Delville Wood

by Ian Uys

  “I resolved to myself that I would not fall a prisoner. By hook or crook I was going to try and find my own lines. I got out of the dug-out with difficulty, and, picking up two rifles, I tried to use them as crutches. I could not make any progress at all with them. The deep mud beat me. The muzzles sunk down deeply into it, and I fell over.

  “The rifle fire and the machine-guns playing on the wood were terrific at this time. I lay on my back absolutely exposed to the murderous fire, and it is a wonder I am here to record my experiences.

  “The bullets whizzed by me, and the experience was like being out in a real South African hailstorm. The rattle of the missiles was likened to that of hail falling on a galvanised roof.

  “Discretion being the better part of valour, I deemed it advisable to adjourn to the dug-out again, which I did. I was once more left to my thoughts and the fear of becoming a prisoner with the Huns again took possession of me. Again I resolved that this should not be.

  “I emerged once again, and made another attempt with the rifles. I struggled desperately with them, and was going along proudly, when I encountered the fallen trees, which offered a substantial obstruction to my further progress, and I fell all in a heap among them.

  “I extricated myself, and struggled once again back to the only fairly safe place I knew of, the dug-out. I looked at my watch and it showed that it was eight o’clock. I reflected whether to lie there and bleed or starve to death, or to try and make a superhuman effort to get back.

  “When the thought of my wife and children flashed through my brain, I was up in an instant, and carrying my injured limb in the air, I snatched up a bag containing emergency rations, knowing this would keep me from starving for at least twenty four hours.

  “I commenced to move off, when I became faint, and had once more to return to the dug-out. I lay there about five minutes, when I heard a fearful screaming coming from the direction of the dug-out.

  “Ten Germans or thereabouts peered into the dug-out, and on seeing me screamed: ‘Arous, arous, arous! Loos, loos!’ One was in the act of throwing a bomb on the top of me, and I thanked heaven he altered his mind. Seeing by their gestures that they wanted me to come out, I did so.

  “They inquired if there were any more of my comrades in there, and I replied in the negative. They thereupon unmercifully kicked me and struck me with the butts of their rifles, and then told me to get up. The language I used to them was the choicest Billingsgate, I can assure you, and if they had understood it it would have been worse for me.

  “Their maltreatment did not affect me much, as my wound was troubling me, and I was in great pain. They then moved on farther, clearing the wood, and I felt happier, and at last succeeded in getting along past the fallen trees, but my cardigan caught in the branches.

  “My first objective was the road dividing the wood (Princes St), which was in two portions. I made for this, and on the way came across the bodies of dead Germans in their hundreds, and here and there the bodies of our own brave boys, a gruesome sight.

  “One in his kit was lying in a peaceful attitude, with one hand resting on his head, and the expression on his blood-stained face seemed to say: ‘Those who may happen to see me, tell my comrades, tell South Africa, I died willingly for her honour.’

  “I had not got very far, when I ran into about fifty of the enemy, and if looks would kill a person I should have died on the spot. They surrounded me, screaming like madmen. They then held a war council, as it were, over me.

  “By their attitude, it seemed as if they wanted to end my earthly career at once. The leader of the mob, whom I took to be a sergeant-major, who spoke English fairly well, said to me: ‘We intend to kill you.’

  “I answered: ‘If you wish to be so cowardly, you can do so.’ He replied: ‘We Prussians are not cowards.’ He then turned to the remainder, and, after a good deal of talking among themselves, said: ‘Your people kill our wounded.’ I there and then denied this.

  “After a time he again turned to me, and said: ‘We think you are wounded enough; we have decided to let you go: clear out.’ They went on again, as if bereft of their senses, some waving bombs, others brandishing their rifles, some flashing their bayonets, screaming: ‘Arous, arous, arous!’

  “I said: ‘All right! keep your hair on.’ I then continued my way along the path, and still ran into batches who looked daggers at me. I fancy the sight of their dead comrades lying about made them more vicious towards me.

  “Sometimes I lay perfectly still until they had passed me. In the distance, as I was coming nearer the road I was making for, I saw about 1,000 of them coming to the second portion of the wood which the road divided, so I pushed forward and made for Longueval, where I knew our first dressing-station was.

  “But I could see it was useless going in that direction, as I should be asking for the very thing I was attempting to avoid. I reached the road, and darkness by this time was setting in.

  “I looked into a trench that the regiment had been holding previous to their strategical retirement. Feeling parched, and a man when wounded gets thirsty very easily, I searched for water, and found a petrol tin lying on the parapet, which, to my intense surprise and pleasure, I found to contain a good quantity of water.

  “I struggled down into the trench to ease my thirst and to collect my thoughts, in order to plan my next move.

  “In part of the trench a machine-gun stood, left by the regiment in their rapid retirement. I call it a retirement, but it was really not so; it was a clever move, as I afterwards learned. The word ‘retire’ was not in our vocabulary, as orders, prior to my being hit, were sent along the trench that there must be no such thing.

  “A captain was sitting in the trench on an ammunition box, stone dead. What wound caused his death I could not discern, as there was no blood about. He was sitting quite upright, and looked as if he had been gassed. I sat near his body and was left alone with my thoughts.

  “My almost severed foot was giving me terrible pain, the prospects of falling into the hands of the enemy were ever before me, it was bitterly cold, and the rain had not stopped for some days. I could not be recognized for mud, and my uniform was in rags.

  “The man who had tried to assist me in bandaging my foot had cut my pants all up the seam to get at the femoral artery, a point I put him up to, as, thanks to previous training, I knew what to do, but had not the things to do it with.

  “It was more than my life was worth to go out into no-man’s-land in the twilight. I discovered a waterproof sheet in the trench, and with that covered myself up, and awaited the time to move off. From utter fatigue and weakness I fell asleep.”

  *

  Geoffrey Lawrence recalled the generosity of Pte E G Kensit from Wynberg.

  “Even after sixty years a memory of comradeship and kindness in that wood (Welcome Wood near Corbie) is indelibly etched in my mind. I looked up a friend named Kensit in another company who, with two others, was just about to finish the last of his parcel from home, a tin of canned peaches. The generous fellow insisted on me joining in though it meant one less peach all round. With the dull roar of the great bombardment as orchestra, those peaches were eaten with deliberate and thoughtful relish.

  “This was a man with a lovely unselfish spirit, very cultured and knowledgeable. He was killed in Delville Wood two weeks later, mortally wounded whilst trying to run through an impassable barrage of bursting shells with an urgent message to our command post. He struggled through, delivered the message and collapsed and died almost immediately. One of the four of us besides myself survived the battle and told me of his death.”

  *

  Victor Casson was to assist his friend, Bill Helfrich, a stretcher-bearer who had been given the nickname of “Senussi Bill” in Egypt. William Helfrich, 33, came from Beaconsfield, Kimberley, where he worked at the Diamond Fields Advertiser. He served with the 2nd Bn, Kimberley Regiment, in SWA, then joined C Coy (Kimberley Company) of the 1st SAI.

  Casson observe
d ‘Senussi Bill’ Helfrich, and called out to him to come over. “He asked me if I was wounded and I said, ‘No Bill, I am only hungry and tired, and I wish I could get out of this hell’. He told me he could not take any wounded chaps out as all his stretcher-bearers were dead, and could only dress the wounds of the chaps injured and give them a shot of morphine to ease their pains.

  “A few yards from my shell-hole hide-out was a huge shell-hole sheltering five German wounded. Between Bill and I we applied fresh dressings to their wounds. As a parting gift he gave each one a shot of morphine to ease their pain. A young German officer was alive, but beyond human aid. He had a fractured spine. Bill Helfrich gave him a good shot of morphine, which ended this young officers pain for ever. Bill left and wended his way through the fallen trees, and that was the last time I saw old Bill.

  “At about 11 am the Germans intensified the shelling of the wood, till it became a rain of death from the skies. It intensified to such an extent that the remaining trees and undergrowth were blasted and eliminated from a once beautiful wooded park.

  “A few men of the brigade who were lucky to survive this holocaust, had only one option, and that was to stay put in their funk holes, head well down, hoping that a shell would not find a direct hit. Unfortunately many direct hits were made, and it took its toll.

  “About 5 pm the beautiful rain of hell fire, ceased as if it never occurred. It became dead silent except for the dying and wounded calling for water and help, and the occasional burst of small-arms fire. I realised that I was the only live man standing on my feet among the many dead and wounded laying in grotesque shapes among the fallen tree trunks and numerous shell-craters.

  “At this stage I decided to call it a day and proceeded to make my way out of the wood. In my opinion the Germans advanced and broke through a section of weakened defences, and had advanced into the wood unbeknown to me. I was confronted by a party of Germans led by an officer. I was paralysed and could not believe my eyes. The soldiers levelled their rifles to shoot me and luckily for me the officer restrained them from firing.

  “The officer approached me and levelling his revolver, told me to throw down my rifle and to raise my arms. He proceeded to search my pockets. Concealed in my pockets were a couple of Mills hand grenades. He relieved me of these lethal grenades and, carefully placing them on the ground, ordered two men to take me over to the German lines.

  “While being escorted out of the wood I came across well-constructed German trenches about 100 yards from the wood, which was filled to capacity with a fresh German brigade. From this vantage point I looked back on what had been a beautiful wooded park. Now I gazed on what appeared to be an earthquake upheaval. A few trunks of trees pointed skywards, as if in shame.

  “I was then taken to a village for interrogation, where I was treated with courtesy. A German colonel informed me that the South Africans had fought bravely in a difficult position. He was full of praise for the brigade’s tenacity in holding the wood and he let me know that we were a brave lot, but were led by a lot of bloody fools!”

  *

  Major Edward Burges was in the front line at the northern edge of the wood, where Coenraad Nelson was an eye-witness to his end.

  “I saw Major Burges, our (former) adjutant, receive something from his runner and all of a sudden there was a blast and we never saw them again. Both of them were gone. A very brave man.”

  *

  Private O Struck of Kalk Bay felt that German snipers picked out machine-gunners specially. He was to find the shelling to be a greater danger, especially when one killed four of the men at his gun.

  “Fortunately, I was buried, but had to scratch myself out, being the only one left after the explosion. My gun being blown 30 feet into the air, I had to report to another. But just as I arrived it also was sent ‘on leave.’ I then had to go back and report myself to the officer in charge. He being a decent sort gave us a tot of rum and some cigarettes to buck us up, as we had had no sleep for a few days.

  “The only injuries I received were a sprained wrist and some bits of shrapnel in my shoulder. After that we had our turn at the Huns, bombing them as they came on us … I myself was buried three times.”

  *

  Major Frank Heal had trained the men of D Company, however could not be with them in the wood as he had been placed in charge of the brigade’s transport. His frustration grew as reports reached him. He later recalled some of them.

  “Can you see that boy in ‘D’ who was sent back with an urgent message, badly wounded and realised he couldn’t last out, crawled back and handed the message all bloodstained to the officer with: ‘I’m sorry, sir, but I couldn’t get through with it,’ and fell dead.

  “One man in 16 platoon broke his finger, but insisted on going into the fight, was with seven or eight of them — all that was left — the officer had just been shot through the head; saw the Germans advancing and only about 12 yards away; only had half a dozen rounds of ammunition, which they decided to hold on to, and so charged with the bayonet.

  “This man was hit in the stomach at about eight yards’ range and knocked over into a shell-hole. His pal said: ‘My God! they have killed you,’ and he rolled over and said: ‘Never mind, it can’t be helped. Carry on.’

  “This man crawled away later, but as he couldn’t find any blood, decided it wasn’t bad enough to go to the dressing-station, and so carried on, was afterwards blown up by a shell and sent back with shell-shock. He’s still alive. That bullet hit his belt buckle, tore it to pieces and his clothes and stomach as well, but nothing penetrated. You would have thought he had been scored like a piece of pork, though. He’s here now.

  “Then there was an officer (Lieut Sydney Style) who was sent to see how the fight was progressing, found another officer of the … Regiment badly wounded and tried to get him out; was shot through the throat, wrote a note, which we still have, to the colonel: ‘I’m awfully sorry, sir, but it wasn’t my fault; I’ll get back as soon as I can.’ The blood had dropped all over the paper as he wrote.

  “There are dozens of other cases like that. That will show you the spirit. Ask the Germans — if any of them got away. They know.

  “The rotten part of it all is that I had to sit at the back and look on — see all and say nothing. The colonel refused to get hit, and as ‘Orders is Orders’, I had to wait in comparative safety.

  “Poor Dent — a lieutenant in ‘A’ Company. One arm gone and the other useless. It’s just awful.”

  *

  Private Fred Hampson and the survivors of No 13 platoon were forced by the bombardment to hug their meagre cover.

  “The Germans opened up with everything they had. It was like hail. There were three of us who’d been together all along — Billy Yeo, L/Cpl Robinson and myself. Yeo and I had dug a little hole, about 18 inches deep and we crouched in there.

  “The shells rained down on us. The debris being thrown up by these shells was so intense that it was actually filling up the hole that we were sitting in. My companion and I took a groundsheet and held it over our heads to catch the debris. By some miracle we weren’t touched.

  “Huge trees were crashing all around us and the branches of trees were falling. A green forest before, it suddenly became a shambles of broken tree trunks and broken branches.

  “Eventually we made our way to a shell-hole near the edge of the wood, where we found other troops. The German infantry came over in massed formation and this time we let them have it. Our artillery blazed away, but it was mainly the rifle and machine-gun fire that repulsed them.

  “Yeo, Robinson and I fired at everything we saw. They were easy targets as they were virtually in the open, from 50 to about 200 yards away. But they were superior in number. It was marvellous that we weren’t hit at all. Everywhere you looked there were dead bodies. Germans and our own fellows. They were all over the place.”

  *

  Private Roy Makepeace, 17, of Richmond, Cape, was born in Cardiff, Wales. He was a la
nky, dark youth with blue eyes. After immigrating he attended SACS school in Cape Town, then joined the Murraysburg Commando for service in SWA with the Graaff-Reinet Ruiters at 15½ years, having lied about his age. He was taken prisoner on 24 December and released seven months later. He then wired home “Coming, going to Europe next.”

  Makepeace wrote to his parents about Delville Wood.

  “This affair in Delville Wood was about the worst thing I have ever heard of; for a brigade of British Infantry, 5,000 when complete, ours consisted of about 1,500 at the time, to hold up 13,000 Germans is beyond comprehension; and the artillery bombardment that preceeded it, why there has never been a bombardment in the history of the world that was as intense as that was. The Germans turned every available gun they had on to a bit of wood about the size of Richmond native location, and sent over every conceivable form and size of shell for about 12 hours, and then attacked what was left of the men in it.

  “Well, I don’t think one could gather a better representation of hell than the bombardment and the attack combined. Also I don’t think there is a better soldier in the world than the man who ‘pushed a pen’ in some firm in South Africa; the boys were marvellous.

  “When the bombardment ceased and the Germans advanced the boys got out of the trenches and scrapped them in the open, throwing bombs, firing and charging at them, and having hand-to-hand fights with them.

  “Nearly every officer has been killed or wounded, but the boys didn’t lack in the initiative; when they thought it an opportune time to charge, a voice sang out: ‘All together, Springboks,’ and forward went what was left of them like one man. I am afraid Fritz has had enough of the conquerors of South-West Africa. I think the Kaiser will be fierce about his pet regiment being cut up; our casualties were numerous, but they had the rougher time of it.

  “Well, I accounted for my share of them. I killed seven myself, so I think I have rewarded them amply for the holiday they gave me in South-West. I went through three charges, and I assure you that by the time we left the trenches on the other side of the wood, and got back to comparative safety, I was about done in, physically and mentally.