MESSINES, YPRES, AND AFTER.
1. The Battle of Messines.
The 11th Field Company was reserve company in the first stage of the attack on Messines Ridge, and very early in the morning of the 7th of June, 1917, marched from Pont de Nieppe to Weka Lines, in the little village of Romarin, on the road to Plœgsteert village. With the company moved a party of attached infantry from the 9th Brigade, which had reported to Stuff Camp some days previously. The morning was still and warm and there was a good deal of gas about the battery areas, so that part of the march was done in gas masks, and until the sun rose all ranks solemnly sat around the camp wearing them.
The attack opened at dawn, but the company saw little of the actual progress of events until the 9th, when the unit moved into Bunhill Row, in Plœgsteert Wood, and relieved the 10th Field Company, A.E. The company bivouac was shelled and gassed heavily all the first night, casualties being three killed and four wounded. Work was started immediately in the battle area north of the River Douve, and every effort was made to improve the communications through the “Crater Fields” in order to facilitate the advance of the 11th A.I.Bde., which had relieved the 10th A.I.Bde. in this area, and experienced hard fighting in advancing to the “Green Line,” and afterwards holding it. Enemy shelling was heavy, but the unit was fortunate enough to escape with very light casualties. During one heavy burst of shelling, two sections of the company sheltered in the same trench as a company of infantry; the infantry suffered 23 casualties, while the sappers escaped unhurt.
A special feature of the arrangements for the attack was the organisation of a divisional pack train for the transport of ammunition, food, water, and R.E. stores to the newly-captured areas. The company contributed a considerable number of drivers and mules under Lieut. J. M. Norton, to this train.
Pack mules were very successfully used independently by the company a little later for transport to forward jobs. Driver A. A. Paget received the M.M. for good work with the pack train, while 2nd Corpl. C. C. Jones and Lance-Corpl. W. W. Evans were similarly rewarded for devotion to duty with the sappers.
On 12th June the company moved to La Boudrelle, south of Steenwerck, a most delightful place after the battle area, but on the 15th started work on the so-called Black Line, south of the River Douve, in the vicinity of Grey Farm. On the 20th this work was handed over to the New Zealand Engineers, and the company marched on the 21st to Neuve Eglise (camp at Stampkotmolen).
On the 23rd, the Messines sector was taken over from the 25th Division and the company started work with the 11th A.I. Brigade, which was holding the forward system on the whole divisional front from the River Douve to the Blaupoortbeek. A very strenuous time ensued until July 11th, the infantry of the Brigade carrying out a vigorous policy involving pushing the lines forward and an enormous amount of digging, under bad weather conditions, and consistently heavy enemy artillery fire. The sappers, in addition to marking out much of the new trench system and working in the trenches themselves, sank several wells, repaired concrete dugouts, and improvised new shelters, erected signboards, and made reconnaissances and maps. Ferme de la Croix and Pine Avenue, Steignast Farm and Gapaard, will always be remembered in connection with this period, “the 19 days.”
After relief by the 9th Field Company, the company had a few days training at Neuve Eglise, and then marched to La Boudrelle for pontooning on the Lys. While at La Boudrelle a very successful sports meeting was held. The unit then returned to Neuve Eglise and took part in the Windmill battle of July 31st. The preparations for this will be remembered as a rush job at the eleventh hour. It was about this time that night bombing by enemy aircraft first became troublesome.
La Boudrelle was visited for the third time on the 15th, the division being in support, and work was started roofing in the big ammunition dump at La Creche, but before the task could be completed, the unit moved with the division to 2nd Army Training Area, south-west of St. Omer.
Divisional Headquarters was established at Fauquembergues, and the 11th Field Company in the little village of Recquebrœucq on the River Aa.
2. A Share in the 3rd Battle of Ypres.
The visit to the training area was for the purpose of resting, training, and re-fitting, in preparation for more strenuous days to come; and lasted until September 25th. This was a very delightful period, the accommodation for all ranks being good, the country people very kindly, and the weather favourable. Opportunities for training were also good, and the unit was in a very good state when it started marching northward with the division on September 25th, to take part in the Third Battle of Ypres.
Before leaving the training area the company attended two noteworthy parades, one on the 19th September, when the Divisional Engineers assembled with full transport, and carried out evolutions under the C.R.E., and another on the 22nd, when the whole of the 3rd Division, less artillery and transport, was inspected by the Commander-in-Chief, F.-M. Sir Douglas Haig.
The march northwards with the 11th A.I. Brigade Group was viâ Blaringhem, Eecke and Poperinghe, to Ypres, which was reached on the 30th September. The company took over from the 529th Field Company, R.E. (3rd British Division) and billeted in cellars and shelters among the ruins just south of the prison. The horse lines were at Brandhoek, with, later, an advanced camp east of Ypres.
The night of the harvest moon at Poperinghe will always be remembered for a remarkable display of bombing by enemy aeroplanes. Uncomfortable as the situation was for troops crowded in tents, some amusement was to be derived from the efforts of certain machine guns, which, chattering hysterically whenever a Boche ’plane was caught in the beam of a searchlight, threw streams of tracer bullets at a target some thousands of yards out of range. No doubt it relieved the gunners’ feelings.
The great British offensive in the Ypres salient, to which the capture of the Messines ridge had been a prelude, had opened on July 31st, when the 3rd Australian Division captured “The Windmill” on the extreme south flank of the battle. After some pauses and delays, it was now, in the late autumn of 1917, in full swing. A constant succession of heavy, but comparatively shallow pushes, it might almost be called the Battle of the Roads, so much did the impetus of the attack depend on the use of the highways converging on the ruined town, and so enormous and impressive was the congestion of road traffic. The great road from Poperinghe to Ypres was covered day and night with streams of everything on wheels or feet which went to make or help an army, all dribbling in clouds of dust and profanity through the bottle-neck at Vlamertinghe. On the enemy side of Ypres the road best known to the 3rd Division was that which led to Zonnebeke. Here the congestion of traffic was complicated by the insistent attentions of the enemy artillery, which periodically pitted the route with shell holes and left the roadside littered with dead horses and broken vehicles, and sometimes with more dreadful wreckage.
Besides the limbers taking ammunition to the nearer guns, ration limbers and wagons laden with Engineer stores, the forward road was thronged with pack animals, which in hundreds carried ammunition to the less accessible batteries. On the outward journey they were led by dogged men on foot; returning light with the men in the saddle, the cavalcade stood not upon the order of its going, and no matter the rank of the pedestrian,
he unhesitatingly gave it the road. Particularly after the rain came was the road past Mill Cot to Kink Dump, Devils Crossing, and Zonnebeke, a place of evil memory.
For three weeks the company, working from Ypres, was continuously employed in the battle area in the divisional sector north of the Zonnebeke Railway. The 3rd Australian Division delivered a very successful attack on October 4th, when the Broodseinde Ridge was captured. When it was relieved by the 66th Division, the company remained in the area working with this division until after its attack of October 9th. The 3rd Division then returned to the line and advanced again on October 12th.
Early in the month the weather broke and torrents of rain converted the shell-torn earth into a dreadful quagmire. Tracks across the wilderness of mud and shell holes had to be reconnoitred, marked out and duckboarded wherever possible; roads patched up to carry the guns. The tracks were all marked by distinctive letters or names; two well-remembered ones were Jack and Jill. Strange materials were used for road making; the dead body of a mule or two might be seen tumbled into a shell hole and covered with the smashed up remains of some vehicle. Piles of shells were known to be used in emergency to hurriedly fill a hole in some urgently required roadway. Causeways were built for mules and men across the bog which marked the original course of the Zonnebeke stream, and many concrete dugouts repaired and made habitable. On all these arduous tasks the company was engaged and suffered a steady drain of casualties.
Under these conditions the possession of ample comforts funds, supplied chiefly by friends in Australia, contributed considerably to the comfort and efficiency of the unit, as it rendered possible the supply of hot drinks and food at all hours to the different parties, and of emergency chocolate rations to parties on exposed work.
Worthy of special note during this period was the work done by Lieut. J. M. Norton and a small party of surveyors in laying down an elaborate system of jumping-off tapes for the attack of October 4th, and a similar task carried out by Lieut. S. W. Matters previous to the attack of October 9th. On the 4th, Lieut. H. St. A. Murray and a party of sappers and attached infantry (the 11th A.T. Brigade had supplied a permanent working party of three officers and 100 other ranks who lived and worked with the company) pushed forward on the top of the Broodseinde Ridge immediately behind the attacking infantry, and dug and wired a number of strong points. The transport, both pack and wheeled, carried out very difficult and dangerous tasks under Captain O. B. Williams and Lieut. W. H. Thomas, M.C., and the work of the surveyors was also particularly arduous and
valuable. Lieut. H. St. A. Murray received the Military Cross, 2nd Corpl. C. P. Atkins the Meritorious Service Medal, and 2nd Corpl. A. M. Stewart, 2nd Corpl. J. J. Mace, Lance-Corpl. W. G. Toft, Driver A. H. Furniss, and Sapper F. G. Bugden, the Military Medal.
3. Revisiting Old Haunts.
On being relieved in Ypres by the 12th Canadian Field Company Engineers, the company moved on the 22nd of October back to Recquebrœucq (dismounted by train, transport by road), and rested and re-fitted until 12th November, 1917, when the division once more went into the line, in Flanders, re-visiting one of its old haunts in the Le Touquet—Pont Rouge and Warneton sectors, taking over from the 8th British Division.
The 11th Field Company A.E. was placed in reserve, took over a camp near Wulverghem (28 T.10.a.5, 9), and commenced work on pipe burying, artillery positions, drainage, and the like. Regular winter warfare conditions commenced, and much useful work was effected.
While the company was in Wulverghem Camp (which by the way, the sappers scornfully christened “Gutza Camp,” from its forlorn appearance, but which proved not so uncomfortable) several daylight bombing raids by enemy aeroplanes in force took place, and on one occasion the company suffered the loss of Corpl. Gray, killed, and C.-S.-M. Brander seriously wounded.
After a month in the line, the division was relieved by the 2nd Australian Division, and went into Corps reserve, with headquarters at Meteren, and the 11th Field Company, A.E., moved into Mahutonga Camp, on Waterloo Road, near Neuve Eglise. A programme of training was commenced, but most of the available strength was soon absorbed on various back areas works, and finally the division somewhat unexpectedly took over the Armentières sector from the 38th (Welsh) Division. This unit went into the line with the 11th A.I. Brigade on the right, and billeted in the big jute factory near the emergency bridge over the Lys, on the outskirts of Armentières.
As usual, there was no lack of work for the sappers. The trench system required a great deal of development, particularly with a view to a step by step defence in depth, and a number of dugout jobs were taken over from the 38th Division. Lys river bridges again came under the company’s care, but on a stretch of the river a little south of the crossings familiar during the previous winter. Charges had to be overhauled, leads repaired and tested, magazines rebuilt.
The billets were comfortable, but, as usual, throughout the cold weather, the fuel supply was a “burning” problem. In the jute factory it was not incapable of solution, as alongside the boiler house there were a large number of coal heaps. These
were watched over by the factory caretaker and liberally placarded with notices, “Not to be touched,” but if each sapper in a section moving from cookhouse to billets casually picked up a lump of coal, the section stove need never go cold.
A holiday from the line work was granted on Christmas Day, and full advantage was taken of it for seasonable feasting. The officers and sergeants, who attended first their section dinners, and afterwards the meals in their own messes, had rather a trying day.
The town of Armentières was much changed since the previous visit. With the exception of a few caretakers, all the inhabitants had gone, and dreadful tales were told of their experiences when the Boche shelled the place heavily with high explosive and gas about the time of the Messines Battle.
The stay in this sector was quite short, the 57th Division (British) relieving the 3rd Australian Division on 3rd January, 1918, the 11th Field Company, A.E., returning to Mahutonga Camp.
The next move was into the Le Touquet—Pont Rouge sector with the 11th A.I. Brigade, the 11th Field Co., A.E., taking over from the 5th Field Coy., A.E., 2nd Australian Division, on 31st January, 1918.
With the help of a permanent working party from the 11th A.I. Bde., great progress was made in improving the drainage and the whole system of defences of the area. The Company lived very comfortably in the familiar Weka Lines at Romarin, with the transport in the same camp. The wagons had a busy time on this sector and delivered large amounts of material to the dumps at Motor Car Corner and Le Gheer. The old German system of trenches west of the river, which had sheltered the enemy during the Company’s tenancy of this sector the previous spring, were now occupied by us and were very little damaged, having been quietly evacuated by the Boche after Messines. It was very interesting to study his methods, and the concrete dugouts in particular were a monument to his industry. In less then 3,000 yards of line, in the front and support trenches alone—i.e., in a strip of country not more then 300 yards deep—there were found over 70 concrete dugouts and shelters. Many were small, but the smallest involved a great deal of labour in this exposed and water-logged region.
The 3rd Australian Division was now due for its turn in the training area and was relieved by the 2nd Australian Division on March 3rd.
The 5th Field Company took over Weka Lines and the sector from the 11th, which moved by train and road for dismounted personnel and transport respectively, to Bainghem-le-Comte, about 14 miles from Boulogne.