The Public Schools Battalion in the Great War by Steve Hurst

Author:Steve Hurst
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781783460540
Publisher: Pen and Sword
Published: 2013-06-20T16:00:00+00:00

4 See conversation between Henry Williamson and George Fullard at Chelsea Arts Club shortly before the death of the latter in 1973. Fn8. Chapter 41.

Chapter 27

THE LAST DAY

THE 16TH MIDDLESEX WAS RELIEVED from trench duty by the Lancashire Fusiliers. They filed out of the dripping communication trenches into open ground behind Auchonvilliers ridge, formed up in column and marched by companies to Acheux Wood for final training for the attack. Their route took them through the busy assembly areas where woods and copses were still intact and the trees in full leaf. The long, ricketty ladders of artillery observers led to camouflaged hides in the top branches. As well as artillery OPs the woods concealed brigade signals sections, stretcher bearers and regimental aid posts. The fields beyond were covered in ammunition dumps, hidden in any rough shelter, dug into banks or covered with logs and packed earth. Sappers assembled light, trench tramway systems that would be used to push ammunition forward and convey wounded men back after the first assault. Guns of every calibre were camouflaged beneath the dripping trees. There was a brief lull in the bombardment and gunners brought up more shells or made rapid and temporary repairs to troublesome parts of their guns.

‘I’ve never seen so many guns,’ said one of Alf’s platoon. Most said nothing, thinking of dry billets and warm food as they marched in the pouring rain, water sluicing from the rims of their helmets, trickling down the necks of rubberised canvas gas capes, soaking puttees and finding its way into boots.

On the following day they started training for the attack. Once again it rained. Alf took a jaundiced view of this training.

It wasn’t possible to hide knowledge of the Big Push from Jerry. He knew all about it. Each brigade had a place to train that was based on the place we were supposed to attack. The staff laid out white tapes to represent the Jerry trenches and we practised on this training ground like performing monkeys until we could go through our tricks to their satisfaction. Jerry could see much of what was going on and, no doubt, there were a few obliging farmers still around who could fill in the details for a few hundred francs. Despite the dominance of the RFC in the air, a few of Jerry’s observation planes got through, while in some places along the line his observation balloons overlooked our positions. With their own high powered Zeiss glasses the Bosche observers could see many of our training grounds and see the battalions practising. You can bet that it wasn’t very difficult to put two and two together.

The tapes were supposed to be Jerry’s front line trenches and behind that we built a replica of Beaumont Hamel church out of sandbags, complete with the church steeple. Of course the steeple had gone by then, and so, as it happened had the rest of the church, smashed to pieces in the final bombardment. But that didn’t stop the staff planners demanding that we use the steeple as a landmark.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.