Canada in Flanders, Volume II

by Baron Max Aitken Beaverbrook

April 6th, 3.30 A.M.

On this scene of incertitude and disturbance the day began to break. It was the hour when men rub their eyes and shiver in the cool air and stand to arms to meet that period which is most likely to bring the attack. The light of dawn, stealthy and suspicious, was showing in the east over a scene of ruin and desolation, and in this valley of dry bones something began to move. To the group of watchers in the trenches dark forms advancing could be seen through the mist. They came straight on without hesitating up the St. Eloi-Wytschaete road, towards Sackville Centre. It was known to our men that some Pioneers were out in that direction wiring the front. A whisper of doubt ran along the line. Were they the enemy or one of our working parties gone astray? One group evidently had made up its mind, and a sputter of fire broke out—how different in volume and intensity, alas! from the full-throated crash of musketry from a strongly-held, well-filled trench! It was enough, at any rate, for the Germans. They had thought to find nothing alive in the area on which their guns had wrought such havoc. The dark line turned half-right and swung round like a wave, seeking an inlet through some rocky barrier. Instantly every gun and rifle which would work was brought to bear. But the result was one to break the hearts of men trained to regard their weapons as their unfailing friends in the hour of need and danger. The foul mud splashed over them in torrents by the bombardment had worked into breech and magazine, and men threw down their choked rifles with curses, and snatched for one left behind by some dead or wounded man. But these, too, after a shot or two, refused to do their work! All along the line the remaining Lewis guns jammed, groups were too isolated to make a concerted counter-attack with the bayonet; and the Germans passed along our front until they found the fatal gap in the line. As they came opposite the last post on our left, Lieut. Browne, a machine-gunner of the 22nd French Canadians, turned his Lewis gun and what rifles the party had full on to them at short range. Some fifteen or twenty Germans were seen to fall, and the remainder threw themselves flat on their faces. Then the inevitable happened, and the gun went out of action. As the fire dribbled away to the crack of a single rifle, the enemy jumped up, swung to the left of the outpost, and headed straight through the undefended breach for the craters 150 yards behind.

The light had now grown brighter, and the officers at Sackville Centre could see the Germans breaking through to Craters 2 and 3. They turned their remaining men half-left rear, and fired with every rifle which would work. But the damage was done. The working parties on the second line, which was being built in front of the craters, had been withdrawn before light, and the small groups of the 28th Battalion in the craters themselves must have been overpowered by the 200 or 300 Germans who broke in on them. Once over the rim, the enemy were for the moment safe, and they promptly set about digging themselves in, and getting the machine-guns they had brought with them into position.

In all, then, some 200 or 300 Germans succeeded in occupying the two craters on the right of our position. From this point they began to work towards our left, and in the course of the day or the following night became possessed of Craters 4 and 5. This movement would have placed them in the rear of the men of the 31st Battalion at Campbelltown Corner had that still been occupied. As a matter of fact, however, the extreme right and south position of the 31st had been abandoned and destroyed in the course of the preliminary bombardment. At dawn a tremendous fire had been directed on the top line towards Shelley Farm,[[4]] and the trench between Campbelltown Corner and the old British line became untenable. To stay in it was certain and useless death. Part of its garrison got back into the original line. Other parties occupied the two small and ancient Craters 6 and 7, immediately in advance of it, under the impression, arrived at without due thought, that these were Craters 4 and 5; while one platoon cut off by the barrage moved to their left into an old advanced trench which afforded them some cover.

April 6th, 4:30 A.M.

At 4.30 in the morning, or an hour after the attack on the 27th, about 200 of the enemy made a second attack and attempted to overwhelm the party holding Craters 7 and 6; Major Doughty, of the 31st, organised the defence with skill and resolution. He allowed the Germans to advance within effective range, and then brought a concentric fire to bear on them. The isolated platoon enfiladed them on the left, the men in the craters enfiladed them on the right, while the original occupants of the old front line just behind and to the left of the craters mowed them down from the front. The attack recoiled in confusion.

Map—St. Eloi

Some fled, others threw themselves down into shell-holes and lay there unobserved as long as the daylight lasted. Our line was suffering now the fate of a taut rope cut in the centre. Each end recoiled instinctively to its point of connection with the old British trenches. It cannot be maintained that the retirement on the right, albeit it was from an untenable position, was carried out in a very skilled or organised fashion. This fact was due partly to the general nature of the ground and the situation, which has been sufficiently dwelt on, and partly to the number of different units on the same front. The time of relief—and the relief of the 27th was not yet fully accomplished though nearly so—with two sets of officers and men on the same front moving contrary ways, is always a period of some little confusion, and for that reason reliefs are not carried out at dawn, because it is the likely time for an attack. In this case the circumstances made it impossible to get the reliefs up earlier. But, apart from this, there were small parties of Pioneers scattered about in or in front of the line. It was not, of course, the business of these latter to await the Germans, but to get back into their own line, but the precipitancy and thoroughness with which they executed this movement added to the prevailing disturbance. At any rate, on the right every party from Bathurst Butts and the extreme right of their original line was between two fires and in imminent danger of being surrounded. So the scattered groups began to retire towards Sackville Centre and Fredericton Fort, where Capts. Gwynn and Meredith were organising the defence. Their party consisted of some subalterns of both their regiments, sixteen men of the 27th, and five Pioneers. These officers determined to hold on in spite of the heavy machine-gun fire from the craters in the rear, and to give time for the more easterly parties to rally on them. They got the telephone to work and asked for reinforcements; they tried to establish a continuous line down the Canadian communication trench, which had been deserted at its easterly end, and they asked for fire to be directed on the captured craters from the guns and trench mortars. Col. Snider, of the 27th, was the nearest Commanding Officer to them, and he did his utmost to come to their assistance. Their last request verged on the heroic, for their own trenches were only a hundred yards beyond those of the enemy, and their precise position could not be known to our gunners far to the rear. All this time men were falling fast. The cover was poor, and to show one's head was to invite an almost inevitable bullet. None the less, Lieut. Jackson, of the 29th, volunteered to go out with four men of the 27th and try to locate more precisely the positions the enemy had taken up. So murderous was the fire that within a few minutes he and one private returned alone. The other three had been killed almost instantly.