‘A real Fourth of July celebration.’
Unidentified American 132nd Infantry Regiment corporal
AT 3.00 THAT Thursday morning of 4 July, the Australian artillery began their now-routine eight-minute barrage of German positions in the Hamel salient. At 3.02, covered by the cacophony of the barrage, the fifty-eight tanks assigned to the operation began moving, rolling up from their village waiting places to a point a thousand metres west of the front line. Halting there at a prepared white line of their own, the armoured monsters again paused.
As they had done for weeks, in the German trenches, troops hurriedly strapped on their gas masks and scampered down into the dugouts that peppered their trench line. Some of these dugouts, like those at a quarry east of Pear Trench, were no more sophisticated than rabbit holes. Others were reinforced with wooden logs and sandbags. They all nonetheless provided protection against all but a direct hit. A few larger dugouts, especially those used for German battalion headquarters, were dug deep, had thick concrete walls and roofs, and were impervious to all but the very largest shells.
In these dugouts, the defenders would shelter until the deadly eight-minute bombardment had passed. As soon as it ended they would scramble back up to their machineguns and trench mortars, just as they had been doing for the past weeks. The Germans in the Hamel salient thought this bombardment was merely a nuisance measure, and had no idea they were about to be on the receiving end of a major assault, or that many of them would be dead once the new day dawned.
And now came one of General Monash’s little tricks, a stratagem he had employed with success several times before. As on all the preceding mornings, one shell in every eight in the bombardment contained smoke. For the past few weeks the remaining shells had contained a mixture of high explosive and gas, but on this morning the content had changed to smoke and high explosive. There were no gas shells. But the enemy didn’t know this. Seeing the drifting smoke, Fritz was still expecting gas. ‘He would, therefore, promptly don his gas mask,’ said Monash, ‘which would obscure his vision, hamper his freedom of action, and reduce his powers of resistance.’132 That was the plan, anyway. It would remain to be seen if the Hun was fooled this time.
One young Illinois boy of the 132nd Infantry, lying on his stomach with his fellow American squad members out in No Man’s Land and watching and listening to his first-ever artillery barrage from close range, was so astounded by the sensation it caused him to involuntarily catch his breath. Beside him, an equally staggered buddy jabbed him in the ribs and asked him what he thought of it. The boy found a nervous smile, and his breath. ‘A real Fourth of July celebration,’ he replied.133
Promptly at 3.08, the regular morning bombardment ended.
‘The barrage passed like a storm, leaving behind perfect peace,’ an unidentified Australian officer of the 15th Battalion would later tell English war correspondent Philip Gibbs.134 For two minutes that peace prevailed, as out in No Man’s Land, drifting smoke from smoke shells blended with the fog to create a swirling grey-white wall. In the German lines, troops were emerging from their dugouts to reoccupy the defences.
Then at Z Hour, 3.10, the main barrage began. Some 650 field-guns, howitzers and mortars behind the lines boomed and belched fire, smoke and death. Most were participating in the creeping barrage and aiming at the same line on the map out in No Man’s Land, 200 metres in front of the waiting assault troops. But, as per the Monash plan, 160 big guns were aiming at the known positions of the 477 enemy artillery pieces in the sector, behind the German lines, to suppress their return fire.
At the same time, twenty heavy machineguns located on high ground north of the River Somme began firing at German positions in the salient, and mortar crews both north and south of the salient also began firing smoke cannisters onto the battleground to add to the smokescreen. As it turned out, this smokescreen element of Monash’s battle plan proved unnecessary, because of the fog. That fog, the only surprise the Australian general was to receive that morning, had its advantages and disadvantages. ‘This impeded observation and made guidance difficult, but it greatly enhanced the surprise,’ Monash would say.135
In addition, shells exploding on the chalky ground raised dust that mixed with the fog and smoke. As a consequence, the previously rehearsed use of rifle grenades to mark targets for the tanks using white smoke proved unworkable. Smoke from the rifle grenades would blend in with, and be indistinguishable from, the fog, smoke and dust.
The Americans were right to be nervous about lying out in the open as the bombardment rained down in front of them. With their opening rounds, two field guns firing as part of the barrage on the right of the waiting 11th Brigade’s position dropped short. Two shells fell onto men lying there in preparation for the attack. An Australian and an American officer at the JOT were both killed instantly, with another American officer wounded. This visibly unnerved some wide-eyed young Americans, but all held their positions.
In the centre of the line, Ned Searle and his men of D Company were lying at the tape on the extreme right of the 15th Battalion’s position when shells fell short, onto A Company, which was over on the left of the 15th’s formation. This killed twelve A Company men and wounded thirty, ‘as well as rattling our men to some extent’, said Lieutenant-Colonel McSharry.136 Despite this, and perhaps conscious of the example they were expected to set for their new American comrades-in-arms, the men of the 15th held their nerve, and their ground. As the shells continued to drop, many soldiers silently prayed that they would live to see the sunrise.
Now, all along the 6.5-kilometre front, officers put metal whistles to their lips, and blew hard – the shrill of the whistles was the signal for all assault troops to rise up and start advancing. As one, thousands of Australians and Americans pulled themselves to their feet and began moving forward at walking pace in four waves towards the falling shells. Sometimes in a line, sometimes in small groups, they stepped out with bayonets jutting from the ends of rifles, while Lewis gunners advanced with their machineguns on their shoulders. Unable to see more than a few metres ahead in the darkness and fog, the troops were guided by officers with compasses who would keep them on track to their objectives.
Overhead, invisible above the fog, Australian fighter aircraft of Number 3 Squadron droned by in pairs, so low it seemed the troops could reach up and touch their wings, as they headed for the German positions with their bombs and their bullets. Taking off from the airfield at Villers Bocage at 2.30 am, the RE8 aircraft had entered the battle precisely on schedule. Once over the German positions, these aircraft flew up and down their lines, dropping bombs and strafing the trenches with their machineguns.
The noise the aircraft made was deafening, and, as General Courage had hoped, combined with the sound of the artillery barrage, it drowned out the sound of the monsters of the 5th Tank Brigade as they resumed their advance, clanking and rumbling forward to the attack. The tanks, travelling at twice the speed of the infantry, were intended to catch up with the footsloggers no later than the ten-minute halt as the sun rose at 3.30, although Ned Searle and his mates would believe it when they saw it. In fact, some tanks would overtake the infantry as soon as 3.16 am. Others, however, getting lost in the darkness, fog and smoke, would fail to make their allotted rendezvous at all.
Just the same, artillery, infantry, aircraft and tanks all entered the carefully orchestrated battle at precisely the times allotted to them. This Hamel battle plan, General Monash’s symphonic composition, was playing out as it had been scored, although the enthusiasm of some American players did prove a problem early on. ‘The pace was slow,’ Colonel Sanborn later noted of the steady eastward walk through the fog and smoke as, every three minutes, the barrage jumped another hundred yards ahead. Australians even lit cigarettes as they strolled to the attack.137
Keyed-up American troops were visibly impatient to get into action. ‘They understood,’ war correspondent Gibbs would write, ‘that upon their few companies fighting as platoons among the Australians rested the honour of the United States in this historic episode.’ General Bell had made no bones about it when addressing his men several days earlier: ‘We shall be very disappointed if you do not fulfil the hopes and belief we have in you,’ he’d said.138 So now, a number of Americans, anxious to prove themselves, picked up the pace, pushing out ahead and taking them dangerously close to the friendly shells falling in their path.
Colonel Sanborn noted, ‘The men were eager to advance and had to be cautioned several times to remain a sufficient distance behind the barrage.’139 On the left of the advance, within the first three minutes several shells dropped short, immediately to the right of a Company E platoon, whose men were advancing ahead of the 43rd Battalion. This sent shrapnel scything through American ranks, cutting down the platoon commander Second Lieutenant Elmer Plummer and half a dozen enlisted men. Three of the wounded, squad leaders Sergeant James E. Krum and Corporal Andrew C. Schabinger, and Lewis gunner Private William F. Linskey, though all wounded in the right arm, picked themselves up and rejoined the advance. The members of this trio would play their appointed roles in the battle before seeking medical attention.
Around the wounded men, none of their green American comrades wavered. ‘The morale of our troops on their first operation under shell fire in an attack was wonderful,’ their company commander Captain Luke was to proudly observe. ‘They went into action as if they had been there before.’140 The other men wounded by this fire were left where they fell, to be collected by the stretcher-bearers following behind. This incident was lesson enough for the remaining men of Company E. Said Captain Luke, ‘After the first “lift”, our men kept well in the rear of the barrage, which was still short, and did not meet with the same thing again.’141
Driver Harry Dalziel, at the centre of the advance beside his 15th Battalion Lewis gun partner, with his two pistols and German dagger, and impressed by the smokescreen and barrage being laid down immediately ahead, heard Americans of the 132nd Infantry chanting. ‘Win the war! Win the war!’ they chorused as they went forward.142
Some of these 132nd Infantry men were also wounded by Allied artillery fire after pushing ahead in their enthusiasm. Medical officers Major Kennedy and Lieutenant Schram and their party came upon these injured men where they had fallen, and calmly set about helping them. ‘We attended wounded men in No Man’s Land while the barrage was going on,’ said Schram matter-of-factly later.143
Despite the losses to Allied fire, the advance continued steadily, inexorably, towards the primary objectives.