Letters From the Trenches: A Soldier of the Great War (7 page)

By now, the eve of the attack, the battalion was in the line, waiting in the forward trenches for the order to advance across no man’s land on to the German trenches. Each soldier had with
him his full battle kit, steel helmet, personal weapon, respirator, food, water, ammunition – everything he would need had to be carried. Harry, as a member of 12 Platoon’s Machine-Gun
Section, would also be carrying extra magazines for the Lewis gun, greatly increasing the total load he would have to take into action. We can see from the squad photograph taken at Rugeley that he
was not a large man. (A full list of what the attacking troops from the 9th York and Lancasters had to carry is given
here
.)

The forward trenches were deep, with a firing step on the side facing the enemy. Dug into the trench walls were small bolt holes, which were all the soldiers had for shelter from the elements
and the enemy’s shelling. Sleep would have been impossible. The bombardment was intense and continuous. The soldiers would have hoped that it would do its job in softening up, or even
destroying, the German defences. Veterans of the Somme, the previous year, would have known that this was a vain hope. Both the 9th York and Lancasters and its sister battalion in 70 Brigade, the
8th, had been heavily involved on the first day of that battle, suffering appalling casualties.

Harry had been in Flanders for only three weeks. During that time he had already spent three days in the front line, followed by four days in immediate reserve. He was now about to go into
action for the first time.

There is no doubt that by now everyone would have known perfectly well what was about to happen. A combination of training exercises and rumour would have alerted the ordinary infantryman to the
fact that a big ‘push’ was in the offing, while the commencement of the artillery bombardment days earlier would have confirmed that it was imminent. Many were just anxious to
‘get it over with’ – however horrifically it might eventually
turn out. The Germans in that sector would also have been well aware of imminent action. The continuous bombardment
sent a message that an attack was a certainty.

As it happened, during the night of the 6/7 June, the German front-line troops in the defensive positions on the Messines Ridge were relieved. The replacement body of troops moved in and once
they were in position the relieved unit would move out, back to the reserve areas. At 3.10 a.m. on 7 June, however, both sets of troops were in the German positions.

In the sector of the British line occupied by Harry’s company, the cry was ‘No bloody rum!’ For the British troops, there was always an issue of rum before they went over the
top. In the chilly pre-dawn, a good swig of rum helped with the chill as well as the courage. Perhaps it got lost on its way up the line, or maybe their big earthenware carboy was broken. For
whatever reason, C Company missed out on its rum ration that day.

At 2.50 a.m., still dark, the order came that the troops were to lie down. Of course, this would have been rehearsed, occasioning rumours and speculation among the men, but not many would have
known the real reason for the ‘lying-down drill’.

At 3.10 a.m. precisely, nineteen mines, totalling 450 tons of high explosive, were electrically detonated beneath the German positions on the Messines–Wytschaete Ridge. The biggest ever
man-made explosion to date ripped the top from the ridge, killing or entombing thousands of German soldiers.

Well over a year in preparation, of the twenty-one mines laid only nineteen detonated that morning. One had been discovered and neutralized by the Germans, and the other either failed to
detonate or was not needed on the day, and in time their whereabouts was forgotten. (On 17 July 1955 a lightning strike set off one of the missing mines. The only casualty: a cow, and an aggrieved
Belgian farmer suddenly confronted with a new, massive, crater on his land. The twenty-first mine, the one the Germans discovered, is said to have been found, but not removed.)

The British had used remotely fired mines on the Western Front before, and so the strategy was understood, but they had certainly never used them on this scale. In his briefing to his general
staff before the battle, Plumer had remarked: ‘Gentlemen, we may not make history tomorrow, but we shall certainly change the geography.’ In fact, they did both.

The explosion was incredible. One eyewitness, the war correspondent Philip Gibbs, writing in the
Morning Chronicle
, described the massive detonation:

What must it have been like for the assault troops in the front line? Would part of the lying-down drill have included ordering the soldiers to cover their ears? Harry makes no mention of the
blast in his letters. Perhaps he was deafened by the preceding bombardment. Maybe the troops had been ordered not to mention it in letters.
Maybe he just didn’t find it that astonishing;
after all, he hadn’t been at the front long enough to establish what was ‘normal’.

A map of British dispositions for the attack shows that Harry’s company was in trenches around two hundred yards from two of the underground mines. One has to wonder whether many of the
troops were deafened, although by now they were well used to the sound of the artillery barrage. Yet this was something unprecedented – the noise of the combined explosions was so great that
in England the Prime Minister, David Lloyd George, forewarned of the time of the attack, had himself woken at his Surrey home ten minutes before zero hour so that he could listen for the blast.
Official sources confirm that Lloyd George did indeed hear the distant rumble of sound, and even felt the tremors of the shock wave. The newspapers reported that people in the south-east of England
were woken by it; some reports even claimed that the shock wave travelled as far as Dublin. That Harry does not mention hearing it means nothing, however. He wasn’t a man for detail –
or for causing unnecessary anxiety among his people at home.

Almost immediately after the explosion, officers blew their whistles and the front-line troops left their trenches and started to advance towards the German positions. Harry’s company was
the third wave over, following on 200 yards behind the first wave of men, and tasked with supporting the main attack.

The equipment list for each soldier, set out in the orders for the battalion, brings home the challenge that faced these men as the whistles sounded, even before they came under enemy fire:

The concession in (b) for Lewis gunners like Harry was to enable them to carry an extra eight magazines. Since the equipment he would have to take into action would weigh more than 65 pounds
(30kg), the extra magazines meant that his load would be in excess of 100 pounds (45kg). Any personal ‘extras’ would also need to be carried.

The entry in the battalion war diary for that day explains:

That there was initially little opposition to the assault is unsurprising. Estimates suggest that around ten thousand German defenders died instantly in the explosion. Some were vaporized,
others had their internal organs destroyed by the shock wave from the blast, others still were buried beneath tons of dirt and debris. With a front of around six miles (10km), that works out,
roughly, at the equivalent of an entire British battalion wiped out for each 1,000 yards (900 metres) of front line, or a man for every yard. Understandably, the badly shaken and demoralized
survivors offered little resistance. In the case of the German troops in the positions assaulted by the 9th York and Lancasters, their casualties must have been virtually doubled because both the
outgoing unit and the replacement troops were in the line when the mines blew.

There was some ineffective resistance from a few Germans in pockets along the line, but the attack was only held up briefly. Large numbers of the enemy, dazed and disoriented, surrendered
without a fight; others, uninjured, also held up their hands, happy to get away from this hellhole of the war. In all, 5,000 German prisoners were taken. Many of them laughed with relief and shook
hands with the Tommies who had overrun their shattered positions.

For all their success against the German infantry, the mines would have had little impact on the German artillery positions sited well behind the front lines. As soon as the assault began the
defenders’ guns would have been directed on to the attacking troops.

Harry’s battalion attacked behind a creeping artillery barrage from the British guns. As we have seen, the shells should have fallen in front of them as they advanced. But it was not an
exact science, and many British casualties were caused by ‘friendly fire’.

The 9th York and Lancasters had been assigned the part of the ridge that contained Hill 60 as well as Mount Sorrel. A and D Companies were in the first two waves. Harry’s C Company waited
in a newly dug trench behind the front line.

The battalion’s orders for the day are precise and chilling. In them, Lieutenant-Colonel Bowes-Wilson – who was to be killed at noon that day – writes:

The CO goes on to describe how the three waves (Harry in the third, not the fifth as he says in a letter he sent after the action) are to cross no man’s land at 100-yard intervals. The
positions of the medical officers and dressing stations are indicated, as is the route back for stretcher cases and walking wounded.

Harry’s company is to support the first wave:

All very clear. All very clinical. Of course, the firesteps in the German trenches would be facing the wrong way for defence against any counter-attack from the enemy’s rear, and the wire
would be behind what would have become the front line if the battalion took its objectives.

How did the assault go? The answer is, very well at first. As the war diary records: