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There were reasons—but no excuses—for this appalling conduct: there was simply no necessity for the murder of this poor soldier. The terrifying pressures of war and the fig leaf of ‘official’ sanction for these barbarous acts had turned ordinary, decent men into beasts.
The 4th and 6th Canadian Brigades held on to their positions perched along the southern border of Courcelette, despite the strenuous German counter-attacks that streamed out of the shattered ruins. At around 1815, the reserve 5th Canadian Brigade arrived and with the help of a renewed artillery barrage it swept forward through the village. Alongside it, elements of the 3rd Canadian Division managed to gain a substantial foothold in the Fabeck Graben Trench. All told the Canadians of Gough’s Reserve Army had done well in extremely difficult circumstances on the flank of the main assault.
Meanwhile, the Fourth Army had a day of mixed fortunes. The III Corps (15th, 50th and 47th Divisions) under the command of Lieutenant General Sir William Pulteney were charged with the dual role of protecting the flanks of both the main thrust towards Flers and the Canadian assault on Courcelette. Their own objectives were the German lines running along the reverse slopes of the ridge running between the villages of Martinpuich and Flers.
On the left the 15th (Scottish) Division surged forward and succeeded in capturing Martinpuich, which allowed it to keep pace with its neighbours in the 2nd Canadian Division. Alongside, the 50th (Northumbrian) Division was faced with severe enfilade fire from the fringes of High Wood. This was, of course, the very reason that so many lives had been expended in vain attempts in previous weeks to capture the wood.
It was as quiet as the grave, there wasn’t a shot fired. And then, just in the twinkling of an eye, it was hell let loose. Every gun fired at the precise second, hundreds of guns. Just about 50 or 60 yards to the right of where we were we saw this tank come forward. Our infantry the 5th Yorks were alongside and behind him. Billy Fielding, he said, ‘A sight for the Gods! A sight for the Gods!’ Which it was! Mr Wilson said, ‘Come on, never mind about the sight for the Gods!’ So we got out, following out, running this wire out. I think the Germans were startled. They opened out with everything they had, but you couldn’t hear a shell, what I mean was it was noise. You didn’t know if it was our shells or their shells, our guns or their guns. There wasn’t a great deal of small arms fire, mainly shell fire you see. We went forward, running the wire out and we were relaying information back to our guns. One time the wire broke and we went back to repair it. I was on my knees, fastening the wire together, tying a reef knot in it, pull it tight, clip the ends short and wrap it in insulation tape. Billy says, ‘Look at them buggers there!’ I just turned to look and here was a fellow with a cinematograph taking photographs of me mending the wire. I turned and looked; I waved my hand at him.30
Signaller George Cole, C Bty, 253rd Brigade, Royal Field Artillery, 50th Division
The Northumbrians struggled manfully despite the scything nature of the flanking fire and partially switched the direction of their attack to send parties of bombers into High Wood to help out the struggling 47th Division. They successfully gained their first objective—Hook Trench—but efforts to capture and consolidate the second objective of Starfish Trench were severely compromised. The German bombardment crashed vindictively all around them and eventually the surviving parties were pulled back to try to make good the grip on Hook Trench. The tanks had cooperated and performed valuable services in despatching various German strong points, although their intervention was inevitably somewhat random and unpredictable.
The key to success in the III Corps area was High Wood. Here the 47th (London) Division had been given a daunting task of overrunning that benighted wood, and its task had been made complicated by a blistering clash of opinions over the best means of employing the attached tanks. This controversy enveloped the 50th Division, whose senior staff officers were certainly much exercised at the nature of the plans for their neighbours upon whom they realised their own survival would depend.
On September 15th the attack of the division I was with depended for its success on the subjugation of fire from High Wood. My divisional commander therefore begged that the tanks available should move in single file on our right just outside the wood. He pointed out that the tanks were bound to be stopped by the tree stumps if they attempted to go through the wood. He was overruled with the result that both 47th Division and the 50th Division lost terribly from fire from High Wood, the tanks failing to get into the wood and being quite useless.31
Lieutenant Colonel Henry Karslake, Headquarters, 50th Division
Lieutenant General Sir William Pulteney, the III Corps commander responsible, was guilty of an egregious blunder for which the men of the 47th and 50th Divisions would suffer the consequences. Pulteney had feared that the British and German lines were too close together at High Wood and he thought that any massed creeping barrage would cause the British unacceptable casualties. Therefore, he decided to use his tanks to capture the German front line and to rely on the artillery barrages only for the subsequent objectives. Major General Sir Charles Barter commanding the 47th Division made his views on these proposals more than plain but he was brusquely overruled.
So it was that the 141st Brigade and half of the 140th Brigade of the 47th Division were launched into the unwelcoming maw of High Wood. It was a scene daunting to anyone no matter how brave.
The guns thundered continuously with deafening crescendo. Shrapnel burst over the whole area. Black, acrid smoke from German ‘coal box’ heavy shells did their best to obliterate the early dawn and rising sun. Above all, I think it was the deafening noise of our own forward 18-pounder field guns that thundered with shrieking velocity into the German front and rear lines.32
Private Albert Whitehurst, 1/8th Battalion (Post Office Rifles), London Regiment, 40th Brigade, 47th Division
As the 15th Londons moved forward they found themselves half in and half out of High Wood. Wherever they were, they were as close as makes no difference to a living hell.
That day I saw sights which were passing strange to a man of peace. I saw men in their madness bayonet each other without mercy, without thought. I saw the hot life’s blood of German and Englishmen flow out together, and drench the fair soil of France. I saw men torn to fragments by the near explosion of bombs, and—worse than any sight—I heard the agonised cries and shrieks of men in mortal pain who were giving up their souls to their Maker. The mental picture painted through the medium of the eye may fade, but the cries of those poor, tortured and torn men I can never forget. They are with me always. I would I had been deaf at the time.33
Corporal M.J. Guiton, 15th Battalion (Civil Service Rifles), London Regiment, 141st Brigade, 47th Division
Poor Guiton lost his leg in the mad press of the fighting. In the absence of any creeping barrage sweeping all before them, and in the absence of the promised tanks the infantry found themselves criminally exposed. Crouching down in their jumping-off trenches, the second wave awaited the inevitable orders to attack. They pressed their bodies up against the front of the trench in an effort to avoid the German shells tumbling amongst them, and the liberal spray of machine-gun bullets that sped overhead served only to remind them of what they were about to receive.
The deafening inferno continued: time had ceased. In moving along the tortuous quaking trench to a supposedly better vantage point of protection, I stumbled in rounding a corner, upon Rifleman Rankin. He was slumped against the parados, tin hat all askew, mortal terror shone in his glassy eyes, his left breast was gaping open; deep red blood in profusion soaked his khaki tunic. Shrapnel had killed him. A very short distance away and the six foot corpse of our captain—Captain Mitchell, No. 1 Company—lay full length in the trench with an ominous bloody wound in the forehead. They were not the first soldiers I had seen killed, nor were they to be the last.34
Private Albert Whitehurst, 1/8th Battalion (Post Office Rifles), London Regiment, 140th Brigade, 47th Division
For a moment some of the troops had hope of some kind of a reprieve as at last they sighted the tanks manoeuvring behind them.
Someone who had been looking out of the back of the trench cried out, ‘Look boys, what the hell’s this?!!’ I saw for the first time the ‘Tanks’ or as we called them the ‘Caterpillars’. Somehow the feeling of what these would do among the Jerrys lightened the tight and desperate feeling I had at heart. It was with a yell that my crowd went over the top. The yells were soon death screams.35
Rifleman Donald Cree, 1/8th Battalion (Post Office Rifles), London Regiment, 140th Brigade, 47th Division
The tanks in which the Londoners had invested so much hope, and for which they had been deprived of a creeping barrage, achieved absolutely nothing amongst the tree stumps. One ditched in a shell hole, another in No Man’s Land, while only one succeeded in moving forward inside the wood and got as far as the German front. The final tank lost its way around the southern border of the wood and in turning east in a desperate effort to find clear ground only ditched itself in the British front line. In the depths of nerve-racked confusion the crew made a dreadful error and opened fire on their own comrades.
As they left the useless tanks behind them the infantry moved deep into the wood.
I was ‘over the top’ amidst the tangled undergrowth, plus many hefty branches strewn in all directions by shell fire which had peppered the wood. I stumbled upon two dead bodies of our ‘kilted soldiers’ slain no doubt in a previous attempt to drive Jerry from High Wood, their bodies so hidden that stretcher bearers had not found them. The deafening roar of the guns had lessened, so that one only heard the more distant thunder rumble of our heavy guns giving Jerry’s supply lines a continuous hammering.36
Private Albert Whitehurst, 1/8th Battalion (Post Office Rifles), London Regiment, 140th Brigade, 47th Division
The clatter of the German machine guns went almost unheard amidst the dreadful din, but it was impossible to be unaware of their menacing presence.
Man after man went down to that awful machine-gun fire of the enemy. Within 50 yards of the trench we left, there was but a bare handful left of half a company. I looked behind to see the second half of the company come on, led by the company officer, who as he neared us shouted, ‘Get on damn you!’ Just then he fell dead. Our platoon officer led us on. He had a walking stick in his hand, a revolver in the other and his face was set in a set smile. A big fine looking man he was. Men were falling on all sides, some in their death agonies. The officer’s runner stopped with a terrible scream, crumpled and fell behind a tree stump. The platoon sergeant next collapsed and began crawling back to our lines. In between the groans and cries of the men and the eternal awful fumes of cordite, that 100 yards to Fritz’s line is the most fearful memory I have.37
Rifleman Donald Cree, 1/8th Battalion (Post Office Rifles), London Regiment, 140th Brigade, 47th Division
While the fighting was chaotic, one man’s courage and intiative seemed on many occasions to make a difference. For example, Lance Corporal Mclntyre’s quick thinking certainly saved the lives of many of his section.
On we pushed and suddenly we came to a small clearing in the wood, with a near straight trench full of men, and a machine gun blazing down it. The officer was on top exhorting his men to climb out. I dropped on one knee and fired my rifle grenade at the machine gun. My aim proved good, the grenade burst at the point from which the machine gun was spluttering and the firing ceased. Immediately, I fired another grenade for good measure.38
Lance Corporal John Mclntyre, 1/8th Battalion (Post Office Rifles), London Regiment, 140th Brigade, 47th Division
It may perhaps have been an illusion, but the effect on morale was considerable and seemed to give the men a renewed sense of purpose. At last they were there on top of the Germans: still not safe but at last there was the promise of shelter in what remained of the German trench and the chance to wreak their vengeance for all the casualties they had suffered.
As we reached the trench a lance corporal laughed and coolly walked back with blood spurting from his trouser leg. Germans were lying all over and at the back of the trench. A group of six of seven had been hit together by a shell and were the bloodiest and most battered humans I had seen. Some of the less severely wounded put their hands up, while their comrades in the trenches behind kept up a machine-gun fire and rifle fire among friend and foe alike.39
Rifleman Donald Cree, 1/8th Battalion (Post Office Rifles), London Regiment, 140th Brigade, 47th Division
The fight for High Wood was clearly hanging in the balance. High above pilot Lieutenant Eric Routh was flying on a contact patrol and he could see all was not well.
At High Wood things were not going so well. Just behind the wood a battalion had put out ‘XX’ denoting ‘Held up by machine-gun fire’. This was immediately taken back and dropped at Railway Copse, the Corps artillery station. Returning we found same place had put out ‘OO’ which means barrage wanted but before we could send it, it was taken in. It therefore remained unsent. The first signal would probably get what was required. The tanks in High Wood were not successful. One had gone over both trenches, rather beyond the Boche line and there had stuck. It was very heavily shelled for about ten minutes, probably by a trench mortar, so much so that after smouldering for some time it burst into flames. The other two turned over on their side in our own trenches.40
Lieutenant Eric Routh, 34 Squadron, Royal Flying Corps
On the ground the situation was clearly desperate. Unless something was done soon the whole attack would collapse and once again the Germans would hold on to High Wood to act as a thorn in the British flesh.
When I got clear of the trench, I could only see the officer and about a half-dozen men who were somewhere on my left. The officer waved me over but before I could move a shell landed beside him and he was practically covered with earth and mud—dead. All I could see was his helmet which had been covered with a piece of sacking to keep it from glinting in the sunlight. I had won clear of the wood and was lying on an open piece of ground on a downward slope. On my left the rest of the battalion were having a terrific fight. Shells were crashing into our men from the German batteries, the incessant machine-gun fire made my mouth so dry I could hardly draw breath.41
Rifleman Donald Cree, 1/8th Battalion (Post Office Rifles), London Regiment, 140th Brigade, 47th Division
Respite came from an unexpected quarter. Lacking either the assistance of tanks, or of a creeping barrage, it was the shattering detonations of the Stokes mortar shells fired at a phenomenal pace by the 140th Trench Mortar Battery that finally cracked the German resistance. In just a quarter of an hour, 750 shells were fired.
A few men with a comparatively new weapon, a Stokes Trench Mortar machine operated one of these at a pocket of resistance to our left. I could see about eight to ten of these cylinder shells going through the air like a long row of single sausages. Soon afterwards twenty or so Germans came over the open battlefield holding up their hands above their heads. With other men of our company I happened to, as it were, ‘receive’ these prisoners and much regret that from one of them I accepted a proffered gift, thrust into my hand. It was a small box, a snuff box.42
Private Albert Whitehurst, 1/8th Battalion (Post Office Rifles), London Regiment, 140th Brigade, 47th Division
By this time Rifleman Cree was totally isolated in a former German trench behind High Wood. The crowded battlefield had to all intents and purpose emptied before his very eyes.
There was not a soul beside me and it was with heartfelt gladness that I saw a group of khaki clad figures through the haze ahead on my right. I went over there, dodging from shell hole to shell hole. In one of them I found a man with a terrible hole in his body. His eyes looked at me so pitifully, but I could do little to help. Our instructions were, ‘Any man stopping to help a fallen comrade is liable to be shot.’ The inhumanity of it all. That lad, who although I could do little for him, made me m
arvel at his courage. I am sure that by the time I reached the others he would be past all pain and horror.43
Rifleman Donald Cree, 1/8th Battalion (Post Office Rifles), London Regiment, 140th Brigade, 47th Division
He made his way to the right towards the blurred figures, hopping from shell hole to shell hole and soon found himself amongst a mixed bag of troops from various other London battalions of the 47th Division.
I found an officer, a sergeant and a dozen men of different companies. How they got there I don’t know. We advanced about 60 yards, when we were enfiladed by snipers and machine guns. The officer gave the order to run back 50 yards and dig for our lives. We started to run the gauntlet two at a time. The officer and myself were last. Just as we made our dash one of the two in front was hit and dropped. We got to him and pulled him into a shell hole. He was hit through the shoulder and was moaning, ‘Don’t leave me’. That officer was a brick. He got hold of the wounded chap and ran with him to where the others were digging in. I was left to make the last dash. I got there but it was awful expecting to get one in the back all the time. As I dropped beside the others, thinking that I was lucky not to have been killed with my back to the enemy. Now, that seems weird, because if I had been killed it would have made little difference how I was facing. We dug ourselves in with anything we could lay our hands on. I had a shovel but it was God knows where by this time.44
Rifleman Donald Cree, 1/8th Battalion (Post Office Rifles), London Regiment, 140th Brigade, 47th Division
From their hastily dug ‘trench’, Cree saw the 1/6th Londons begin to move forward to continue the attack through the Starfish Line and on towards the Flers Trench. Cree watched in disbelief at their method of approach.
All of a sudden, the German batteries opened up and the ground all over the slope we were on was churned up with hissing metal. We were amazed to see coming over the ridge a battalion in platoon formation. They nearly all had their rifles slung over their right shoulders. Shells dropped amongst them and they must have lost hundreds by the time they reached our position. As they passed, one said, ‘Cheer up, boys, we’ll see you all right!’ Another beside him had a pipe in his mouth and a bag of bombs or rations on their backs. Mostly the faces were set and white, but not a falter as they went on to hell in front. Later that night they came back and went right back, as our officer would not take responsibility for them. A mere handful, some whimpering and crying like babies. Poor devils they had it rough. They belonged to our own brigade.45