Delville Wood

by Ian Uys

  *

  Corporal Hermann Bloom lay in the ruined barn throughout the day and until 11 pm that night. As the bullet had smashed the bone of his left leg he could only drag himself around.

  “It rained all day Sunday, and I expected the barn to be blown up any minute. They had started a huge counter-attack, but our boys pushed them back, and their losses must have been terrible. The ground was literally covered with dead Germans.

  “When things got quieter, I blew my whistle, and some of my own company came in and found me. One chap said: ‘Look, boys, there’s our poor corporal; let’s get a stretcher and get him out of this.’ I shall remember this incident as long as I live.

  “Well they came back, and we started for the dressing-station, which was at the edge of the village. It was no easy task. The Germans had our place spotted; their snipers were potting at us when we came in, and I may say lots of wounded chaps and stretcher-bearers were killed in this way.

  “Here I had a cup of tea — the first I had had since Friday afternoon — and my wounds dressed. I was very weak from the loss of blood and from the shell-shock, and I never expected to come out!

  “The doctor asked for volunteers to carry us (the wounded) to another casualty dressing-station, out of danger. Some chaps came forward. It was a very risky job, as they had started another counterattack, and they threw flares in the air which lit up the whole sky.

  “It had now started to rain, but after the good wishes of the doctors and the boys we set off, a grave little party, in Indian file. We had to go very slow, as they were sweeping the roads with machine-gun fire. After a momentous journey we all arrived safe. I have since heard that two of the party of carriers were killed on the return journey, poor chaps; it’s the heroes who suffer most.

  “I had my wounds once more dressed, and was placed on an ambulance wagon, and arrived at the hospital at Montauban.”

  *

  Rarely did a father and son find themselves fighting shoulder to shoulder in France. Private Holtman was to see his father struck down 12 yards away. “I felt awful. I was sure he was killed. I thought of mother all alone in Johannesburg. Twenty yards further on a big piece of shell knocked me over. Later I met father at the dressing-station, nursing a lame arm. ‘Allemachtig’ boy, is it you?’ he said.

  *

  Sergeant William Stericker had served as a trooper in the SA Light Horse during the South African War and been awarded the Queen’s Medal with 7 bars, as well as the Coronation Medal. He then served with the Transvaal Mounted Rifles in the Natal 1906 Zulu Rebellion. Zulu Rebellion.

  Bill Stericker married and set up home near Florida, Transvaal. He served with the SA Irish in 1914 and was soon promoted to sergeant. After joining the brigade his military experience proved of great value until he was killed in Delville Wood on 16 July.

  *

  For the first two days in the wood Capt Stephen Liebson, SAMC, attached to 3rd SAI, had attended to the wounded with nothing but a small trench to shelter in. He was himself wounded on the 16th but remained at his post which he had set up in Longueval. In some cases enemy machine-gun emplacements and snipers were within 50 yards of the regimental aid post.

  When the order came at 10.30 pm to evacuate Longueval as the British intended bombing it until 2 am, Capt Liebson asked for volunteers to remain with him at the dressing-station. Drummer R Scott and Privates J Maudlen, W Noble and R Thompson stepped forward.

  *

  Ernest Solomon, like all in the wood, had the greatest respect for the overworked stretcher-bearers.

  “And all the time, night and day, the stretcher-bearers, unfortunately few in number, worked like heroes though ready to drop from fatigue. Continually exposed, ever on the move, dressing wounds, bearing the serious cases back over ways encumbered with fallen trees and shell holes, they were at the beck and call of all who required their assistance. I saw only two with our company and there was sufficient work for a couple of dozen.

  “It was ‘stretcher-bearer,’ ‘stretcher-bearer,’ ‘stretcher-bearer,’ from a multitude of directions where wounded lay.

  “‘Coming, coming,’ they shouted, running from one to another.

  “Throughout almost the whole of one night, there came the cry from a wounded man somewhere behind in the darkness ‘stretcher-bearer, stretcher-bearer.’ An interval of silence, then again ‘stretcher-bearer, stretcher-bearer’ in a voice of great pain, heard between the crashes of bursting shells.

  “‘I hear him,’ said one of the bearers when his attention was directed to the call, ‘I have been looking for him, but God knows where he is, I can’t find him.’

  “He was eventually discovered and taken back.

  “The two could not cope with all the cases, and assistance had occasionally to be rendered by the men.

  “‘Private … is badly wounded’ said an NCO to an officer on one occasion, ‘and will bleed to death unless attended to at once. May we take him back as the stretcher-bearers are busy?’

  “The necessary permission was accorded and the man removed.

  “Those were but a few of the incidents that crowded our days and nights.

  “We were not short of food but did not have anything warm. Not a drop of tea or coffee, not an ounce of hot food, only cold rations and water, the latter in carefully distributed quantities. Occasionally an issue of rum, but passing through the hands of some unscrupulous persons, it had been freely diluted with water by the time it reached us, and had consequently lost all warming qualities. A cup of tea or coffee would have put new life into one, but it was not forthcoming.

  “It is no idle boast to say that, in spite of the hardships, the men never lost heart, never felt but they were experiencing only what others had experienced before them, and that it was ‘up to them’ to have their share. Where hardships were necessary in order ‘to carry on’ they were accepted unquestioningly.

  “Our ranks were being lamentably thinned out hour after hour. At intervals along the line gaping cavities marked the spots where shells had pitched clean onto shelters and blown their occupants to eternity. Men were put out of action singly and in bunches.

  “One Lewis gun team was wiped out to a man. All around, in and out of shell-holes, in and out of their one-time shelters, lay the dead bodies of men. As soon as possible they received burial, sixteen one day being buried in a single grave.

  “Shells pitching clear of men’s positions scattered ‘whirring’ jagged pieces of iron broadcast to maim and to kill. Others finding no human billets vented their spleen on nature. Clearings in the wood appearing where none had previously existed; bare decapitated trunks stood where once had been clusters of lofty trees.

  “‘This is hell,’ we said, ‘things can’t go on like this. Why don’t they send us on to take the trenches in front?’

  “Our orders however, were to hold on. The taking of the trenches in front would have created too great a salient.

  “A shell burst in front of the position I occupied. Shrapnel damaged my rifle lying on the parapet before me, and smashed the bayonet. I picked up another lying near, its owner having been killed. The man next to me uttered a soft cry.

  “‘Are you hit?’ I asked.

  “There was a small scratch above one of his eyes and he held his right hand over his heart.

  “‘I think so,’ he replied, and undoing his shirt discovered that a piece of shrapnel had lodged under the skin over his heart. It had passed through a book in the left hand breast pocket of his tunic. Taking up his rifle, and with full equipment on, he made his way calmly to the dressing-station.

  “Two well-known Johannesburg footballers lay with broken legs. One died, the other today wears an artificial limb. One man, whose singing had so often delighted us at camp concerts, lay in a shell-hole, his face calm, his body bearing no outward signs of mutilation. They said he had been killed by concussion.

  “Another young fellow, a mere boy, had both his legs blown off. At the dressing-station he is report
ed to have told the doctor not to worry about him as he had no chance, but to attend to others. He died.

  “During the second day some officers of another division came to our positions to spy out the land. They said they were going to relieve us the next day. To our left front and behind the German front line stood a village with a prominent church steeple (Ginchy). That village, they said, was to be their objective in a coming attack.

  “The rain came down in torrents and the expected relief did not materialise. Our boots, strong as they were, could not withstand the pressure of water and mud; waterproof sheets protected only our shoulders, and the other parts of our bodies received the rain and became soaked through.”

  That afternoon the company numbered 100 men.

  *

  Tom Heunis found that race and creed meant nothing in the holocaust of Delville Wood. “Some men had coloured blood in them — but it never bothered us in those days … Two Afrikaner brothers called Geldenhuis were with us. One rambled all over the wood. He returned once with iron rations he had found on a dead German officer in a dug-out.

  “A man named Hugo from the Cape carried water for us. A bullet went through the can and he stood and cried in frustration as the water ran out. He later became a sergeant and was killed in the 1917 offensive.”

  *

  Frank Dadd’s drawing of the Delville Wood battle was published in The Graphic of August 19, 1916. It was based on a sketch by a British officer. The caption quotes from one of the despatches of W Beach Thomas of the Daily Mail: “Yet one other tale must be told, a tale of the South Africans who first made the wood famous. One group of them who had already borne the brunt of the fighting, asked not to be relieved, and continued to fight without pause for seven days and nights.

  “From this group one company became separated. But they were not forgotten: and I trust the tale of their struggle will never be forgotten. How it all happened no one perhaps knows; but a hundred or so found themselves at twilight in occupation of a part of a trench running north and south up the wood. As the Germans came up they began to throw bombs at a venture, hoping so to discover the enemy, but, on instructions, not a man among the South Africans responded.

  “Every man held his fire and waited till the figures of the enemy, not sure of their prey, were close and distinct. Then, attacking with rifle and bomb, they drove them back in panic with heavy losses. A remnant of this lost garrison finally made good its retreat.”

  *

  As a regimental runner Harry Cooper was to see much of what transpired in the rest of the wood.

  “As I was now on the move a great deal I saw many acts of bravery and I was proud to know that our ‘Senussi Ragtime bob-a-day tourists’ (a name we picked up while in Egypt) were really tough. We were a body of men and boys, some had not used a razor yet, but what they lacked in beard they made up for in guts. Straight from desert warfare into a hell like this.

  “One man was doing a one-man army job with a machine-gun placed on a mound of earth and cannon shells. Who was helping him I could not know or see. He looked towards where I was running and in a second I was facing the business end of his gun. His grin was a pleasure to see when he turned it Jerry-wards again — and so was mine, perhaps.

  “Looking towards the centre of the wood, I heard one of the ‘big ones’ coming and hit the grass. The next thing I saw was that this ‘chap’ had skidded in some way, hit a large tree and stood upright on its base — a very big ‘dud’. Later some wag placed a tiny shell alongside it and wrote ‘The long and the short’ with some kind of white powder. This lot had gone when I passed a day later. Something must have disliked the joke, only a big crater remained. Possibly it was delayed action, I could not say.

  “News came through that Jerry had put up a white flag in order to collect some of his wounded and while our chaps rested and did what they could for our wounded, the Jerries opened fire and played havoc with our front-line. I was sent up to find out what the position was from headquarters, and to leave a message with an officer. The only ones I found were dead and among them was my captain (McLachlan) and the captain of another company.

  “These two were nearly always together and two finer gentlemen you could not wish to meet. I met the wives of these two gallant men while I was on convalescence in Eastbourne.

  “Our padre (this would be Padre Hill as Padre Cook had been killed at Bernafay earlier) came across my pal and I while we were trying to do something for the bad cases. He asked me if I would like to be ‘OC Fires’. At first I thought he was joking but he said to me, ‘Come on, let’s get a fire going and give some of the wounded something hot to drink, and to my pal he said, ‘Get what Oxo cubes you can’. This is the middle of the wood and hell all around us.

  “Needless to say, my pal and I pleaded guilty to sheer funk. He said ‘Yes, I can understand that, but we have got to do something.’ I believe he found an old cellar farther back, but how far he got with the hot drinks I do not know. Later I saw him with both hands bandaged and still battling with the wounded. What a man — and if top decorations were to be given, he should have had ‘Double Rations.’”

  *

  At 1 pm Lieut Elliott, who now commanded the company on South Street, wrote a message to Thackeray. “The men under my command are rapidly becoming non-efficient through want of sleep and cannot last out for many hours longer.”

  *

  Private Douglas Davey was hit in his right knee by a piece of a whizzbang shell casing. He had time afterwards to reflect on his half-section’s narrow escape.

  “The chap I shared our little trench with was called Marsh, that could also be a guess, his tunic was cut right across his back with the piece of shell casing which wounded me.”

  *

  Dudley Meredith found that fetching rations could be unusual.

  “On one occasion I was sent back with a party to fetch rations and ammunition, which we found eventually in charge of a Scottie who had evidently had a good go at the rum. However, we took up a few bags of food, some ammunition, water and letters — the last lot of supplies that we saw.”

  *

  When the company was hard-pressed and ammunition running out, Company Sgt-Major Bryant returned to the dump under shell fire to fetch a box of ammunition and was killed on the return journey.

  *

  Lawson and Breytenbach, erstwhile foes, laboured together feverishly on Sunday morning.

  “Time, before dawn on Sunday morning, was to us as dear life. Furiously we dug ourselves in, a work commenced during the night, when every moment of respite was a precious moment of toil at digging. Never did men dig as we dug, and sunrise lit up a workmanlike trench, upon which our mutual congratulations were hearty. Then came the sad burying of our dead. The soldier puts his fallen comrade out of sight with a joke on his lips — to dodge the sigh and tear.

  “There was no help for the wounded who could not walk, as we were now totally cut off, and beyond the reach of the welcome stretcher-bearers and field dressing-stations. Our last communication with commissariat was between 7 and 8 pm on Saturday, when rations came in. With the rations came a new and timely reminder of what we were fighting for, in the form of letters from home.

  “Here I must mention the magnificent display of care for his men of that gallant officer, Lieutenant Somerset.”

  Lieutenant Francis Henry Somerset, 33, came to South Africa with the British Forces in January 1901, aged 18, and subsequently joined the SA Constabulary. After the war he joined the Forest Service and attended the Tokai Forest School in 1913.

  Somerset served with the ILH in SWA and received a commission. He was extremely popular — “a chum of every man yet an officer and gentleman.” His brother, Burchall Somerset of the Canadian Mounted Rifles, was killed in action in May 1916. At the time his mother lived in British Columbia.

  Lawson recalled how Somerset took care of them. “He was in command of the 16th Platoon at the south-east corner of the wood bearing west. About 9 am on Sund
ay, whilst the shell fire still raged in all its fury, he came to the ration dump, which was in the centre of the edge of the wood. He calmly sat down and sorted out the rations for his men, and then carried them himself to their part of the trench. He next fetched water for them from battalion headquarters, some 100 yards behind us in the wood. On his return he finished up these labours of love by setting out and bringing his men their letters, received with the rations the previous evening.

  “Beyond the work of adding minor improvements to our trench, Sunday proved a day of rest though not a day of peace. To sit down amid the bursting of shells, witnessing a pal killed here, another wounded trying to limp to safety somewhere else — and wondering whose turn it is to be next — is a severe strain.

  “In this ordeal the South Africans proved their metal by a display of calmness such as to suggest they did not realise the danger — but they did, only they faced it bravely. The only cheer and comfort men in the first line trench, suffering from shell fire, can get is the fire of their own artillery, concentrated to silence the enemy’s guns. At this time the enemy’s guns opposite to and firing on us enjoyed immunity, whilst we had to wait inactive.

  “The enemy infantry were apparently resting. There seemed no prospect of any fighting in which our trusty rifles and machine-guns could play a part. The Germans saw they had us like rats in a trap, and determined to thin our numbers and try to wear down our courage and spirit by artillery fire. As events proved, it required more than this to bring the spirit of the lads from South Africa to submission.

  “So passed Sunday, the 16th, for a party of soldiers as useful with the rifle as any that ever fought, but unable to bring their pet weapon into play. The night that followed seemed even worse. The Imperial machine-guns and crews by which we had been reinforced met the fate of our own. By midnight the last machine-gun in our section of the line had been put out, whilst the line itself had grown steadily thinner. Yet each man realised and manfully accepted with composure that we had not yet seen the worst.

  “We all looked to our rifles which now seemed indeed the friend in need. The hand that gripped the small of the stock did so with the trust and affection of a child for his mother; and so, still facing the thunderous enemy guns, which never diminished for a second their intense onslaught, we waited, with the confidence inspired in South Africans by their rifles, whatever was in store.