War Services of the 62nd West Riding Divisional Artillery

by Austin Thomas Anderson

I have not mentioned the R.A.R.E. company before. It was an unauthorised formation, not to be found, that is to say, in any official manual, and was made up of eight sappers from the Divisional R.E., together with about ten men from each brigade and from the D.A.C. The company was thus brought up to an establishment of about 40 men, and was commanded by a Royal Engineer officer. We called it the R.A.R.E. Company, and its duties were to supervise generally the work of building gun emplacements, stables, shelters, dug-outs, etc., and to carry out itself any works demanding skilled labour. I was most fortunate in being given the services of Lieut. E. B. Hammond, M.C., R.E., as its first commander. He took the keenest interest in his work and inspired all his men with his own zeal and energy; and his cheery personality, and unfailing tact and good humour ensured him a warm welcome from every battery he visited, and the cordial co-operation, moreover, of those who, at the inception of the scheme, might have been inclined to resent the taking away of even a few men from their depleted batteries. It did not take long to convince any such doubters of the immense utility of this small body of men. From working with the eight skilled sappers, the gunners and drivers furnished from the brigades gradually became skilled workers themselves, and the company proved such an invaluable addition to my command from this date until the final breaking up of the division in the Army of Occupation, that I do not know how the D.A. could ever have got on without it. It was a great blow when Hammond left us in January, 1918, on appointment as Adjutant R.E., but our luck still held good, and the work was carried on most efficiently by Lieut. C. L. Clarson, M.C., his successor.

On the 5th July Lieut.-Colonel Lister left the Division on appointment to the Staff at G.H.Q., and was succeeded in command of the 312th Brigade by Lieut.-Colonel A. T. Lough, who joined on the 9th.

Major-General W. P. Braithwaite, our Divisional Commander, inspected the D.A.C. on the 7th. The General always took the greatest interest in his artillery, and was a constant visitor to one or other of the units, and I only mention this particular occasion because I noted at the time, and well remember, what a really splendid turn-out we saw that day. I don't believe there was a better ammunition column in France. Lieut.-Colonel Woodcock, though not an old Regular officer himself, shared to the full the conviction held by most Regulars, that the smartest and best turned out troops are almost invariably the hardest workers and the best fighters, that in fact the one virtue leads automatically to the other. He had the happy knack, too, of getting the last ounce of work out of his subordinates without any unpleasantness in the process. In writing a record of artillery work it is inevitable that the performances of the batteries which do the actual fighting should come in for more frequent mention than the less showy, but equally indispensable and arduous, services of the D.A.C. Let me take this opportunity, therefore, of recording that the 62nd D.A.C. never failed me. As the war went on the daily expenditure of ammunition grew greater and greater, and at times the demands made on the column seemed almost impossible of fulfilment. Yet I can recall no instance when the amount of ammunition required was not punctually to hand. Colonel Woodcock was fortunate in his three Section Commanders, Captains Fraser, Kewley, and (for the greater part of the war) Edmondson. They were always cheery and willing, however difficult and depressing the circumstances might be, and they infected the N.C.O.'s and men under their command with the same spirit of cheeriness and good-will.

At about this date the 5th Corps Staff left, and was replaced by that of the 6th, to which corps we consequently now belonged.

Lieut. J. A. Brown was wounded on the 7th, and Lieut. R. L. Pickard on the 11th July.

V/62 (Trench Mortar Battery), which had recently gone into action near Bullecourt, took part in some successful minor operations towards the end of July, at Hargicourt and Epehy, with the 34th and 35th Divisions respectively, and had three men wounded.

During the second half of July the activity of the hostile artillery increased considerably. On the 17th three officers were wounded, Lieuts. H. C. O. Lawrie, E. H. Vanderpump, and T. B. Wills, and three guns of B/310 were put out of action. On the next day the Noreuil Valley again came in for a severe shelling, chiefly directed on the advanced section of A/310, which had one of its guns knocked out, but no casualties in its personnel.

The Army Commander, Sir Julian Byng, visited some of the batteries in the right sector on the 19th, and also one or two of the O.P.'s. He expressed himself as much pleased with all he saw.

On the 22nd A/312 was heavily shelled in its position just west of Lagnicourt, and had two guns put out of action. C/312 was bombarded the same night for several hours in the village of Morchies; not much harm was done, but the guns were shifted next day to a garden in the village which afforded better cover from the view of the Boche observation balloons. Morchies showed signs of having once been as pretty a village as could be seen in France, and must have been a charming spot before the Boche left his obscene trail there. At this time it was a shameful ruin, wantonly and brutally destroyed by the Huns when they retired through it a few months before. The numerous fruit trees had all been barked or uprooted, and most of the destruction in the village, both indoors and out, had obviously been done purposely and malignantly, and not by our, or the enemy's, shell fire. Of course this was only one out of hundreds of such cases, but Morchies must have once been so pretty and simple, and so aloof, that one felt an especial sense of outrage in seeing the hateful treatment to which it had been subjected. I used to wish that some of our pacifists could be brought out to see it.

On the 24th A/310 was again plentifully bespattered with shell, but so well were the guns and detachments protected that the net result of several hours bombardment was only two men wounded, and one gun wheel broken. Fortunately we were able to spot one of the batteries responsible for these recent annoyances, and on the 25th July Major Foot's battery, D/310, engaged this 5.9-inch battery with aeroplane observation. The shoot was a very successful one; several direct hits on the guns were recorded, and two emplacements were blown up with their ammunition. As a rule the batteries that annoyed us were firing from such a long range that they had to be dealt with by our heavy artillery, and it was a great satisfaction to us all when we were able to have a smack at them ourselves.