Walk a War in My Shoes

by Murray Ernest Hall

  Immediately following the shelling and gas attack on the rail line near Clapham Junction, D Company were ordered to move back towards Hooge. We transfer tons of munitions from “K Dump” into railcars and move everything we can down the line. At several different positions the carts are unloaded, then we carry what we can, forward through the trenches to a designated storage drop or hand over to other chaps who will know where the ammunition is needed most.

  The ammo boxes I carry are .303 shells for the machine guns. The boxes are quite heavy, and they are best carried as a two-man operation. One hand each through the rope handle, walking behind each other and we can manage two boxes each run. Our chaps are screaming for it all along here.

  I’ve been able to hear the chatter of the machine guns on and off for the last week now. We have been working so close to the front-line it’s impossible to ignore them. There are a few positioned along our sector and I manage to do several drops to the feet of the troops manning them. They are very grateful to us for lugging the ammo in but are obviously on high alert and don’t chat much. However, one of them finds the time to talk me out of the contents of my tobacco pouch. I’ll get it back at a later date or put it down as a good will gesture. My half inch piece of lead shrapnel, my good luck charm, is rolling around the bottom of the pouch. I check it’s still there and make my way back for another ammo run.

  I pass several mess crews taking in rations, Bully Beef, biscuits and offering up cups of cold tea which has a very distinct mud flavour to it.

  Stretcher bearers are also working their way in and out, their line of work doesn’t stop either. I notice a couple of men being carried out who have their faces covered. Not a good sign. Several others, injured but walking, take themselves back out to find a dressing station.

  We have been sleeping rough for a couple of weeks now, a dugout here, a ditch there. An hour or two whenever you can grab it. Everyone is baggy eyed and tired, but no one complains, you must deal with the circumstances as best you can. I find tiredness comes at me in waves, if I keep active I’m fine. If I sit down for five minutes my mind starts to go a bit foggy and if I have to jump to it again, quickly, it takes me some time to adjust and get my focus and concentration back.

  There are two ways of obtaining intelligence information regarding what our objectives might be or what stunts are being planned. Either the rumour mill gets hold of the info or you have someone “in the know”. At the level of the food chain I am at (Private), it’s the former. There are times in the last eighteen months where Blind Freddy could feel the tension in the air, the increase in ground vibration, see the build-up of troops and equipment, the rows of eight-inch batteries lined up at twenty-yard spacing, and know that something was in the wind.

  Into the third week of September, I can feel it, I can see it, I can smell it.

  There is a diamond shape piece of land a thousand yards to our east known as Polygon Wood. The territory is high ground, but only marginally so. It has been a Fritz strong point for some time. He has a couple of concrete pill boxes in the middle of it somewhere that have been giving us stick for far too long.

  It would have been a lovely forest before the war but now all the trees have been stripped through shelling and only tree trunks block out the view.

  In the middle of the night, 26th September, two hours’ notice is messaged around that a major attack to take Polygon Wood and the high ground through to the village of Zonnebeke will take place at 5:30am. It will be a twelve-hundred-yard surge forward on our sector and helps explain what the build-up of men and machinery since we arrived back in Ypres has been all about.

  My mob have been maintaining support tracks & roads for the last day or so. The small part I play in this massive assault on Polygon Wood is to help keep Zouave Road open, motor transport and carts flowing through both ways, supplies in, empty wagons out.

  Right on 5:30am the big guns crank up in unison. The noise would wake the dead. I could feel my head vibrate with the shock waves. The ground shakes underfoot like an earthquake. I cannot imagine the tension out at the jump off line, half a mile away. Thousands of men lined up, bayonets locked in, waiting for the whistle to go off, over the top and move forward. My heart and soul are with them, willing them, wishing them, driving them on.

  May God be with every one of them. Let them see the sunset later today.

  There is a rotational system in place to try and give everyone a rest when they are deserving of it. A year or so back, if one was active on a front-line duty, you could expect to be relieved after a week and then rested for a week. If you were in support and away from the front you would be rarely rested. The system has always been flexible in that it depended on how active the area was, what role you were engaged in, weather conditions and what “relieving” troops were available.

  The last three weeks here have been extremely intense and physically hard. We have been engaged in a hundred different roles and always under threat of attack from our dear mate Fritz. Living off limited rations and very little sleep. I doubt any of us have had a total of twenty-four hours sleep in the last three weeks.

  On the second full day of the advance on Polygon Wood, someone higher in command decides that “C” and “D” companies of the 1st Australian Pioneer Battalion have been in the front line long enough and after dark we are pulled back to the relative safety of the Belgium Chateau Camp. It’s a decent slog that takes most of the night to get back to Ypres.

  We walk back into camp filthy, tired and hungry but buoyed by the fact there is a bath, clean clothes, a cot and food available.

  I’m very happy to be away from the front once again. The continuous threat from Fritz and the lack of sleep jangles one’s nerves after a while. I use my resting time well. I sleep, and I eat. I sleep again, and I eat again.

  After a couple of days, the fog in my head clears and I’m in better spirits. A decent cup of tea at any time you want sure lifts the moral. The camp stew on offer is extremely tasty. Unfortunately, the bread that goes with it could be used as a hammer, but when soaked in the stew it loosens up well enough.

  A writing tent has been set up since we were last here and Christmas cards are available to fill out and send home. A little early maybe but it’s not uncommon for mail to take three months to get back home, so it’s good forward thinking on someone’s behalf.

  The card is a decent eight-page booklet which already has the important details printed on it:

  Christmas 1917

  1st Australian Pioneer Battalion – AIF

  Greetings from the Front

  Sketches of the main street of Ypres featuring the bombed-out ruins of Cloth Hall and St Martins Church are quite stunning. It’s a respectable piece of work and although I am not in the letter writing mood just yet, I pocket five or six that I’ll get around to filling out and posting later.

  Fortunately, the weather has remained relatively mild, so the baths that are set up in a series of tents are well patronised.

  The battle for Polygon Wood and beyond has been ferocious and drags on for nearly a week. The Anzac’s have taken the area and pushed Fritz back about six hundred yards. He’s on the back foot and the word is put out that our command wants to keep the momentum moving. Every available soldier is required back in the fight.

  Late on the 2nd of October the Battalion is briefed that our “resting period” is over. We are given orders to move out immediately. Another major stunt is being prepared for the 4th of October. “C” and “D” companies are required to be in a front-line position, north of Polygon Wood prior to that operation commencing. Over five hundred men accompanied with four Lewis Machine Gun crews move out together.

  As if on cue, after having had a reasonable dry spell, as we walk out the front gate, the heavens open up, and it’s torrential.

  Once again, we work our way along open roads and tracks before dropping down into the trenches that cross through the landscape. They have started to fill with water and the going is slippery a
nd muddy.

  We made our way along Westhoek Track and skirt around the northern edge of Polygon Wood.

  Fritz didn’t throw his hands up and walk away from this area, he has fought, and counter attacked hard to retain it. The damage to tracks, trenches and the very heavy loss of life from both sides is obvious. I cannot count the number of dead men wearing both uniforms that litter the trenches and open area that just a few days back was no-man’s land or German held territory.

  But the battle is not over, the front line may have been moved eastwards a little, but the fight continues to rage as we move up closer and back amongst it.

  We pass many injured chaps coming out, they are being assisted or directed to the safest and quickest route.

  The dead, well, you do whatever is the most respectful you can with the time and orders you are under, which isn’t a great deal. We are Pioneers, not undertakers at this stage of the game.

  Eventually we arrive at the very forward position. The ANZAC front line.

  There is a distinct rise in the ground here, a ridge facing us to the east. It’s not high, I doubt the ground would rise twenty yards in height over two hundred, but it’s a steady gradual rise with what appears to be a plateau along the high side.

  They call it Broodseinde Ridge.

  CHAPTER 15

  THE BATTLE OF BROODSEINDE

  4th October 1917

  APPARENTLY THE WHOLE of the 1st Australian Pioneer Battalion are going to be involved in a major push. It’s all part of the big offensive that’s been going on for months up in this area. Some are calling it the Third Battle of Ypres, but a couple of fellows are saying the final objective is a town called, Passchendaele. As usual, no one really knows anything.

  All I am aware of is, since July, there have been many, “minor” battles fought along this sector with the intention of achieving some greater goal. The Battle of Broodseinde is now destined to be one of them.

  It’s 5:15 on the 4th of October. We arrived at the front-line trench, five hundred yards south-east of Zonnebeke, late last night. The company were told that zero hour would be at 06:00am, instructed to synchronise our watches and rest up. I woke early. The dawn is still an hour or more away and I sit, waiting for our guns to start and pondering our orders.

  “D” Company has been specifically tasked to commence construction of a track that shall run due east through no-man’s land, heading directly towards the German line. We’re to begin twenty minutes after the whistles sound and the infantry men leap over the top.

  The track will be known as “Helles Track” and it’ll take us all the way through to a position known as “Strong Point H” at coordinates, 28.D.29.c.4.9.

  From here we’ll dig another trench. This one will run straight over the ridge and onto the flat ground of the plateau for two hundred and fifty yards. It’s intended to establish a supply line in, give the infantry troops another option should they need to withdraw and to provide a safe route for injured men to evacuate through.

  All this last week, the Germans have continued to counter attack all along this sector, (without much success). I believe that one of their objectives is to regain the valuable defensive line they’ve lost around Polygon Wood. I’m pulled from my thoughts by the sound of an incoming shell.

  It’s a shock to us, and I imagine our British and ANZAC commanders, to realise the Germans have started yet another counter offensive on the exact same day as ours. Their barrage hits us at 05:30, thirty minutes before we were scheduled to attack.

  The sound and shockwaves of the German shells coming in frighten the daylights out of us and we dive for the trench floor.

  Fritz has got the jump on us.

  Within a couple of minutes, forced into action earlier than planned, our ANZAC guns retaliate. A fierce, thunderous cacophony of sound envelopes us and we know it is only the preliminaries. An overture to what will be a murderous main act, a fight between thousands of men. The opening barrages have hit our infantry hard and as we finally move forward, the havoc that had been wreaked is devastating to witness.

  Throughout the day we watch streams of casualties coming back past us. Trying not to stare, trying to concentrate on our own tasks, but occasionally, when the stretcher bearers are struggling through the deep, cloying mud, and their precious load is pitching precariously, you catch sight of the poor wretch who has been wounded, agony etched in his face. It is hard, but you can’t dwell on it. You must keep on doing your bit, even though our bit is tough enough.

  “D” company quickly became bogged down in their efforts to establish Helles Track. The rain has been non-stop for forty-eight hours and the land is a shell-holed quagmire. It takes a massive effort to fill in the shell craters and lay duckboards so that the path becomes solid enough to carry supplies across. Half of the company eventually make it to Strong Point “H” and commence work on the trench that will run directly up and over the ridge toward Strong Point “E”.

  As they keep going, I have stayed with my platoon on Helles Track.

  The rain finally stops at precisely 3:00pm on the 4th of October. It seems the weather Gods have synchronised their own watches.

  The sun is filtering down through broken clouds onto a raging battlefield across West Flanders. Myself and five others are working together, laying duckboards. Mud up to our knees, exhausted and struggling to move freely. I look around at my mates, good solid Australian men, doing our duty for King and Country in the middle of a Belgian battlefield. I’m filled with pride.

  I watch Private Walter Longstaff, an older fellow, bend over and take his helmet off to wipe the sweat from his brow. That’s when a German shell lands in front of him. The shrapnel takes the top of his head off and he dies instantly.

  I am standing beside him.

  In a wet, muddy Belgian field.

  I am twenty-two years old.

  I will forever be twenty-two years old.

  Private Henry Pearce, a witness to the attack, would later testify that, “the shelling was too bad to move them that night”. The next day, the stretcher bearers were instructed to take Longstaff and Hall the five miles back to the Belgium Battery Corner Cemetery, close by to the 1st Pioneer Battalion Headquarters, where they were then buried.

  Ernest knew this area well. Belgium Chateau and Marquise Camp are only three hundred yards away. He would have walked past his own final resting place on numerous occasions.

  The carpenters from the 1st Pioneers made timber crosses, engraving the name, rank, serial number, and date of death upon them.

  On the 23rd October, almost three weeks after his death, a telegram informing Ernest’s parents of their son’s fate would arrive at the family home in Beech Forest. It was hand delivered by the local priest.

  In February of 1918, Ernest’s father was granted a pension from the Commonwealth of Australia in consideration of his son’s death. He was awarded thirty shillings per fortnight. Ernest’s mother had her pension claim rejected: “Not dependent”.

  On the 1st anniversary of his death, 4th October 1918, a parcel containing some of his personal effects, including a lock of hair and a damaged La Fidèle fob watch, arrived at Cloverdale farm. His mother signed for the delivery.

  The casualty numbers for The Battle of Broodseinde are unimaginable. In a single day over twenty thousand allies fell, including 6,423 Australians and 1,853 New Zealanders. The majority are interred at Tyne Cot Cemetery, located near Zonnebeke in Belgium. It is the largest cemetery for Commonwealth forces in the world.

  But it wasn’t just the Allies that suffered. The Germans took an estimated 35,000 causalities.

  Only two soldiers from the 1st Australian Pioneer Battalion were taken back from the Battle of Broodseinde to the Belgium Battery Corner Cemetery, Privates Longstaff and Hall.

  What was the last vision Ernest saw as his eyes closed for the final time?

  Was it looking up at the cloud sprinkled blue sky?

  Was it of a mate’s face, a soldier standing over, te
lling him,

  “You’ll be okay cobber, hang in there.”?

  Was his vision blurred by the mud and blood in his eyes?

  What was the last thought that passed through his mind before blackness over took him?

  Were his last thoughts with his mates out on Broodseinde Ridge?

  Was he wishing away pain?

  Or, did he see himself sitting under a large Mountain Ash tree, near where his siblings are buried, looking back up through the valley towards the Cloverdale homestead?

  Only two people know these answers.

  Ernest and God.

  CHAPTER 16

  THE ONE HUNDRED YEAR TIDY UP

  NO KNOWN FAMILY member would visit the war grave of Ernest until the author, living in the nearby city of Ghent, 100km North-East of Ypres, would do so in 1974, fifty-seven years after the Battle of Broodseinde. Knowing that his grandfather, Walter, had never been able to visit his brother’s resting place, the author took photos and sent them off to Walter who was 75 years old at the time and living in Hervey Bay, Queensland.

  In the decades that followed a trickle of family members sought out their heritage and made the pilgrimage to the Belgium Battery Corner Cemetery. Nieces, nephews, great nieces, great nephews and a variety of partners and family friends. They took photos, left flowers, planted roses, wrote heart-warming thankyou letters, digging into the blue clay in front of the head stone with their bare hands and burying those letters beneath the surface. Kissed the headstone and shed a tear, the opportunity to show personal and private respect to a fallen soldier who shared the same blood lines.