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Dear all
A hundred years ago this week… World
War 1 got hellish in even more ways than usual. On May 31-June 1, its greatest
naval conflict, the Battle Of Jutland, saw a total of around 250 British and
German warships engage viciously, though inconclusively (14 British ships sunk
and 6,094 men lost, 11 Germans sunk and 2,551 killed). The German fleet sought
to break the Royal Navy’s blockade of their country and failed. An arguable
long-term effect was that they switched focus from surface fighting to
unrestricted submarine war and that, in part, caused the USA to enter the war
in April, 1917.
On
the Western Front, with the British Somme attack germinating because the French
wanted to divert the German onslaught at Verdun, the slaughterous conflict
there continued, daily battles raging to and back and no decisive developments.
The
12-day Battle Of Mont Sorrel, near Ypres, began on June 2 with a German
artillery attack; the ebb and flow saw both sides regrouping by the end of the
week as the action proceeded towards final totals of 8,000 British and Canadian
casualties and 5,765 German.
On
the Eastern Front, Russia’s extraordinarily overstretched forces kept their end
up with regard to the December, 1915, Chantilly Agreement between the main
Allies to launch simultaneous summer attacks when, on June 4, in Ukraine, they
initiated the Brusilov Offence (named for their commanding General). Argued as
their “greatest feat of arms” in WW1, it was to last until September 20,
accounting for 440,000 Russian casualties, against 567,000 Austro-Hungarian and
350,000 German.
But,
in this same week, that eventually ruinous “stretch” saw the Russian Army
repelling German attacks near Krevo (June 1, current Belarus) and Riga (3,
Latvia), succumbing to a Turkish reoccupation of Mamakhatun (May 31, Armenia),
but holding the Turks at Erzerum, Erzingan (June 2) and Diarbekr (3, all in
Turkey), and defeating them at Khanikin (Persia).
In
continuing campaigns, the Italians halted the Austrian Strafexpedition invasion of the Trentino region (June 3) and the
British Army proceeded with their invasion of German East Africa (May 30-June
3, now Burundi, Rwanda and Tanzania).
Meanwhile,
after their terrible winter in Gallipoli, and three months recovering in Egypt,
my father Lance Corporal Signaller Sam Sutcliffe from
Edmonton, north London (still under-age at 17), his older brother Ted, 19, and
their 250-ish
remaining comrades from the 2/1st City Of London Royal Fusiliers had moved
to France in late April. Then, to their bitter chagrin, the Army disbanded
their Battalion and scattered them among various other Western Front Regiments.
Without a moment to say goodbye to Ted, on or about May 14 Sam found himself
deployed to the Kensingtons (1/13th Battalion, London Regiment) at Gommecourt on
the northern end of the soon-to-be notorious Somme Front…
FOOTSOLDIERSAM SPEAKS
Last week a hundred years ago, my father returned
to a front-line trench for the first time since the Gallipoli evacuation in
January, 1916. No longer a Signaller because the Kensingtons had an oversupply,
he tried to get used to his new outfit, partly by adopting a new persona:
replacing the callow, quiet kid with a droll, sarcy demeanour he soon proudly
bore the soubriquet The Pisstaker, awarded by his Battalion comrades. Still, an
encounter with some of the old 2/1st Fusiliers lads bucked him up.
Now he
writes about Western Front trench life as he found it – oddly enough, in many
ways it turned out very different from his experience of the Turkish peninsula,
though hardly less hazardous:
‘I was already becoming accustomed, once more, to shells
exploding, singly or in groups, near or far, and to bursts of machine-gun fire.
These noises went on without cease. Some of them would be shattering the
eardrums of those nearby even as they shattered the bodies of the unlucky ones
caught by a direct hit. Death or injury could afflict any one of us at any time
of day or night, and we had to learn to live with this risk and outwardly to
ignore it. The tension inside… nobody’s business and never mentioned.
The men standing
on each firing step in the bays had to be extremely careful; snipers looked out
for such targets. But, armed with the knowledge that, after spotting you, a
sniper still had to take aim, you could quickly raise your eye level to just
above your earth parapet, then – if you had not attracted a bullet already –
keep still and rely on movement of your eyes to complete your observations,
then duck, stay ducked, and never bob up in the same place twice. Of course, an
unlucky machine-gun bullet might get you, but the odds were against that.
A dead soldier was
of no use to his mates and most of us understood that the careful man probably
outlived the careless, even though a well-placed shell could upset all
calculations.
Whereas periods of
relaxation in some safety occurred on old-time battlefields and also arise in
more modern mobile warfare, on the Western Front risks had to be lived with
through the whole 24 hours of every day. Furthermore, while I was in the front
line with that Battalion, at no time did anyone senior to me say I was free to
rest, to sleep.
Meanwhile, we knew
our opposite numbers in the German trenches usually had deep shelters
available, so that, in the intervals between significant actions, only a
skeleton force manned their firing steps. Indeed, my new comrades told me that
it seemed the majority of the Jerries remained down below whenever we started
an artillery bombardment intended to prepare the way for our infantry to launch
an attack by dashing forward across No Man’s Land. This spared them many
casualties and, at the opportune moment, comparatively fresh and unshaken, they
could emerge and offer a telling defence.
At that time and
place – the Somme Front – our officers did have below-ground shelters, but it
wasn’t until a later stage of the war that I served in an area where the common
soldier could rest in dugouts furnished with bunks.
As days and nights
passed*, I gradually got to know some of my fellows and to like several of
them. A young Sergeant I thought particularly admirable. Like his name,
Heather, he had something of the outdoors about his looks and manner. He
performed his duties with fairness and honesty and, since none could fault him,
all the best people liked him. When things got noisy and threatening, a sight
of his purposeful face could still a quivering tummy.
Somewhere in
trenches to the rear of the system, or perhaps in a hollow free from enemy
observation, toiled our Sergeant-Cook and his crew. Their labours were expected
to produce 1) in the first hour or so of daylight, sufficient large containers
of hot tea to give everybody a good helping, usually something over half a pint
2) a hot meal, usually stewed, roughly around the middle of the day – sometimes
with a slab of plum duff to follow 3) another issue of hot tea towards evening.
With morning and
evening tea, they also portered the usual solids, such as bread or biscuits,
jam or cheese. They carried the tea through the trenches in deep, rectangular,
iron containers supported on wood bars resting on the shoulders of two men, one
fore, one aft. Only the bigger outbursts of fighting would disturb these
excellent services, delaying or preventing them according to severity.
And our MO,
efficient and caring, attended to our toilet needs in the front line as
diligently as he did in the less hazardous areas further back. Each latrine up
there was of the seat-and-bucket type and housed in a deep, square hole
approached through a short trench. The Pioneer Section treated them all with
liberal quantities of chloride of lime and quickly repaired or replaced any
damaged by shells. You could always locate one by the disinfectant’s pungent
smell, but normally unaccompanied by the foul odours resulting from careless
sanitation.
This competent man
also took responsibility for the advanced First Aid Station at Battalion HQ in,
I think, the third line of the trench system. His trained stretcher-bearers
worked like beavers to collect wounded comrades and hurry them back to him and
his small staff of Red Cross male medics. His diagnosis decided what treatment
would be advisable on the spot and his sound, quick decisions must have saved
many a man’s life before further transportation rearwards to the Advanced
Casualty Station.
I give these and
other details so that you may know something of the organisation which
maintained a huge Army in the field for years under often terrible conditions
without its members becoming victims of some awful plague. Major battles would
disrupt these systems, allowing water-filled trenches, mud, and dead and
decaying bodies awaiting disposal to spread discomfort and despair, while a
flood of damaged men choked the channels rearwards – but the will to restore
order and decency would eventually, sometimes ever so slowly, always
perseveringly, overcome the worst of difficulties.
Of course,
self-discipline has to be maintained before mass discipline can be attempted,
but not all members of even a generally well-disciplined nation subscribe to
this principle.
In my early days with my new lot I had no responsibilities
for other men as I managed to keep busy doing ordinary duties. I still had no
wish to retain my humble one stripe. I never gave an order to a Private; I did
a job myself rather than tell anyone else to do it. In fact, I behaved in a
manner which, I thought, would soon have me relieved of the fishbone on my arm.
One night, another
Company relieved us and we moved back into the support line of trenches. Here,
when not working, we could sleep at last, probably wrapped under and over in
our rubberised groundsheets to keep rain and the dampness of the ground out.
This felt like a wonderful boon, even though it was during daytime only –
because our busy periods came overnight, when the enemy, though at times he
heard us, could not usually see us.
A meal with hot
tea would warm and cheer us before, when darkness fell, we each took a pick or
a shovel and set off. It had been decided that the space between our front
trench and that of the Germans was too wide, so we must construct a new front
line**.
To our knowledge,
there were two ways to do this job. The first involved digging one or more
trenches beginning at your own front line: two men swinging picks loosened some
earth, then stood back while two others shovelled that into sandbags held open
by another two who passed them back through further pairs of hands which in due
course dumped the loose earth and passed emptied sacks forward again. Then the
pick-men resumed, and so the work proceeded. The front pair, perforce, worked
in short, sharp bursts, before being relieved and taking their places further
down the line.
Of course, we knew
the growing trench could not remain unobserved and we often did this work amid
shell bursts and bullets whining – knowing too that our labours might be undone
the next night if a German patrol got close enough to throw their stick bombs***
into our would-be new front line.
The other method
of establishing an advanced front line, quicker but costly in casualties, was
to send a large party of men forward at night and have them dig like hell on
previously marked sites. A covering party provided protection, lying in a long
line between the diggers and the German trenches, ready to fight with bayonet
and bullet. To construct a usable trench, this operation would have to be
repeated several times. More about such an undertaking later…****
Either way, as
dawn approached we all felt tired, and glad to plod back to our support trench,
back among the boys, almost like returning home from furrin parts. We’d quaff
hot tea and chew bread or biscuits and anything else the cooks had sent up,
then fall asleep in sitting, lying or crouching position according to
circumstances.’
* Sam’s first
stint at the Somme front with the Kensingtons, probably begun on May 21, ended on the
night of May 28 when the 1/4th Londons relieved them and the Companies moved
back to billets in Hébuterne and Sailly. During each spell in the trenches the
Companies of each Battalion would swap between front, support and reserve
trenches.
** The Kensingtons War Diary
reports trench-digging in No Man’s Land, with my father’s A Company involved,
on May 26-7, May 30-June 1 and June 9-21 – the parties starting their moves
forward either from the trenches or from Hébuterne village. The incidents my
father recounts in the next few pages are clearly told in order as he
remembered them, but I suspect they may have occurred in any sequence during
this period – that is, not necessarily during this week, May 29-June 4, 1916,
but within the period of build-up to July 1.
*** Stick bomb: the Model
24 Stielhandgranate (“stick hand
grenade”) used by the German Army from 1915 and then throughout both World
Wars; the thrower pulled a cord to ignite a five-second fuse; because of the
stick, they could be thrown 30-40 yards as compared to the British Mills bomb’s
15-30 yards, but fewer could be carried because of they were bigger – source
Wikipedia.
**** See Blog 100 coming
up next week, on Sunday June 5, for that story.
NB: today, and throughout the summer, these
blogs will be unusually long, simply because Sam had such vivid memories of and
so much to say about his experiences a hundred years ago on the Somme. I hope
you’ll agree there’s not too much wasted verbiage and plenty of truth and
substance.
All
the best –
FSS
Next week: Sam’s squad
digs an advance trench at night: “Machine-gun bullets spattered around me…”
There again, he sorts out how they can get a decent kip out in No Man’s Land!
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