War Services of the 62nd West Riding Divisional Artillery

by Austin Thomas Anderson

"And you, good Yeomen,
Whose limbs were made in England, show us here
The mettle of your pasture; let us swear
That you are worth your breeding."

Shakespeare.—King Henry the Fifth.

Oct. 1917.

Our infantry withdrew from the line for a rest on the 12th October. The artillery, however, merely changed the scene of their labours, and about ten days later marched straight up from their former positions into action in the neighbourhood of Wancourt, to cover the 51st Division; the trench mortar batteries in the meantime were temporarily distributed between the 3rd and the 16th Divisions.

On the 29th we had the misfortune to lose a valuable officer in Lieut. H. Sutherland, signalling officer of the 312th Brigade, who was killed very soon after his brigade had joined the 51st Division.

My own headquarters had meanwhile moved to Haplincourt, and on the 30th October I learned from the G.O.C.R.A. of the 4th Corps that a big attack was to be made in the direction of Cambrai within about three weeks, in which the 62nd Division was to play a leading part. It was, in fact, to attack and capture the village of Havrincourt, a position of enormous strength protected by an elaborate system of trenches and barbed wire entanglements, and forming one of the strongest portions of the formidable Hindenburg line.

Nov. 1917.

The method of attack was to be an entirely new departure. There was to be no artillery preparation; in other words, not one gun beyond the normal was to be fired until the moment of assault, or what is technically known as "Zero." Then the barrage was to begin, and the infantry were to assault preceded by tanks. In addition to my own brigades, I was to have under my command for the operation the 77th, 93rd, and 16th Brigades, i.e. twenty batteries in all.

A period of intense activity now commenced. A tremendous lot of work had to be done, and there were at first very few men to do it. A party of about 100 men, taken from the 3rd and 16th Brigades R.H.A., was placed at my disposal, and I entrusted the superintendence of the work to Major C. A. Eeles, who tackled it with the greatest energy. Positions were selected for the five brigades at ranges of from 2000 to 2500 yards from the enemy's front line, chiefly along the Hubert road on the northern edge of the Havrincourt Wood, and, as it was absolutely essential that the work should be done without the Boche suspecting it, and the whole country was visible from his lines, the task was a very difficult one. The first thing to do was to screen off the proposed positions from view. That part of the wood through which the Hubert road ran had been cut down by the Huns when they retreated through it in April; a lot of scrub had grown up in the clearing during the summer, and with this a screen of twigs and branches was erected in one night, for a distance of two miles along the edge of the road on the enemy's side. When morning broke on the 4th November the road itself was invisible from the German trenches, and yet the screen that hid it mingled so well with the surrounding scrub that the enemy never noticed any change. For the next fortnight the work of preparation went on night and day, and so careful were the precautions taken by the working parties, that the enemy never had the slightest suspicion that anything unusual was going on. On this occasion the weather helped us, as the days were usually misty, and yet not a drop of rain fell all the time.

The preliminaries consisted in making positions for 20 batteries, digging ammunition recesses and telephone pits, construction of shelters for the detachments, the preparation of gun platforms and trail beds, and the collection at the gun pits of tremendous dumps of ammunition (700 rounds per 18-pounder gun and 450 rounds per howitzer). For the conveyance of the latter about three miles of light railway had to be laid down. Then O.P.'s and brigade headquarters were selected and prepared, and camouflage was collected and placed over all work as it was carried out, and also arranged ready for putting on the guns as they were required to move into their positions in action.