TEN
Mixing
it at
Messines
In the days that followed the taking of Stormy Trench in late February 1917, the men of the 45th Battalion were relieved and moved back to Mametz camp, about 12 kilometres to the rear. From there, the battalion moved to Bécourt, just to the east of Albert, for training, and then on 23 March they moved out to Shelter Wood, near Fricourt. Private Lynch did not join them in Fricourt, though, for according to his personal medical records, he had a severe case of trench foot and was admitted to hospital in Rouen on 22 March 1917. He was transferred to the 4th Division hospital at Étaples on 14 April and did not return to his unit until 28 April. It is curious that Lynch was hospitalised for trench foot at this time rather than while in the frontline, and it raises questions such as whether Lynch was in fact with his battalion behind the line or elsewhere; if he had suffered the beginnings of trench foot in silence, until he could put off treatment no longer; or whether he in fact developed it during training at Mametz or Bécourt. We will never know.
While Lynch received treatment for the agonising condition, his battalion footslogged north along the famous Albert to Bapaume road, past the old British frontline at La Boisselle, on past the moonscape of Pozières, up over the rise at the windmill and down the long slope and on to Le Sars. On 28 March, they reached a tented camp at Le Barque, where the battalion was awarded 37 decorations for bravery in the fighting at Stormy Trench.
The battalion pushed on towards the frontline through the remains of Bapaume, where troops were assembling for attacks on the outpost villages. The Germans had brought artillery forward into these villages and the Allies would have to take them before they could tackle the formidable Hindenburg Line about 10 kilometres away. The small fortified village of Noreuil had been captured by the Australian 13th Brigade, but ahead lay the real obstacles, where breakthroughs were planned by British High Command: Arras and Bullecourt. The attack on Bullecourt was to be made by the 62nd British Division and the Australian 4th Division, with Lynch's 45th Battalion held back in reserve.
The first assault was scheduled for 10 April, to be spearheaded by something the Australian troops had never seen in action before: tanks. These were to advance first, crushing the wire and firing on the enemy's frontline, the Allied troops following on behind them. The Australians had taken up their positions ready for the early morning attack, but the British tanks were delayed by a heavy snowstorm and could not get into position; exhausted and demoralised, the men were forced to return to their frontline and ready themselves to mount the attack the following day, at 4.30 a.m. Again many of the tanks failed to arrive on time – one even went in the wrong direction and ended up with its nose stuck in the bank of a sunken road. Despite this, the Australians crossed their start line and moved across the flat, featureless ground, following the few tanks that were operational. The 46th and 48th battalions crossed the first belt of German barbed wire that had been broken by the British artillery and rushed on. By 5.50 a.m., the 46th had captured their first objective, the old German frontline trench, and by 6.20 a.m., the 48th Battalion were at their objective, the old German reserve trench.
Things started to go wrong. A savage German counter-attack drove both battalions back to their original start line, leaving many men dead and wounded behind them. Communications were poor, the tanks were all but useless and Allied artillery failed to support the attack, which had been dismally and hastily planned by General Gough of the British High Command. On that awful day, the 12th Brigade, having committed three battalions or around 3,000 men, had casualties of 30 officers and 900 men. The 4th Brigade, which had also sent in 3,000 men, had nearly 2,400 casualties. And all in just ten hours. Though it was not on the scale of the disastrous first day of the Somme offensive on 1 July 1916, the disaster at Bullecourt was to become a prime example of British battlefield blundering and incompetence and was used as a vivid example in officer training schools for the rest of the war of how not to plan an attack.
Fortunately for Lynch's 45th Battalion, they were not called forward to join the butcher's picnic. From Fricourt they had marched to Noreuil, where they took over the old frontline, established a line of advanced posts and patrolled to prevent further German counter-attacks. The 45th Battalion was kept busy bringing in the dead and wounded. Though Edward Lynch was in hospital at this time, he did place Nulla at Bullecourt, presumably basing his account on the battalion history and perhaps the stories told to him by his mates when he rejoined his unit.
Nulla observes remarkable heroism, such as Longun's mate from the 13th Battalion who jovially apologises for being unable to shake hands – because his hands are the only thing holding in his bowels, the result of a bullet wound to the abdomen. There is the man who fights off seven Germans with a trench spade and is shot through each knee but who will not be taken out on a stretcher because he thinks his mate needs it more. There is the 'young lad of seventeen who had his knee slit clean open' [p. 133] yet makes a desperate stand, throwing grenades at the Germans at close range so fast he doesn't have time to pull the pins out.
Nulla is quick to also point out the bravery of the German gunners. When they find one chained to his gun, Nulla discounts the story going around that the Germans are now chaining their gunners to their machine-guns, and believes the German when he says that he chained himself to it, fearing that his 'nerves might break'. Nulla has seen too many brave Germans die while working their machine-guns and concludes: 'Some of the bravest men we've ever bumped have been Fritz gunners: we know that to our sorrow.' [p. 134]
Two days after the failed Bullecourt attack, the men of the 45th Battalion moved back to Bapaume, where they entrained and returned to their old camp at Shelter Wood near Fricourt, before going into more comfortable billets at Bresle, on the outskirts of Albert. Although the frontline had moved forward, removing the threat of German long-range artillery bombardment, their 'rest' time behind the line was far from a holiday camp. A solid round of training started immediately and officers and NCOs were sent to various courses. Select men were also sent to Britain to undertake officer training while others were sent for periods of six months to the divisional training camps on the Salisbury Plain to train the new arrivals from Australia.
While the battalion is at Bresle, Lynch provides Nulla – and the reader – with a bit of light relief in the form of an unauthorised visit to some local towns to sample cognac and other delicacies, and he and his mate Snow are punished with a night in the clink, loss of wages and a week confined to barracks. Lynch's personal records do not indicate that he was ever charged Absent Without Leave while in France, though of course that proves only that he was never caught, not that he never took a break away from his battalion. Indeed, the Australians had been renowned for high rates of men going Absent Without Leave since the fighting at Pozières in 1916. Unlike the British army, which executed around 350 men during the First World War, the Australian army never enforced the death penalty.
Since the announcement by Germany of unrestricted submarine warfare, the Allies had set their sights on the Belgian ports of Oostende and Zeebrugge on the North Sea, which were important German U-boat bases. Because of shipping losses, particularly the deaths of American civilians on passenger ships such as the Lusitania, the United States had declared war on Germany on 6 April; soon after, Congress adopted conscription. In Russia, the revolution had begun. In the Middle East, the British had occupied Baghdad and the first battle of Gaza was under way. The French army was on the offensive on the River Aisne, to the south of the Somme.
The British, and thus Australian, focus turned northward, to the German frontline in Belgium. Their goal was to eliminate the salient in the line east of Ypres and force the Germans from the high ground at Passchendaele. But first they needed to capture the German line along the ridge that extended from Wytschaete, some 8 kilometres south of Ypres, to Messines, 2 kilometres further south. The Messines–Wytschaete Ridge gave the Germans the high ground, enabling them to observe the Allies, so its capture was crucial to the Allies' plans for the coming offensive against Passchendaele.
The German defences along the salient were laid out according to Ludendorff 's plan, with the forward positions only lightly defended, often by machine-gun crews stationed in shell-holes and supported by concrete blockhouses. Waiting in the rear were mobile units ready to counter-attack if the Allies broke through the line. The Allied response to this set-up was to plan an initial artillery barrage to destroy the enemy's barbed wire and machinegun nests, then to target the Germans' rear assembly areas. They would also target German artillery batteries and lines of communication, to cut off supplies to the frontline and prevent the movement of reserves into forward areas.
By now, spring had replaced winter, improving the comfort of the troops. Leaves began to return to the trees, the hedges and wildflowers were in bloom, and the roads had turned from mud to dust. With the arrival of spring rose the spirit of the men who began to look back on the winter campaign as a hideous dream. On 12 May 1917, after an inspection by General Birdwood and a one-month rest at Bresle, the 45th Battalion, which Lynch had rejoined about two weeks before, entrained for Bailleul, on the border of France and Belgium, ready for their next big test: Messines and the Ypres salient.
In the week before the attack, which was to take place on 7 June, the 45th Battalion was concentrated near Neuve-Église, in Belgium, about 5 kilometres from the German line. Here the men prepared for the coming attack, the officers and NCOs reconnoitred the approaches to the frontline and the whole battalion had the battle plans explained to them with the aid of a large relief model specially built for the purpose. The map was marked out on the ground and raised platforms were constructed so the men could look down on it, understand the terrain and have the battle plan outlined for them. Unlike other armies, the AIF made every effort to explain to soldiers of all ranks the details of an attack and the objectives to be taken, so that individual initiative could contribute to the outcome of the battle. At Messines, this was going to prove necessary.
The map was set up near a farm called Petit Pont, to the southwest of Messines and on the other side of Ploegsteert Wood. The farm is still there today, but the exact site of the map is something of a mystery. I studied a photograph taken the day before the attack, of men standing on the platforms surveying the map; on the right of the photograph a straight road can be seen. When I was in Belgium I tried to locate this road at Petit Pont, but to no avail.
In command of the battle was Field Marshal Sir Herbert Plumer, a favourite of the men. He had started planning the assault on the Messines–Wytschaete ridge two years before and was very thorough in his preparations. The British had built 23 deep mine shafts stretching 21 kilometres under the German frontlines along the ridge, having started construction in August 1915. These shafts were dug to a depth of 30 metres and opened out into galleries extending 1.6 kilometres directly under the German frontline. Before the attack, these galleries would be packed with 400 tons of the explosive ammonal, ready for detonation. Twelve mines were concentrated at the apex of the salient near Messines village.
The Germans knew shafts had been dug along the Messines–Wytschaete ridge and had even blown some camouflets – that is, they had detonated explosive charges in an effort to undermine shafts and cause them to collapse. As a result, one of the galleries was cut off for three months and only re-opened four days before the Messines offensive. This type of success led them to believe the shafts had been abandoned by the Allies, and that the British offensive on the Messines Ridge was unlikely or perhaps even impossible. They did know the British were still actively digging at Hill 60, but a German officer stated that his men 'had them beaten',1 according to Bean. But the Germans had conducted counter-mining operations only near the surface, and as Bean dryly concludes, 'The capacity of the British miners was disastrously underrated,'2 and along the whole front the Germans were cleverly deceived and totally ignorant of the British mining.
At 3.10 a.m. on 7 June 1917, 19 mines were fired (four were not detonated), creating a phenomenal series of massive explosions. Lynch perhaps observed this just as his character Nulla does, walking to a nearby hill especially to watch it happen, like a spectator. First the Allies' big guns fire on the German line and 'like the slamming of the door of Doom, a terrific roar goes up'. Moments later, there is an 'appalling roar, drowning even our guns' firing, as the sound of nineteen great mines going up bursts upon our ears. The ground rumbles, shivers and vibrates under us.' [p. 139]
Immediately, nearly 2,300 guns fired on the enemy's frontline and their artillery in the rear. The attacking battalions moved forward into the thick dust thrown up by the mines and the artillery. Massive numbers of Germans were killed by the explosions – an estimated 10,000 men – and the Allies easily dealt with the rest, who were so badly shaken that they surrendered in droves. Bean explained:
Elsewhere, after firing a few scattered shots, the Germans surrendered as the troops approached. Men went along the trenches bombing the shelters, whose occupants then came out, some of them cringing like beaten animals. They 'made many fruitless attempts to embrace us' reported Lieutenant Garrard of the 40th. 'I have never seen men so demoralised.'3
The night before the 45th went into the attack at Messines, the battalion was quartered in Kortypyp Camp near Neuve-Église. In Somme Mud, Nulla tells us that the camp was shelled with shrapnel, which ripped through the roof and walls of their huts. This area had previously been heavily shelled with gas, which lay in trenches and hollows in the forested area, protected from the winds that would otherwise have dispersed it. It is here that Nulla and his mates are fed a breakfast of stew tainted with gas, which leaves them heaving and vomiting. This gas, he explains, 'has been drawn up out of the grass by the morning mist that rose with the sun' [p. 140].
We are also told by Nulla that on that morning, he and Snow 'tramp off a good mile and climb a big hill where we settle down to watch [the mines being detonated]' [p. 138], but this is doubtful. They would have needed to be back very early to be ready for breakfast and it is unlikely they would have seen the explosion as clearly as they describe at three in the morning. Besides, Kortypyp Camp was behind Hill 63 and about 6 kilometres from Messines.
Early on the morning of 7 June, the battalion left Kortypyp Camp and marched to Stinking Farm, west of Messines. On their way, they are horrified by the sight of three green, bloated corpses, gunners killed by gas. This would have been a common scene in the area. Today, you can still follow the track that Lynch would have taken to the front, and that he describes Nulla taking. The farms where the men sheltered are still there, probably still in the same families who owned them then. The countryside is rolling and green, heavy with crops, and the roads, once deep in mud and lined with smashed wagons and horses, are today sealed and easily accessible. Stinking Farm is still where it was at the time, rebuilt with large barns and machinery sheds and an attractive farmhouse, all enclosed by corn planted right up to the sides of the buildings. Across the crops, the high ground that is the Messines ridge can be clearly seen, dominated from this angle by the stark white New Zealand Memorial and the Irish Peace Tower.
The 45th Battalion moved forward from Stinking Farm to what had been no-man's-land before the series of explosions. They were told that in the previous seven hours, all major objectives had been taken with minimal casualties, the Allied line had advanced to their objectives and the Germans had suffered massive casualties. Ahead of the 45th, the New Zealand Division had attacked up this same hill and through the village of Messines, establishing a new line on the other side of the crest of the ridge. To the north, the British had advanced their line through the village of Wytschaete and as far as St Eloi.
As the men of the 45th began their ascent of the Messines Ridge, the bodies of New Zealanders would have lain strewn where they'd fallen. Today on this slope is the white New Zealand Memorial and, just beneath it, the remains of two German blockhouses that would have impeded the New Zealanders' advance up the hillside. These would have lain shattered, the bodies of their dead German defenders nearby or still inside. Unlike today, the slope would have been bare of trees or grass, instead cratered and desolate from the severe Allied shelling prior to the attack.
The 45th came under enemy shelling as they made their way to the crest of the ridge, and in Somme Mud this is when another of Nulla's mates is wounded – Snow, who must be left behind for the stretcher-bearers. They make their way through the 'crumbled rubble heap of Messines' on past the first line of New Zealand outposts and hurry towards the tape that has been laid to show where they are to jump off for the attack, along with the 47th, 49th and 52nd battalions. Lynch describes a surreal moment of beauty captured amidst the dust and smoke of artillery fire: 'We've topped the Ridge and see below a sweep of beautiful country stretching for miles away into the distance' [p. 142]. This brings him within sight not only of the German line nears Huns' Walk and the defensive Oosttaverne Line, but also the German artillery far off to the north and east near Warneton.
Now the 45th Battalion came under German artillery and enfilading fire and casualties rose sharply. They reached their start line in plenty of time to carry out the attack at 1.10 p.m., only to be told it had been postponed for two hours – two hours in which they had no choice but to 'lie out in the open in full view of Fritz', in Nulla's words. 'Criminal mismanagement somewhere, but what can we do?' he asks. General Plumer had ordered the postponement to allow other British units involved in the attack to catch up and in order to synchronise with an Allied attack to their north. Due to communication problems, the men found themselves under fire from the Australian and British artillery as well, and suffered heavy casualties. Finally, the battalion moved off to their first objective, Oxygen Trench.
The battalion history states that the two-hour delay:
Made all the difference between an easy victory and a hard fought success, as it gave the enemy time to recover from his demoralised condition to meet the attack of the 4th Division, and to bring up fresh troops for his strong counter-attacks.4
Nevertheless the 45th, with the aid of their mates from the 47th Battalion and a tank, succeeded in taking Oxygen Trench. The next objective was Owl Trench. On the way to their goal, the Australians came under heavy machine-gun fire from German concrete blockhouses that afforded the enemy protection from all but the heaviest of shelling. It was the first time the Australians had faced this new German tactic – well-sited blockhouses, protecting each other by inter-locking fire – which was to become characteristic of all the battles in Flanders.
Two companies, A and B, of the 45th captured Oxygen and Owl Trench and with it 120 prisoners and two machine-guns, but Edward Lynch's D Company, along with C Company, suffered severe casualties and were forced to retire to their jumping-off line. Meanwhile, A and B companies were subjected to savage German counter-attacks and then mistakenly shelled by Australian artillery. Being attacked from the front and the flanks and shelled from the rear, they too withdrew to their start line of six hours before. For all their effort and through no fault of their own, they were back where they had started.
During the night, the decimated 45th Battalion was reorganised by senior officers and reinforced with two companies of the 48th Battalion. In Somme Mud, we see evidence of this in Nulla and his mate Longun being sent to find German bombs, as the battalion is running short on grenades.
At 8.30 the following morning, exhausted and hungry, the 45th again attacked and this time captured both Owl Trench and Owl Support. As expected, the Germans counter-attacked but the Allies drove them off. Yet their casualties mounted as they came under enemy shelling.
Several more days and nights of fighting ensued as the men of the 45th fought their way into parts of the trench still held by the Germans and came under sustained enemy fire, which continued to thin out the battalion. In Somme Mud, this fighting takes Nulla's last mate, Longun, who has 'a horrible gash up his face' [p. 159] and is sent to a rear dressing station for treatment.
The war has finally got to Nulla. When asked if he heard the dying screams of one of his fellows, Nulla observes, 'No, I didn't hear him scream. We don't any longer notice screams. We're used to them.' He is so numb and resigned that he does not even feel relief when he hears the 45th is soon to be replaced in the frontline. So many men must have experienced something akin to this feeling, which has shades of guilt at being a survivor.
The news of relief awakes no enthusiasm and very little hope. We're past caring and almost past hope. So many of our mates have gone west and we find it hard to realise that we are somehow to be saved where so many have fallen. [p. 160]
The men of the 45th Battalion were now totally exhausted. Some actually fell asleep while they dug their trench and had to be shaken awake. At night, fighting patrols moved eastward, attacking towards Gapaard, where they encountered more German concrete blockhouses. These strongpoints had withstood the Allies' shelling and so the attacking platoons immediately began taking casualties from enemy machine-gun fire. Two German blockhouses remained holding up the 45th's advance down the trench and able to enfilade them.
On the afternoon of 10 June, the CO of the 45th Battalion, Colonel Herring, telephoned Lieutenant Thomas McIntyre and told him that the two blockhouses holding up the advance must be taken. McIntyre had already led three attacks on the strongpoints and knew Herring's order was his death warrant, but he responded with, 'All right, sir; if it is to be taken, it will be taken' and so at 10 p.m., he led his men into the fateful attack.5
Lieutenant McIntyre is without doubt the officer Lynch refers to in Somme Mud who leads his few remaining men on this futile attack, only hours before they were to be relieved and sent back from the frontline. Nulla doesn't hold it against the lieutenant, who with a 'break in the voice ... told us of the attack. It's not his doing. Already he has led three separate bombing attacks ... His responsibility has been heavy.' He continues, 'We know how he regrets the order that must send many of the few survivors to their deaths, but he is powerless to do other than lead us to the slaughter.' [p. 161]
Lieutenant Thomas Alexandria McIntyre (not 'Alexander' as the Battalion records suggest) was from the New South Wales south coast town of Berry, where he worked before the war as a carpenter. He enlisted on 21 September 1914 and went to Gallipoli with the 13th Battalion, returning to Egypt after the December evacuation. There he became part of the new 45th Battalion and sailed with his mates for Marseilles on the Kinfauns Castle, arriving in early June 1916. He was then a sergeant, but was promoted to second lieutenant in July 1916 and to lieutenant in February 1917. The battalion history applauds his 'splendid' work during the fighting at Owl Trench. Sadly, as Nulla recounts, McIntyre was killed during the attack on 10 June, when he fell along with a sergeant only 5 metres from the German blockhouse. The attack was a failure.
After the action at Owl Support, Lieutenant McIntyre was reported 'missing believed wounded', but four days later he was confirmed killed in action, at the age of 30. There is a reference to his death in the Red Cross Society Wounded and Missing Enquiry Bureau Records, by Private Matthew Gilmore, who was in 13 Platoon (Lynch was in 14 Platoon).
I was informed that Lieut. McIntyre was killed. He was in charge of a party who went out at night to storm and bomb a German strongpoint. I was wounded and upon making enquiries was informed that Lieut. McIntyre did not return with the party but those who did appeared to have no doubt as to what had happened to him.6
Private Leslie Dollisson provided the Red Cross with another eyewitness report:
I was with Lieut. McIntyre on June 10th at Messines. We were on a bombing party and the Lieut. was in charge. It was about 11 o'clock at night. I was in one shell hole and the Lieut. with Sgt. Lamborne was in another about 20 yards away. A shell or bomb exploded nearer to the Lieut. and the Sgt. than to us. Sgt. Lamborne sang out that he was wounded and I went and helped him back to the trench. He said the shell or bomb exploded within five yards of the Lieut. and killed him instantly. Sgt. Lamborne seemed pretty badly wounded. I left him with the stretcher bearers in the trench and heard afterwards that he did not get to the dressing station.7
In 'Mixing it at Messines', Nulla is badly wounded in the back while advancing and spends a terrifying night in a shell-hole in no-man's-land near the German blockhouse. A photograph of one of the two smashed blockhouses is in the Australian War Memorial's photograph collection and, surprisingly, one of these blockhouses still exists today near Messines on the line of the old Owl Support trench.
Private Lynch did receive an injury like Nulla's. According to his personal medical record dated 30 June 1917 he had a 'bullet wound – back' along with 'bomb fragments', which put him in hospital for some time. However, Lynch gives Nulla this injury on the night of the attack on the blockhouse, though he received his own back injury on 30 June, 20 days later.
In many ways there could be no more fitting conclusion to a chapter of unremitting threat and violence than Nulla, the last of his mates still standing, finally succumbing to a wound and being taken from the field of battle.
Indeed, Lynch was very lucky not to have been wounded at Messines. Four days after entering the line, the few remaining soldiers of the 45th Battalion were relieved and sent back to La Plus Douve Farm, about 3 kilometres behind the line, and from there were marched to the rear, to La Crèche. In those four days, of all the 20 battalions plus machine-gun and light mortar units who took part in the battle of Messines, the 45th took the most casualties: 16 officers and 552 other ranks. It was a shattered force that marched back to La Crèche and on to Morbecque, where it met up with the 'nucleus' that had been left behind for such an eventuality. What a sad and shocking sight they must have been, those few men who returned that day.
For the British, the attack on the Messines–Wytschaete salient was very welcome news and a brilliant success, the best operation up to that point in the war. Though the attack had not taken the German guns, the success of the mining operation, the counter-battery fire, the resupply to the front and the work of the flying corps had all added to an impressive British victory. For the first time, the Australian troops had faith in the British High Command, although they had taken half of the estimated 26,000 casualties of the battle. For the Germans, it had been costly in men and territory and as General von Kuhl later said, 'One of the worst tragedies in the world war'.8