by Bill Lamin
yours truly
Harry.
Is there some anticipation, perhaps even apprehension, at the prospect of ‘going up the line’? Nor do I know why, regarding the address, ‘we have got to put it in the middle of our letter’. Clearly it was not an enduring instruction, for it rarely appeared there again in Harry’s letters.
At that time, soldiers’ numbers were regimental numbers, so that, changing regiment meant being issued with a new number. (In the British Army today, an individual soldier’s number is his unique Army number, and remains constant for the whole of his service.) Harry’s number, given in this first letter from France, didn’t last long, as he changed regiment – having previously been assigned to two others, from which he had rapidly been moved. I have not been able to discover what process was involved in assigning new recruits once they arrived in France. I suspect that, at the depots to which these men were sent, there would have been a list of regiments with a shortage of men, and that some clerical exercise would have taken place to fill the gaps. In the early days of the war, the policy had been to keep recruits that had joined together from the same location in the same units. The flaw in that initial policy was that whole towns could lose their supply of young men in a single action, as had been tragically demonstrated by the disaster that overtook some of the ‘Pals’ battalions on the Somme in July 1916.
The Arcadian was a Royal Mail steamer that was employed as a troopship and ammunition carrier. She was torpedoed and sunk by a German submarine in the Mediterranean on 15 April 1917; of the 601 troops on board, 75 perished. If Harry had not suffered from bad teeth, obviously requiring attention, at Rugeley, this story might have been very different.
A few days later, Harry wrote to Kate. Things have moved on a little, since his letter to Jack.
13th May, 1917
Dear Kate
Sorry I have not written to you for such a long time no doubt you’re being wondering how I am getting on. I should have wrote to you only have been so busy always something to do never any time to spare. I am in the best of health at present the weather here is very hot. We had a good voyage across the channel it was very calm. I think we are going further up the line tomorrow so can’t send you my proper address. I shall send it on to Ethel as soon as I get it so you can write for it. I have had some moving about what bit I have been in the army. First I was attached the York’s then the South Staffords and West Yorks now I think I am settled in the ninth Batt York & Lancaster so you see I have had some moves. Write as soon as you get my address and let me know how you are getting on. I wrote to Jack and he seems to be getting on alright. I will write again as soon as I can.
With Best Love from
Harry
For whatever reason, at the fourth attempt to find a regiment, Harry joined the 9th (Service) Battalion, the York and Lancaster Regiment, having previously been attached to the Yorkshire Regiment (Green Howards), the South Staffordshire Regiment and the West Yorkshire Regiment.
I can only estimate the date on which he joined the York and Lancasters. Working backwards from his letter to Kate, which is dated, I would guess that the first letter to Jack, when Harry was still with the West Yorkshires, must have been written in the first week in May, which would indicate that he joined the 9th York and Lancasters between the 7th and the 10th.
Referring to the battalion war diary for that month, from 3 to 9 May the 9th was out of the line, undergoing training on the Boescheppe (Boeschepe) training ground, about ten miles (16km) west and slightly south of Ypres, just over the border into France. That would have been a logical time to take in new recruits. On the 10th, the battalion moved to a new camp and on the night of 11th it relieved another unit, taking its place in the front line.
Harry is, at last, ‘in the line’, in a proper fighting unit, experiencing his first taste of a battlefield on the Western Front. His letter to Kate of 13 May must have been written when he was actually in the front line, for the battalion had been relieved in the trenches by 14 May, and sent by train to Poperinghe (Poperinge), the main British administration and rest centre for the Ypres sector, some six miles (10km) west of the city and well away from the front.
As May progressed, Harry’s battalion would be charged with the task of preparing for the major assault on the crucial objective of the Messines Ridge, as a prelude to the coming great offensive, in which the British were to attempt to drive the Germans back from the Ypres Salient. The battalion’s role in the coming action would have been determined by now, and the training programme undertaken to ensure that all ranks were properly prepared. It can be said that the imminent battle, unlike so many offensives on the Western Front, generally enjoys a reputation for thorough and meticulous planning and preparation.
CHAPTER 3
FIRST TASTE OF THE TRENCHES
MAY 1917. HARRY IS NOW a trained infantryman, taking his place in the front line, close to the strategically important town of Ypres. What would he have found?
The front line here, as on most of the Western Front, had been virtually static for the last two years. Despite the lack of progress, the level of fighting in this sector had been consistently intense, with enormous losses on both sides. The armies had constructed elaborate defensive positions, vast networks of interlocking trenches with concrete bunkers at strategic points. The trench maps of the time show a mass of fine lines stretching back hundreds of yards from the front line, delineating the first, second and reserve lines of trenches, as well as supply and communication trenches.
The forward trenches were defended against infantry attack by deep concentrations of all but impenetrable barbed wire. This wire and the machine guns that covered it made ‘no man’s land’ – the unoccupied area between the opposing trench lines – a killing zone for defenders: lethal for attackers. In any assault, the balance always favoured the defender.
There was, effectively, a deadly stalemate. Generals on both sides were convinced that the war could only be won by decisive attacks, followed by a breakthrough as the enemy crumbled. Neither side had a strategy that could allow these attacks to succeed, or if they did, they did not possess the means – especially reliable tanks, mobile artillery and air superiority – to exploit it.
In the line, Harry would have found well-established, deep trenches with shallow ‘funk holes’ dug into the sides and underground bunkers as command posts for each company. Food would be carried forward to the men through a network of communication trenches. Hot meals would be brought in ‘hay boxes’, but were unlikely to be very hot by the time they arrived. Sometimes hot tea could be brewed up on a small stove. Staple rations would be bread (though it would be around eight days old by the time it reached the front), tinned corned beef (bully), jam and maybe ‘Maconochie’, a kind of tinned stew of meat and vegetables often known, from its manufacturer’s name, as ‘conner’. There would be the occasional ‘treat’ arriving in a parcel from home, and Harry celebrated his parcels in his letters. Smoking was encouraged with a substantial tobacco allowance, and, of course, it helped relieve the boredom.
Between major offensives there was daily shelling, patrols and sniper fire, punctuated by the occasional trench raid by either side, localized attacks, usually at night, to achieve a specific purpose, such as to knock out an opposing strongpoint or seize a prisoner to take back and interrogate. As a novice to this kind of warfare, Harry would have been quite vulnerable. Many new arrivals were unable to resist having a quick look at the enemy’s trenches, (which may have been less than a hundred yards away) only to fall easy prey to a sniper, or a burst of machine-gun fire.
Hygiene was a constant problem. Washing and shaving used up valuable water. It was normal practice to use the last dregs of a mug of tea to shave with one of the new-fangled safety razors that were replacing the ‘cut-throat’ type. Soldiers just accepted that they were to be filthy and covered in mud for their time in the front line. Heavy infestations of body lice were an inescapable and intolerable fact of trench life, a
nd a dangerous one, for they carry typhus.
The latrine trenches were, astonishingly, often dug in front of the forward trenches, albeit at trench-floor, rather than ground, level. The facility itself would consist of a plank fixed a couple of feet above a hole in the ground. Toilet paper? No chance! – the men used torn-up newspaper or any other ‘bumf’ (bum fodder) they could lay hands on. The latrines were approached by a communication trench, and were never an inviting prospect. Many soldiers ‘improvised’; an empty bully-beef tin, for instance, could be filled and slung over the parapet.
The daily morning ‘hate’ was part of the routine in the front line. The day almost always started with an exchange of artillery shells, along with rifle and machine-gun fire, beginning just before dawn, the time when an assault was most likely to take place. The ‘hate’ was a way of discouraging an attack.
Death in the trenches was always a companion. If soldiers ‘kept their heads down’ they were fairly safe from enemy rifle and machine-gun fire, but shells and mortar bombs were another matter. Gas masks were extremely uncomfortable and made movement or any strenuous activity almost impossible, although they were a reasonably effective protection against the gas. Every front-line trench had gas alarms positioned along it at intervals, usually brass shell cases which, when struck with a metal bar, made a loud bell-like sound. These would be sounded at the first sign of a gas bombardment, causing soldiers to fumble hastily for their masks.
Surviving shelling was a matter of chance. Only the deepest and strongest bunkers could withstand a direct hit, but could act as a sump in which the poison gas would collect. There was no defence against accurate shelling. A shrapnel shell would be packed with ball bearings that scattered when the projectile exploded. If one landed in an occupied section of trench, there would be many casualties. A direct hit from a high-explosive shell would leave little trace of any nearby soldiers. Anyone in the same stretch of trench would certainly be killed or badly wounded. For this reason trenches were not dug in straight lines, but with kinks and corners, often in a geometrical pattern like the battlements of a castle. This also had the merit of preventing any enemy soldiers who might break into a trench from being able to fire along it, since there would be a turn every few yards, screening the next sector.
From time to time small parties of soldiers from either side would venture into no man’s land. They would be sent out to repair or strengthen the wire, to reconnoitre the enemy trenches, and perhaps to try to snatch a prisoner for interrogation. Of necessity, these forays would be done under cover of darkness. If the patrols were detected in their work, machine-gun fire could make this a very unpleasant and dangerous occupation.
Even less pleasant were the tasks Harry refers to as ‘suicide posts.’ These were concealed listening posts in no man’s land, often not much more than a shell hole close to the enemy wire, in which a section of men would spend the hours of darkness listening and watching to try to gain some knowledge of the enemy’s activities. If they were detected, their chances of surviving were very slim.
By the time Harry arrived, the front line would have stunk of human waste and rotting flesh. It was a smell that the survivors would never forget. In some sections of the line the concentration of death was overwhelming, so that it was almost impossible to extend a trench or dig a latrine without uncovering bodies or parts of bodies.
The ordinary soldier, like Harry, would spend a proportion of his active service in the front line. About a third of his time would be spent there and in the immediate support trenches. A little longer would be spent in reserve, ready to stand to or move in the event of an enemy attack. The rest of the time, about seventy days a year, would be spent in rest areas such as Poperinghe, well behind the line. With a bit of luck, there would also be two weeks’ home leave, although Harry, as a newly joined member of his battalion, wouldn’t be considered for that for quite some time.
At this point it is worth briefly discussing the basic tactics that were followed by both sides if an attack was to be made. Naturally there were slight variations, but in general this was the pattern that an assault on the Western Front would follow, and which had evolved over nearly three years of warfare.
The enemy trenches would be subjected initially to a heavy artillery bombardment for a long period – it could be several days and nights, and in the case of the Somme offensive lasted for a week. The aim was to ‘soften up’ the defenders and to destroy barbed-wire entanglements and other obstacles. The men on the receiving end of this would spend their time in as deep shelters as they could find and would be, for the main part, reasonably safe, if uncomfortable, as well as battered by the noise of the barrage. In general, however, the effect of the bombardment on wire entanglements was minimal. The shells, high-explosive or shrapnel, would just redistribute the wire slightly without cutting it, adding shell holes to the other obstructions that the attackers needed to overcome.
On the morning of the attack, almost always just before dawn, the shelling would stop and the first line of attacking troops, fortified with a rum ration, would go ‘over the top’, leaving the safety of their trenches to advance across no man’s land.
Since the routine was accepted as standard procedure by both sides, there were no surprises. As soon as the bombardment stopped or shifted, the defenders would man the firing steps, ready with machine guns and rifles to repel the enemy, while their own artillery fired in support.
By 1917, the role of the artillery supporting an attack had changed. Since the Somme, instead of bombarding the enemy’s support trenches and rear areas once an assault had started, they were now required to provide a ‘creeping barrage’, in which fire would be aimed to land in no man’s land just ahead of the advancing troops. As the attacking infantry moved forward the point of impact would be raised to maintain the same distance ahead of them. The smoke and debris would hide the advance and make it more difficult for the defenders to counter it. In theory . . .
In practice, it was not as simple as the theory suggested. The shelling had to be accurate. The shells were not, at that time, consistently made and a proportion would drop short and land among the attackers; the same could happen if a gun’s barrel was worn. The barrage had to be synchronized in time and space with the attack. Only the start time was manageable. From then on, the plan was to advance the barrage at a fixed rate of 100 yards per minute. The infantry had to stick to that or their assault would go badly wrong: if they advanced too quickly they would walk into the ‘friendly fire’; too slowly, and the barrage would get too far ahead, giving the defenders, warned of the attack by that barrage, time to man their defensive positions and use rifle and machine gun to good effect – doubly terrifying and deadly if the attack were to be held up by the barbed wire.
Of course, communication was almost impossible. There was no practical portable radio, and field-telephone lines, unreeled behind the advance, were easily damaged by shelling. This left ‘runners’, individual soldiers sent back with important information or requests for support, reinforcements or supplies, or forward with orders, changes to plan, and so on. Needless to say, casualties among runners were severe. In addition, the smoke and dust in the half light of the dawn made signalling or observation a real challenge. In the light of all this, plans had to be carefully made and stuck to, to the letter, if there was to be any chance of success.
This was the world that Harry entered in May 1917. Experiencing the front line for the first time, he had to learn to cope with the horrific conditions. There was no alternative. For the first time, he writes to both Jack and Kate after seeing and experiencing at first hand the horror of the front line. The two letters were written on the same day, but each has a slightly different emphasis.
June 2/6/1917
Dear Jack
Very pleased to receive a letter from you and to hear you are going on all right. We have had a very rough time lately the Germans were only about 40yds away from us, we had a very trying time for the first, but I do
n’t care so long that I keep alright. It will be a good job when the war is over. Ethel tells me they are alright at home but Willie as got a cough. Hope will soon be better. I hear Connie has started school and that she likes it. I hope that she gets on alright. I have not received a letter from Kate yet but expect one any time. this is my address 32507 9th Batt York and Lancs, C Company, 11 platoon in B.E.F. [British Expeditionary Force; he later transferred to 12 Platoon] France. I think I am going in for a Lewis Gunner. I don’t know yet I will let you know next time I write we are having a bit of a practice this last day or two we have been out of the trenches. We get plenty of tobacco but little bread out here. Write to me when you receive this letter and let me know all you can. I am glad to receive a letter.
With Best Love from
Harry
Harry doesn’t sound too impressed with his new environment. After a few days he’s very keen for the war to be over. The German front-line trench seems to be incredibly close, less than the width of a football pitch. Since a standard-issue rifle in the hands of a modestly competent marksman can easily pick off a man at 200 yards, this is not a situation for the faint-hearted!
The Lewis gun was the standard light machine gun used by the British infantry. It was an air-cooled, gas-operated weapon equipped with a circular drum magazine on top of the barrel, usually holding forty-seven rounds of 0.303-inch ammunition – the same round as that used in the standard-issue rifle, the famous Short Magazine Lee-Enfield. Each platoon would have a machine-gun section with one Lewis gunner, the ‘number one’, who aimed and fired the weapon, a ‘number two’ who handled the replacement of magazines and assisted if the weapon jammed, and seven others to give covering rifle fire and to carry spare magazines. Each member of the section would carry, in addition to his kit and his own rifle and ammunition, eight charged Lewis magazines, each weighing 4.5 pounds (2kg). All members of the section were trained to take over if the number one or two became a casualty. And, of course, a Lewis gun in action would rapidly become a priority target for the enemy’s fire. From his letter to Jack, however, it sounds as though Harry volunteered for this special role.
