William Morris.
Jan. 1917.
On the 23rd December, 1916, the 62nd Division received orders to embark for France. The artillery, which was billeted in Northampton, was conveyed from Southampton to Havre on the 6th and 7th January, 1917, and thence railed to the concentration area at and around Wavans, near Auxi-le-Chateau. The weather was of the worst type that January can give, alternate frost and thaw and bitterly cold, and we began to experience at once the distressing conditions of mud and slush, which were to be so normal a feature in this and the two following winters in France and Belgium.
On the 17th January the 310th and 312th Brigades sent off one section per battery by motor lorry to be attached to the 19th Division, then in the firing line, for training preliminary to taking over finally their part of the line. It was a snowy, uncomfortable sort of day, and the lorries were, as so often happened, late in arriving, with the result that the detachments did not get started on their journey till about 3 p.m., and arrived at their destination after dark. Sections from the 311th Brigade followed the next day.
On the 23rd the Divisional Artillery marched to Auteuil and Amplieu, and remained in billets there for the next few days, the headquarters being at Bus-les-Artois. The first gunner casualty took place on the 24th, a gunner of the 312th Brigade being wounded on that day while attached to the 19th Division.
The next few days were spent by the Staffs of Headquarters and Brigades in inspecting the positions to be occupied by batteries in the neighbourhood of Courcelles, Mailly-mailly, Colincamps, and Engelbelmer, and in reconnoitring the observation posts on the high ground north of Beaumont Hamel. This village, like so many that we were now to become acquainted with, had been so thoroughly destroyed by shell fire, our own and that of the enemy, that one might easily have passed through it without realising that there had ever been a village there. All the ground in its neighbourhood was so deeply pitted with shell craters that it was almost impossible for a foot passenger even to find a pathway through them, there being rarely more than an inch or two of the original ground between each. The mud was, moreover, indescribable, and there was not only a risk of being badly bogged, but cases even occurred of men being engulphed and drowned in the viscous mud of a shell crater, and two of our artillery horses lost their lives in this way.
Feb. 1917.
On the night of the 1st February the 310th Brigade, and one battery of the 311th, went into action near Auchonvillers and Engelbelmer, and a few days later helped to support an attack by the 63rd Division, when the enemy was driven out of a part of the Pusieux trench and thereby forced to evacuate Grandcourt.
On the 10th the same batteries supported the 32nd Division in a successful assault on Ten Tree Alley; on this occasion we had the first casualty among our officers, Capt. H. C. Lasbrey being severely wounded.
The remainder of the batteries took over their positions in action from the 7th Division on the 11th and 12th February, as did our infantry during the following two days; and on the 15th I took over the artillery command. After a period of intense cold, during which the temperature fell below zero one night, a thaw set in this day, and the mud difficulty again became acute. Early on the 17th the 63rd Division on our immediate right attacked and captured the Swan trench north of Grandcourt, taking about 100 prisoners. The 311th Brigade did good work in this successful little operation, and I got a special message of thanks for their help from the G.O.C. 2nd Corps.