Somme
Page 10
Captain Charles May, 22nd Battalion, Manchester Regiment, 91st Brigade, 7th Division
The planned expenditure of ammunition was enormous and the logistical effort required to get the hundreds of thousands of rounds forward to the batteries and neighbouring ammunition dumps was simply staggering.
For our four guns we accumulated 5,000 rounds of ammunition in holes and pits and anything. It was brought up in wagons to the nearest point to the road and then we had to carry it from there by hand after dark down to whatever pits we were putting them in. You sling two shells together with a stick between the slings and slung them over your shoulder. Sometimes they came up loose and we had to carry them singly. They were very, very hard on your shoulder, a 60-pounder shell, so we used to put a folded sandbag under your braces like a shoulder pad, otherwise your shoulder was very sore by the end of the spell. The cartridge boxes, there were ten in a box, each cartridge weighed 9 lbs 7 oz, plus the metal-lined box, nearly a hundredweight altogether. There were wire handles towards the top in each side, of such a length that as you walked the bottom edge was catching on your ankle—devilish things! We used to get two chaps to lift it on your shoulder and you’d carry it on your shoulder, your back and then drop them off. We dug some pits, but we’d strewn them out within a radius of 100 yards behind the battery, so as not to risk too much being hit at once in case the enemy started shelling round there. And by the end of that week we’d used up all that ammunition, plus what had been brought up as well.28
Signaller Leonard Ounsworth, 124th Heavy Battery, Royal Garrison Artillery
The days of ammunition shortages had largely disappeared as the industrial might of the British Empire was whipped into the production of munitions. Every 18-pounder gun had been allotted 200 rounds a day for the six days of the bombardment. This worked out at 1,200 rounds a gun or roughly 7,200 rounds per six-gun battery. Heavier guns with a far slower firing rate had a lesser allotment in proportion. One problem that had not yet really become apparent was that although the number of shells was adequate the quality of individual shells had not been maintained. Some of the 6-in shells varied in length by up to four inches which caused them to vary in flight enormously. The fuses in particular were often faulty, which meant that they did not go off and were hence ‘duds’.
The importance of the counter-battery role in destroying or subduing the German guns was frequently demonstrated when they opened up in retaliation. Every German shell that landed was a reminder of the destructive power that any surviving German batteries would have if they had not been dealt with before the moment the infantry went over the top.
At 11.40 p.m. a tremendous roar commenced as every Hun gun along the whole front sprang to life simultaneously in a beautifully timed opening; a moment later a man dashed into my dugout to say that No. 4 pit had blown up! Gum-boots, steel hat, gas mask and electric torch were ready to hand, and in thirty seconds Maclean and I were doing an unpleasant 1,000 yard sprint through the mud to the guns. I am not sure which was the worst, the Hun shells that were coming pretty fast all round, or the scalp-raising blast of the French 75mm guns behind us, their shells only just clearing our heads by a few feet. No. 4 pit had not as yet blown up, but I thought it would very soon do so. There were some 1,500 shells stacked in or near the pit, and it already resembled a furnace, with flames shooting 3 feet above the roof. Anticipating the SOS signal which came through shortly after, three guns started gun fire, while Maclean organised a party to try and save the burning gun. A chain of men was formed, and they passed up shell boxes and sandbags full of mud to Maclean and two other men who stood at the entrance to the pit. The gun-charges were stacked in piles of forty all around the pit, and when the fire reached them, they exploded pile after pile and added fuel to the furnace. One man was pulled out dead, killed by the shell that had started the fire, and gradually the gun and the stacks of shell were covered with a coating of mud and slime. That done, they attacked the flames on the roof and walls. To add to their troubles, another shell entered the pit opening, actually hit the trail, knocking the gun sideways, and then by some miracle burying itself in the platform without exploding. By degrees the fire was got under control, though the shells and gun had become so hot that they could not be touched. Every leather fitting on the gun was of course destroyed.29
Major Neil Fraser-Tytler, D Battery, 149th Brigade, Royal Field Artillery, 30th Division
Shells rained down on the British front lines in an attempt to ‘spoil’ the preparations that the Germans knew would be on hand for the attack The result was an extremely tense and nerve-racking time for the British infantry as the casualties edged higher and higher. The 1/7th Middlesex were holding the line at Hébuterne facing across to Gommecourt.
Imagine yourself, standing in a trench with water well over your knees, crouching against the side of the muddy trench, while thousands of unseen shells come shrieking and whining overhead and most of them dropping with a crash on the parapet or parados, followed by a terrific explosion which temporarily blinds, deafens and strikes one dumb. Even if you are lucky enough to miss being hit by one of the thousands of pieces of red-hot shrapnel, the concussion is sufficient to knock you over. Imagine yourself, being slowly buried by the displaced earth which falls down on you like rain and half drowned by the water in the trench; and while in this predicament, the shells continue to rush over. Each one approaches swiftly with a gradually rising crescendo, nearer and nearer until it reaches a wild hissing shriek, then it seems to stop suddenly. There is a very slight pause—then CR-R-R-ASSH! It bursts with a tearing, rumbling blinding crash, sending tons of earth into the air to fall back on the inmates of the trench, and hurling thousands of red-hot splinters in all directions, killing or maiming all whom they happen to strike. And all around are men moaning in agony or lying still on the ground.30
Private Albert Atkins, 7th Battalion, Middlesex Regiment, 167th Brigade, 56th Division
The infantry of the 8th East Surrey’s also felt the awesome power of the German guns when a bombardment crashed down all around their trenches as the Germans attempted a localised trench raid. Captain Wilfred Nevill was truly proud of his men.
I was just going off to bed when it started, so my beauty sleep was a bit disturbed. I simply cannot very well describe one of these night bombardments. Picture, say twenty electric railway flashes at once continuously for one and a half hours and throw in incessant overhead thunderclaps and if you think that out you’ll get some idea of what it looks like. Owing to the perfectly magnificent way the men manned the parapet and the steady and deliberate fire they kept up, and also owing to the tremendous response by our artillery, no Boche ever reached our trench, or tried to. We gave ’em hell and I don’t think there’s a shadow of doubt that they meant to cut us out, but damned soon found it was we who were opposite and not some dud exponents of the gentle art of keeping cool. I never felt any anxiety about them getting into our trenches, though the shells were dropping like hail and how anyone lived I don’t know. I had about fifty in my face I should think and so did everyone, but somehow the bits get past you, though some of us stopped some I’m afraid. It was really awfully topping to walk round and see the men, all quite happy, and yelling out, ‘Come on Fritz, we’re here!’ and such like expressions as, ‘Come right in and don’t bother to knock first!’ etc. etc. The men were great and it has put their tails up no end.31
Captain Wilfred Nevill, 8th Battalion, East Surrey Regiment, 55th Brigade, 18th Division
On 24 June, the great bombardment intended to send a tremor through the German Empire finally began with a mighty roar of guns. One of the best testaments to the awesome power of the guns can be found from an unlikely venue—in this case, a humble latrine tucked in close behind the gunpits of the 18-pounders of 97th Battery, Royal Field Artillery. Here Signaller Dudley Menaud-Lissenburg was attending to a little vital morning business.
It was in the early morning and a miserably wet day. I was sitting on the pole
in the lavatory over a deep and narrow trench, with a sandbagged roof supported by spars of timber overhead, situated at the end of a long communication trench running parallel to and 20 yards in rear of the line of guns. I, of course, knew the barrage was to commence that day, but with other personal matters on my mind I sat on the pole in contemplation and alone. The silence was indeed eerie! Suddenly, as if struck by an earthquake, the ground shook and the roof fell in, as hundreds of guns opened fire simultaneously. I extricated myself from the debris. Seeing blood on the shoulder of my jacket from a wound somewhere on my head, which was numbed, I panicked for a moment. I heard the lads at the guns lustily cheering and hurried to the command post, hoisting my slacks the while. Here I found Gunner Roach seated at the telephone, ‘What happened to you?’ he enquired, as he looked at my blanched face and bleeding head. ‘Is it a “Blighty”?’ I asked. ‘No!’ he replied as he examined the wound, ‘It’s only a scratch on your earlobe!’ I must confess I was disappointed, but relieved.32
Signaller Dudley Menaud-Lissenburg, 97th Battery, 147th Brigade, Royal Field Artillery, 29th Division
Lieutenant William Bloor was at his battery-gun positions when the guns blazed out. Most of the 18-pounders were concentrating on cutting and blowing apart the streams of barbed wire in front of the German lines, but many batteries soon encountered severe problems in maintaining communications with the forward observation officer as their telephone lines were cut by retaliatory shells from the German guns or the routine accidents of a congested battlefield.
The best day yet! Breakfast at 5.30 a.m., as we intended starting the bombardment early. I stayed at the guns—the Major went to the observation post. Our wires were cut in less than five minutes—did not establish communication until 10 a.m. We fired for two and a half hours at a steady pace when, communications still being very bad, we gave up for that day. In that time we fired 398 rounds. Spent the afternoon in sponging out our guns etc., and received eight wagons of ammunition (608 rounds) to replace. At 8 p.m. received information that poisonous gas was to be used against enemy trenches at 10 p.m., and that the artillery would cooperate. Accordingly at 10 p.m. exactly, we started an intense fire and continued until 11.30 p.m. We fired 70 rounds per gun (280 rounds). For the rest of the night we fired 50 rounds per hour in order to prevent ‘Fritz’ from getting out to repair his entanglements or rebuild trenches. I would not be in the Hun trenches today or any other day in the next week for all the wealth of the Indies!33
Lieutenant William Bloor, C Battery, 149th Brigade, Royal Field Artillery, 30th Division
The forward observation officers had a vision of destruction before them as they gazed through their binoculars. It was their job to use the telephone to report shells as over or short and gradually edge towards the intended targets that were, of course, entirely invisible from the guns themselves.
Armageddon started today and we are right in the thick of it. I am now living in my ‘damp hedge’ and there is such a row going on I absolutely can’t hear my self think! Day and night and all day and all night, guns and nothing but guns—and the shattering clang of bursting high explosives. This is the great offensive, the long looked for ‘Big Push’, and the whole course of the war will be settled in the next ten days—some time to be living in. I get a wonderful view from my observing station and in front of me and right and left, as far as I can see, there is nothing but bursting shells. It’s a weird sight, not a living soul or beast, but countless puffs of smoke, from the white fleecy ball of the field-gun shrapnel, to the dense greasy pall of the heavy howitzer HE. Now you will understand why life has been so strenuous—we have been working like niggers getting this show ready and of course I couldn’t say a word about it. It’s quite funny to think that in London life is going on just as usual and no one even knows this show has started—while out here at least seven different kinds of Hell are rampant.34
Captain Cuthbert Lawson, 369th Battery, 15th Brigade, Royal Horse Artillery, 29th Division
Yet there was a strange contrast between this picture of hell on earth that lay before them and the viewpoint from a rural idyll located just a few hundred yards behind the British lines.
I am sitting out here on an old plough in a half-tilled field watching the smoke of the shells rising over the German lines. There is a very wide view from here and you can see quite a wide front. It is a pleasant rather cloudy day, after a night of heavy rain, and the light breeze blowing from the west lessens for us the sound of the guns, besides being a protection, as far as we know, against gas. There are poppies and blue flowers in the corn just by, a part of the field that is cultivated, and on the rise towards the town is a large patch of yellow stuff that might be mustard and probably isn’t. On the whole the evening is ‘a pleasant one for a stroll’ with the larks singing.35
Second Lieutenant Roland Ingle, 10th Battalion, Lincolnshire Regiment, 101st Brigade, 34th Division
On 25 June the barrage continued without any sign of a let up; if anything the British seemed to bring more guns into action, increasing the firing rate, concentrating on pouring in ever more shells to break down the German resistance.
Up on the top watching the bombardment over La Boisselle, Fricourt and Mametz. The ‘speeding up’ has commenced. The hill sides over there are under a haze of smoke already. Shells which, bursting, throw up clouds bulkier than the ‘Cecil’, white puffs, black puffs. Brown puffs and grey. Puffs which start as small downy balls and spread sideways and upwards till they dwarf the woods. Darts of flame and smoke—black smoke these last which shoots high and into the air like a giant poplar tree. These are the HE. The shooting was magnificent. Time and time again the explosions occurred right in the Hun trenches. By Mametz Wood an ammunition dump must have been struck. The resultant smoke column was enormous, Mametz itself one cannot see. It is shrouded in a multi-coloured pall of smoke all its own. It must be awfully rotten for the Huns holding the line. Yet one feels no sympathy for them. Too long they have been able to strafe our devoted infantry like this and without hindrance or answer from us. What is sauce for the English goose is surely sauce for the German gander—and may his stomach relish it.36
Captain Charles May, 22nd Battalion, Manchester Regiment, 91st Brigade, 7th Division
The British gunners were afflicted by the kind of problems that were almost inevitable in such a gigantic bombardment, fired for the most part by newly trained gunners and with ammunition of variable quality. As a result there were a distressing number of regrettable incidents.
We started at 12 midday and fired consistently till 8.15 p.m. (598 rounds). This has been a most unfortunate day for us. Dod was up in the front-line trenches with the Major observing the fire. At about 5.15 p.m. we had two ‘premature’ bursts. The first killed two of our infantry (17th King’s Liverpool Regiment) and the second hit Dod himself in the back. He was carried off to the dressing station at once and the Major went on by himself. After we had finished firing, I went up to the trenches and saw Dod. He has a shrapnel bullet through the kidneys and is for ‘Blighty’ at once. These prematures are the very devil but cannot be avoided. The barrel of the gun gets very hot with continuously firing, and this affects the charge of cordite and the shell sometimes bursts too soon. But it is a thousand pities and an extraordinary mischance that we ourselves should shoot an officer of ‘ours’.37
Lieutenant William Bloor, C Battery, 149th Brigade, Royal Field Artillery, 30th Division
There were so many guns crammed into the rear areas that they were stacked up, behind each other with the bigger guns firing literally over the very heads of the field artillery. The prevalence of misfires made this a severe trial on nerves.
Immediately in the rear of the battery position a 60-pounder battery, 90th Heavy Royal Garrison Artillery, was positioned and proved more dangerous than anything the enemy offered. Invariably when in action and firing directly over us a number of shells burst prematurely with frightening effect. In fact, except for the occasional Ge
rman 5.9-in, we had more to fear from our 60-pounder friends in the rear. Ever alert, we would rush to earth each time we heard the order ‘Action!’ in our rear.38
Signaller Dudley Menaud-Lissenburg, 97th Battery, 147th Brigade, Royal Field Artillery, 29th Division
Overall, however, the view from the British front line could only engender optimism. Nobody had ever seen anything like this before and it seemed from the British perspective that the Germans were doomed.
It was a sight to see the hostile trenches. The whole countryside was just one mass of flame, smoke and earth thrown up sky high. About 5,000 shells per diem are pitching on a front of about 500 yards. Whilst observing I could not resist feeling sorry for the wretched atoms of humanity crouching behind their ruined parapets, and going through hell itself. Modern war is the most cruel thing I have heard of and the awful ordeal of those poor devils, even though they are Boches, must be impossible to describe.39
Lieutenant William Bloor, C Battery, 149th Brigade, Royal Field Artillery, 30th Division