resting for five days in the Huts, where General
Ferguson, our Corps Commander, came to say good-bye, we marched at 9.0
p.m. to Ouderdom, while our place in the line was taken by the 50th
Northumbrian Territorial Division, who had been very badly hammered, and
were being sent for a rest to a quiet sector. At Ouderdom, which we
reached about midnight, we discovered that our billets consisted of a farm
house and a large field, not very cheering to those who had expected a
village, or at least huts, but better than one or two units who had fields
only, without the farm. It was our first experience in bivouacs, but
fortunately a fine night, so we soon all crawled under waterproof sheets,
and slept until daylight allowed us to arrange something more substantial.
The next day, with the aid of a few "scrounged" top poles and some string,
every man made himself some sort of weather-proof hutch, while the
combined tent-valises of the officers were grouped together near the
farm, which was used as mess and Quartermaster's Stores. Unfortunately, we
had no sooner made ourselves really comfortable than the Staffordshires
claimed the field as part of their area, and we had to move to a similar
billeting area a few hundred yards outside Reninghelst where we stayed
until the 28th. The weather remained hot and fine, except for two very
heavy showers in the middle of one day, when most of the officers could
be seen making furious efforts to dig drains round their bivouacs from
inside, while the other ranks stood stark naked round the field and
enjoyed the pleasures of a cold shower-bath. We spent our time training
and providing working parties, one of which, consisting of 400 men under
Capt. Jeffries, for work at Zillebeke, proved an even greater fiasco than
its predecessor in May. For on this occasion, not only was the night very
short, but the guides failed to find the work, and the party eventually
returned to bivouacs, having done nothing except wander about the salient
for three hours. Two days before we left Reninghelst the first
reinforcements arrived for us, consisting of 12 returned casualties and 80
N.C.O.'s and men from England—a very welcome addition to our
strength.
The time eventually arrived for us to go into the line,
and on the 29th the officers went up by day to take over from the Sherwood
Foresters, while the remainder of the Battalion followed as soon as it was
dark. Mud roads and broad cross-country tracks brought us over the plain
to the "Indian Transport Field," near Kruisstraat White Chateau, still
standing untouched because, it was said, its peace-time owner was a Boche.
Leaving the Chateau on our right, and passing Brigade Headquarters Chalet
on our left, we kept to the road through Kruisstraat as far as the
outskirts of Ypres, where a track to the right led us to Bridge 14 over
the Ypres-Comines Canal. Thence, by field tracks, we crossed the Lille
road a few yards north of Shrapnel Corner, and leaving on our left the
long, low, red buildings of the "Ecole de Bienfaisance," reached Zillebeke
Lake close to the white house at the N.W. corner. The lake is triangular
and entirely artificial, being surrounded by a broad causeway, 6 feet
high, with a pathway along the top. On the western edge the ground falls
away, leaving a bank some twenty feet high, in which were built the "Lake
Dug-outs,"—the home of one of the support battalions. From the corner
house to the trenches there were two routes, one by the south side of the
Lake, past Railway Dug-outs—cut into the embankment of the Comines
Railway—and Manor Farm to Square Wood; the other, which we followed, along
the North side of the Lake, where a trench cut into the causeway gave us
cover from observation from "Hill 60." At Zillebeke we left the trench,
and crossed the main road at the double, on account of a machine gun which
the Boche kept at the "Hill 60" end of it, and kept moving until past the
Church—another unpleasant locality. Thence a screened track led to Maple
Copse, an isolated little wood with several dug-outs in it, and on to
Sanctuary Wood, which we found 400 yards further East. Here in dug-outs
lived the Supports, for whom at this time was no fighting accommodation
except one or two absurdly miniature keeps. At the corner of the larger
wood we passed the Ration Dump, and then, leaving this on our left, turned
into Armagh Wood on our right.
From the southern end of Zillebeke
village two roads ran to the front line. One, almost due South, kept close
to the railway and was lost in the ruins of Zwartelen village on "Hill
60"; the other, turning East along a ridge, passed between Sanctuary and
Armagh Woods, and crossed our front line between the "A" and "B" trenches,
the left of our new sector. The ridge, called Observatory, on account of
its numerous O.P.'s, was sacred to the Gunners, and no one was allowed to
linger there, for fear of betraying these points of vantage. Beyond it
was a valley, and beyond that again some high ground N.E. of the hill,
afterwards known as Mountsorrel, on account of Colonel Martin's
Headquarters, which were on it. The line ran over the top of this high
ground, which was the meeting place of the old winter trenches (numbered
46 to 50) on the right, and, on the left the new trenches "A," "B," etc.,
built for our retirement during the 2nd Battle. The 5th Division held the
old trenches, we relieved the Sherwood Foresters in the new "A1" to "A8,"
with three companies in the line and only one in support. The last was
near Battalion Headquarters, called Uppingham in Colonel Jones' honor,
which were in a bank about 200 yards behind the front line. Some of the
dug-outs were actually in the bank, but the most extraordinary erection of
all was the mess, a single sandbag thick house, built entirely above
ground, and standing by itself, unprotected by any bank or fold in the
ground, absolutely incapable, of course, of protecting its occupants from
even an anti-aircraft "dud."
We soon discovered during our first
tour the difference between the Salient and other sectors of the line,
for, whereas at Kemmel we were rarely shelled more than once a day, and
then only with a few small shells, now scarcely three hours went by
without some part of the Battalion's front being bombarded, usually with
whizz-bangs. The Ypres whizz-bang, too, was a thing one could not despise.
The country round Klein Zillebeke was very close, and the Boche was able
to keep his batteries only a few hundred yards behind his front line,
with the result that the "Bang" generally arrived before the whizz. "A6"
and "A7" suffered most, and on the 1st July Captain T.C.P. Beasley,
commanding "C" Company, and Lieut. A.P. Marsh, of "B" Company, were both
wounded, and had to be sent away to Hospital some hours later. The same
night we gave up these undesirable trenches, together with "A5" and "A8"
to the 4th Battalion, and took instead "49," "50" and the Support "51"
from the Cheshires of the 5th Division. These trenches were about 200
yards from the enemy except at the junction of "49" and "50," where a
small salient in his line brought him to within 80 yards. The sniping here
was as deadly as at Kemmel, though round the corner in "A1" we could have
danced on the parapet and attracted no attention. On the other hand "49"
and "50" were comfortably built, whereas "A1" was shallow and narrow and
half filled with tunnelers' sandbags, for it contained three long mine
shafts, two of which were already under the German lines. "A2," "3" and
"4" were the most peaceful of our sector, and the only disturbance here
during the tour was when one of a small burst of crumps blew up our bomb
store and blocked the trench for a time. This was on the 5th, and after it
we were left in peace, until, relieved by the Staffordshires, we marched
back to Ouderdom, feeling that we had escaped from our first tour in the
ill-famed salient fairly cheaply. Even so, we had lost two officers and
24 O. Ranks wounded, and seven killed, a rate which, if kept up, would
soon very seriously deplete our ranks.
General Map of Flanders
to illustrate Chapters II
& III
On reaching Ouderdom, we found that some huts on
the Vlamertinghe road had now been allotted us instead of our bivouac
field, and as on the following day it rained hard, we were not sorry. Our
satisfaction, however, was short-lived, for the hut roofs were of wood
only, and leaked in so many places that many were absolutely uninhabitable
and had to be abandoned. At the same time some short lengths of shelter
trench which we had dug in case of shelling were completely filled with
water, so that anyone desiring shelter must needs have a bath as well.
This wet weather, coupled with a previous shortage of water in the
trenches, and the generally unhealthy state of the salient, brought a
considerable amount of sickness and slight dysentery, and although we did
not send many to Hospital, the health of the Battalion on the whole was
bad, and we seemed to have lost for the time our energy. Probably a
fortnight in good surroundings would have cured us completely, and even
after eight days at rest we were in a better state, but on the 13th we
were once more ordered into the line and the good work was undone, for the
sickness returned with increased vigor.
Between the Railway Cutting
at "Hill 60" and the Comines Canal further south, the lines at this time
were very close together, and at one point, called Bomb Corner, less than
50 yards separated our parapet from the Boche's. This sector, containing
trenches "35" at Bomb Corner, "36" and "37" up to the Railway, was held by
the 1st Norfolks of the 5th Division, who were finding their own reliefs,
and, with one company resting at a time, had been more than two months in
this same front line. On the 11th July the Boche blew a mine under trench
"37" doing considerable damage to the parapet, and on the following night
"36" was similarly treated, and a length of the trench blotted out. The
night after this we came in to relieve the Norfolks, who not unnaturally
were expecting "35" to share the same fate, and had consequently evacuated
their front line for the night, while they sat in the second line and
waited for it to go up in the air. Captain Jefferies with "D" Company
took over "35," while the two damaged trenches were held by "B" Company
(Capt. J.L. Griffiths). "A" and "C" held a keep near Verbranden Molen—an
old mill about three hundred yards behind our front line—and Battalion
Headquarters lived in some dug-outs in the woods behind "35." Behind this
again, the solitary Blaupoort Farm provided R.A.P. and ration dump with a
certain amount of cover, though the number of dud shells in the courtyard
made it necessary to walk with extreme caution on a dark night. In spite
of the numerous reports of listening-posts, who heard "rapping
underground," we were not blown up during our four days in residence, and
our chief worry was not mines, but again whiz-bangs. One battery was
particularly offensive, and three times on the 15th Capt. Griffiths had
his parapet blown away by salvoes of these very disagreeable little
shells. One's parapet in this area was one's trench, for digging was
impossible, and we lived behind a sort of glorified sandbag grouse butt,
six feet thick at the base and two to three feet at the top, sometimes,
but not always, bullet-proof.
One or two amusing stories are told
about the infantry opposite "33," who were Saxons, and inclined to be
friendly with the English. On one occasion the following message, tied to
a stone, was thrown into our trench: "We are going to send a 40lb. bomb.
We have got to do it, but don't want to. I will come this evening, and we
will whistle first to warn you." All of this happened. A few days later
they apparently mistrusted the German official news, for they sent a
further message saying, "Send us an English newspaper that we may learn
the verity."
The weather throughout the tour was bad, but on the
night of 17th/18th, when we were relieved at midnight by the Sherwood
Foresters, it became appalling. We were not yet due for a rest, having
been only four days in the line, and our orders were to spend the night in
bivouacs at Kruisstraat and return to trenches the following evening,
taking over our old sector "50" to "A7." Weakened with sickness and soaked
to the skin, we stumbled through black darkness along the track to
Kruisstraat—three miles of slippery mud and water-logged shell holes—only
to find that our bivouac field was flooded, and we must march back to
Ouderdom and spend the night in the huts, five miles further west. We
reached home as dawn was breaking, tired out and wet through, and lay down
at once to snatch what sleep we could before moving off again at 6-30 p.m.
But for many it was too much, and 150 men reported sick and were in such a
weak condition that they were left behind at the huts, where later they
were joined by some 40 more who had tried hard to reach trenches but had
had to give up and fall out on the way. The rest of us, marching slowly
and by short stages, did eventually relieve the Sherwood Foresters, but so
tired as to be absolutely unfit for trenches. Fortunately for two days the
weather was good and the Boche very quiet, there was time for all to get a
thorough rest, and by the 20th we had very largely recovered our
vigor—which was just as well, for it proved an exciting tour.
The excitement started about a mile away on our left,
when, on the evening of the 19th, the next Division blew up an enormous
mine at Hooge, and, with the aid of an intense artillery bombardment,
attacked and captured part of the village, including the chateau stables.
The enemy counter-attacked the following night, and, though he made no
headway and was driven out with heavy loss, he none the less bombarded our
new ground continuously and caused us many casualties. Accordingly, to
make a counter attraction, the Tunneling Company working with us was asked
to blow up part of the enemy's lines as soon as possible; the blow would
be accompanied by an artillery "strafe" by us. There was at this time such
a network of mine galleries in front of "A1," that Lieut. Tulloch, R.E.,
was afraid that the Boche would hear him loading one of the galleries, so,
to take no risks, blew a preliminary camouflet on the evening of the 21st,
destroying the enemy's nearest sap. This was successful, and the work of
loading and tamping the mines started at once. 1500 lbs. of ammonal were
packed at the end of a gallery underneath the German redoubt opposite
"A1," while at the end of another short gallery a smaller mine was laid,
in order to destroy as much as possible of his mine workings. The date
chosen was the 23rd, the time 7 p.m.
At 6-55 p.m., having vacated
"A1" for the time, we blew the smaller of the two mines—in order, it was
said, to attract as many of the enemy as possible into his redoubt. To
judge by the volume of rifle fire which came from his lines, this part of
the program was successful, but we did not have long to think about it,
for at 7 p.m. the 1500 lbs. went off, and Boche redoubt, sandbags, and
occupants went into the air, together with some tons of the salient, much
of which fell into our trenches. A minute later our Artillery opened
their bombardment, and for the next half hour the enemy must have had a
thoroughly bad time in every way. His retaliation was insignificant, and
consisted of a very few little shells fired more or less at random—a
disquieting feature to those of us who knew the Germans' love of an
instant and heavy reply to our slightest offensive action. "Stand to," the
usual time for the evening "hate," passed off very quietly, and, as we
sat down to our evening meal, we began to wonder whether we were to have
any reply at all. Meanwhile, three new officers arrived—2nd. Lieut. R.C.
Lawton, of "A" Company, who had been prevented by sickness from coming
abroad with us, and 2nd Lieuts. E.E. Wynne and N.C. Marriott, both of whom
were sent to "B" Company, where they joined Capt. Griffiths at dinner.
They were half way through their meal when, without the slightest warning,
the ground heaved, pieces of the roof fell on the table, and they heard
the ominous whirr of falling clods, which betokens a mine at close
quarters.
Hohenzollern Memorial
Before the débris had stopped falling, Capt. Griffiths was
out of his dug-out and scrambling along his half-filled trench, to find
out what had happened. Reaching the right end of "50," he found his front
line had been completely destroyed, and where his listening post had been,
was now a large crater, into which the Boche was firing trench mortars,
while heavy rifle fire came from his front line. Except for a few wounded
men, he could see nothing of Serjt. Bunn and the garrison of the trench,
most of whom he soon realized must have been buried, where the tip of the
crater had engulfed what had been the front line. For about 80 yards no
front line existed, nor had he sufficient men in the left of his trench to
bring across to help the right, so, sending down a report of his
condition, he started, with any orderlies and batmen he could collect, to
rescue those of his Company who had been only partially buried. Meanwhile,
help was coming from two quarters. On the right, Colonel Martin, of the
4th Battalion, also disturbed at dinner, was soon up in "49" trench, where
he found that his left flank had also suffered from the explosion, but not
so badly. His first thought was to form some continuous line of defense
across the gap, if possible linking up with the crater at the same time,
and, with this object in view he personally reconnoitered the ground and
discovered a small disused trench running in front of "49" towards the
crater. Quickly organizing parties of men, he sent them along this cut,
first to continue it up to the crater, then with sandbags for the defense
of the "lip." He himself superintended the work inside the crater, where
he had a miraculous escape from a trench mortar, which wounded all
standing round him. At the same time, R.S.M. Small, finding a dazed man of
"B" Company wandering near Battalion Headquarters, heard what had
happened, and without waiting for further orders sent off every available
man he could find with shovels and sandbags to assist Capt. Griffiths.
Half an hour later, Capt. Bland also arrived with two platoons of "C"
Company, sent across from the left of our line, and by dawn with their
help a trench had been cut through from "50" to "49." This, though not
organized for defense, yet enabled one to pass through the damaged area.
At the same time the miners started to make a small tunnel into the bottom
of the crater, so that it would no longer be necessary to climb over the
lip to reach the bomb post which was built inside.
The Water Tower and Railway Track, Vermelles
During the next day we were fortunately not much harassed
by the enemy, and were consequently able to continue the repair work on
"50." "B" Company had had 42 casualties from the mine itself, of whom
eight were killed and seven, including Sergt. Bunn, were missing, while in
the rest of the Battalion about 30 men were wounded, mostly by trench
mortars or rifle fire when digging out "50" trench. At the time of the
explosion the enemy had thrown several bombs at "A2," and it was thought
for a time that he intended making an attack here, but rapid fire was
opened by the garrison, and nothing followed. On the evening of the 24th
we were due for relief, but, as "50" was still only partially cleared, and
we had not yet traced all our missing, we stayed in for another 24 hours,
during which time we thoroughly reorganized the sector, and were able to
hand over a properly traversed fire trench to the Lincolnshires when they
came in. Before we left we found Sergt. Bunn's body; he had been buried
at his post, and was still holding in his hand the flare pistol which he
was going to fire when the mine exploded. The men of the listening post
were not found until some time later, for they had been thrown several
hundred yards by the explosion.
On relief, we marched back to Ouderdom, taking with us the
officers and men of the 17th Division, who had been attached for
instruction during the last tour, and reached a bivouac field near the
windmill at 4-30 a.m. Here we stayed 24 hours, and then moved into the "E"
huts—an excellent camp, further E. along the Vlamertinghe road than that
which we had previously occupied. We were due to remain here for six days,
and accordingly started our usual training in bomb and bayonet fighting.
Meanwhile, Lieut. Moore and the Battalion Tunnelers were once more hard at
work helping the R.E. in "50" and "A1," and on the 30th July two of them,
Serjt. J. Emmerson and Pte. H.G. Starbuck, working underground, came upon
a German gallery. Without a moment's hesitation, Starbuck broke in and
found that the charge was already laid, and wires could be seen leading
back to the enemy's lines. If the Germans had heard him at work there was
no doubt that they would blow their mine at once, but heedless of this
danger, he stayed in the gallery until he had cut the leads, and so made
it possible for the Engineers to remove the half ton of "Westphalite"
which they found already in position, immediately under "49." For their
daring work, the two miners were awarded the D.C.M., Starbuck getting his
at once, Serjt. Emmerson in the next honors list. Two nights later the
enemy suddenly opened rapid rifle fire opposite "49," which equally
suddenly died away, and we like to think that some Boche officer had at
the same time pressed the starting button to explode his "Westphalite,"
only to find that nothing happened.
The
Fifth Leicestershire
The Fifth Leicestershire
A record of the 1/5th Battalion the
Leicestershire Regiment, T.F., during the War, 1914-1919 |
|
Add/Correct a Link