It was 30 March and we were hard at it drilling: squad, section, platoon and company varieties just to get a little discipline into the troops. The air was blue with curses. ‘Just imagine,’ the men say, ‘two years of fighting and then they make us slope our so and so arms by so and so numbers. Why the Hell don’t they get on with the war?’ I expect it’s necessary, as necessary as it is to make the troops grouse. A contented lot of soldiers, if such could be found, would accomplish little in a hard scrap. They’ve got to grouse and, my God, they do. We got news around that we were in reserve for a new big push at Arras and Vimy to come off at any time and we are the flying division – to be ready to reinforce any part of the Army front.
Good Friday, 6 April, I saw my name in Battalion Orders. I was appointed lance sergeant and made bona fide corporal from Portsmouth, so that means no more dipping. On two hours’ notice to stand by to move on the 9th.
The new push came off on the 10th with varying success and part of the division went into the line: 1 RM and the Ansons at Angres on the outskirts of Lens, the divisional artillery with the Canadians at Vimy, where they did splendid work. A patrol of 1 RM were first to notice the retirement of the Bosch from the Angres and Lievin sector. Colonel Cartwright took the battalion forward and took possession of the evacuated German positions on the night of the 13th/14th. Both 189 and 190 Brigades went into the line in front of Gavrelle on the night of the 14th/15th and got within striking distance of the Bosch. Here they advanced their line in broad daylight and in full view of the Bosch and paid for their jolly dearly. We moved on the 11th, but only to the village of Ourton through Bruary. The weather was vile – snow, sleet and cold, piercing winds.
We left Ourton on the 14th and marched thirty kilometres along one of the main Arras roads to Ecouvrie, a village just behind Arras. It was a hard march, the pace was fast when we could get along, but the road was so choked with traffic that at times we were stood at the roadside for hours. We all finished up more or less on our knees, and were glad enough to take advantage of the cold comfort of the leaky huts. The next morning we were out in the village on fatigues, doing scavenging work, cleaning roads, not sweeping them, but removing a coating of about six inches of filthy mud. There was a pioneer battalion in the village but they appeared to be doing anything but work. We weren’t allowed out of camp except on fatigues and there was no chance of a drink.
On the 20th two of our companies went up the line, but only on a road-mending job. They came back a few less than they went up and said things were in an awful state up the line. Friday night and all day Saturday there was a heavy strafe on the line but the only exciting part of the scrap we saw was one of our aeroplanes making a dart at one of Jerry’s observation balloons and bringing it down in flames.
We marched off about 3.30pm on the Sunday, 22 April. Sunday again, always Sunday, when anything big comes off – and made our way to the onetime village of Rochincourt, now hardly recognisable as such, apart from a heap or two of stones where formerly a church and houses had stood. Our temporary resting place was in the old German lines of trenches in front of the village, but even these had been battered out of all semblance of trenches. Every few hundred yards there was a huge mine crater and the sight of these gave one a queer sensation at the pit of the stomach. The havoc that the explosion of one of these mines must have caused must have been enormous. Whole companies of men must have simply disappeared from the face of the earth forever. Men laughing and joking together one second and the next, blown to shreds and mixed up with the churned-up earth of the crater.
Back at St Catherine’s and in the military cemeteries of Arras there are huge crosses erected with whole strings of names of officers and men. ‘Erected in memory of the following officers and other ranks who were killed in a mine explosion. RIP.’ One consolation about it was the fact that there were more and bigger mines in Jerry’s lives than in ours. Why the hell weren’t we back in the days of Waterloo or Agincourt where fighting was fighting and not wholesale slaughter and wanton murder, where one had the sight of one’s enemies and were assured that you would meet him on your own level. Not have him burrowing through the muck fifty feet below you or throwing half a ton of high explosive at you from a distance of five miles or so away.
After hanging about in the shell-shattered no man’s land of Rochincourt for a few hours we were eventually stowed away in some of German dugouts about midnight. Jerry kept lobbing 5.9s over, but more to catch the traffic on the Arras-Gavrelle road just on our right. Sleep for me was practically out of the question and I was out on top with the first streaks of dawn. I was in time to see the opening of the barrage by our artillery for the attack on Oppy, Gavrelle and Moncy.
Our 189 and 190 Brigades were to attack the village of Gavrelle and advance their line to about 200 yards beyond. The sight of our guns firing was simply stupendous, one I should imagine will never fade from the memory. The strafe put up for us at Beaumont-Hamel was something, but this far outweighed it. As far as the eye could see, all along the horizon, was one mass of flame and the crash of guns was simply stupefying. Ahead of us, lying just under the ridge of skyline, were the field guns, almost gun wheel to gun wheel. Behind those the 60-pounders, then the howitzers 5-, 6-, 8-, 9-, and 15-inch, bringing up the rear. Amongst the lot was a sprinkling of naval guns mounted on railway trucks. All were blazing away as fast as ever they could go; the sight of it all pictured Hell better than any artist could do it.
The bombardment was by no means one-sided and German shells were bursting amongst our guns with terrible effect. Ammunition dumps were going up in a sheet of red flame in all directions and God knows how many guns were being smashed out of action with their crews blown to bits. It was almost impossible to miss them, they were so close together.
As the light got better we could see events more clearly on the ridge in front. Ammunition limbers going forward at the gallop to feed the guns and lots of them made contact with Jerry’s shells, which were dropping in tremendous numbers all over the place. Our vantage point was none too safe but we stuck it. It was a sight worth seeing and was a good parallel to the fleet shelling Gallipoli on 25 April 1915. Scores of planes were in the air, fighting to the death, and several of both sides came crashing to earth, most of them in flames. Civilisation! The sight of this would make a crowd of cannibals sick with disgust.
So much for the part of the picture we could see, what of the infantry creeping and crawling about amongst the crashing ruins of Gavrelle with the fear of death in their hearts.
About 9.00am batches of wounded and prisoners made their appearance and from the wounded we got snatches of news. The attack had been fixed for 4.45am, a most cheerful hour. The first line of attack for our division was, from right to left, Drake, Nelson, 7th Royal Fusiliers and 4th Bedfords with the Hoods under Asquith as close support for 189 and 1st Honourable Artillery Company (1 HAC) as support for 190 Brigade.
There were three objectives: first, the line of trenches in front of Gavrelle; second, a road running north and south through the centre of the village; and third, a line roughly 300 to 600 yards the other side of the village. Drake, Nelson and 4th Bedfords had taken their first objective in ten minutes and with few casualties. The Royal Fusiliers on the left, however, had been held up on the uncut wire and were practically wiped out. The fighting for the second objective had been far more fierce and losses were heavier, but the road through the village had been gained on schedule. The commanding position, however, the windmill on the ridge of the high ground to the left of the village, was still in German possession, and showed no signs of falling. The Germans were in full strength and fighting mad, and pouring in reinforcements by the thousand.
In the rush for the third objective (which by the way was never gained) all our battalions suffered terrible casualties. A mixed lot under Commander Asquith succeeded in reaching the far edge of the village and commenced digging in front of the cemetery, and Asquith took possession of the mayor’s house and captured the garrison, most of whom he found asleep in the cellars. On this precarious line they awaited the inevitable counter-attacks. And they came, the first about 1.00pm, and took some stopping too; but that was nothing to the second which came off about 4.00pm on the 24th (the next day). Jerry had been massing all night and morning and his artillery was in mighty strength. So was ours, and after some terrible fighting our two brigades managed to consolidate their guns.
Early on the 24th I was warned off as platoon guide to go with a small party of officers of the battalion to reconnoitre some former enemy trenches on top of the ridge, the trenches we were to occupy during the night prior to going forward to the front. Our way lay across country for a bit, through the heavy guns, all firing away like mad, then into a deep railway cutting which led to the top of the ridge. Walking up that cutting put the fear of death into us. There was no cover of any description and Jerry kept lobbing 8-inch shells right into it every few minutes. Lengths of rail were torn and twisted into the most grotesque shapes and heavy sleepers were smashed into splinters. Dead and maimed men were lying about in various attitudes, one or two with still a twitch or two in their limbs.
We arrived at 189 Brigade Headquarters after a time and a gruesome sight met our eyes. About ten men were lying dead in a group, just where the galley was. The cooks were serving out breakfast just before we arrived and an 8-inch shell had dropped amongst them. Ten killed outright and about twenty badly injured. You talk about a queer sensation at the pit of the stomach. We were all pretty well hardened, all sentiment and feeling for others killed in us by our previous scraps, but yet, after the few weeks away from close shelling, away from the horrible sickening things left by the war, we all felt that sinking feeling, that twitching of nerves and muscles that takes possession of one for a time.
I suppose it’s fright, pure fear of death or mutilation, and you feel that you want to run screaming away from it all. I don’t think it is cowardice for a chap to feel that way so long as he does keep control of himself. It’s a feeling that soon wears itself out. Familiarity breeds contempt. We picked up a guide at Brigade Headquarters and he led us up out of the cutting, for which small mercy we were thankful, and into the trenches on the right of the cutting.
There were two lines of them, sadly knocked about and with none of the deep, safe and comfy dugouts usually associated with Bosch trenches. We walked round our battalion sector and took note of the parts allocated to our respective companies and platoons, and managed to have a look at the surroundings. Field guns were stuck all over the place, hardly any being in prepared gunpits, but sticking out in all their nakedness. Shells were dropping amongst them even as we looked and half a dozen 5.9s dropped right in a battery, knocking out two of the guns.
What happened to the guns crews I couldn’t say with certainty, but when we first looked the guns were firing. When the smoke had cleared away, there wasn’t a man to be seen. We saw parts of the guns blown into the air and perhaps some of the spokes were wheel spokes and perhaps they were limbs of Royal Field Artillery (RFA) men. It’s hard to tell from a hundred yards away.
We stayed in these trenches about an hour then made our way back to the railway cutting. We got to the edge when a terrible rushing sound over our heads made us all pause. Just above us was one of our triplanes rushing to earth. We could see the pilot, even the expression on his face, so near was he. He looped the loop twice in a frantic effort to regain control, then his machine nose-dived and crashed in front of a battery of 18-pounders about forty yards away. The pilot’s fate was obvious, poor devil! A crowd of artillery men rushed to the spot but nothing could be done; the plane had burst into a sheet of fierce flame and the remnants of the pilot would never be found.
Several fresh bodies were lying about along the railway track, but things were a little quieter as we made our way back to the battalion and joined them without further incident. I stopped for a few minutes about fifty yards from one of our 15-inch howitzers. Its crew of about fifty men had just got it ready for firing and, as they fired, I could see the huge shell as it left the muzzle and soared its way into the heavens until it was no more than a tiny speck. ‘There’s a hell of a bump coming for some Bosch,’ I thought as I joined up with the others.