Canada in Flanders, Volume II

by Baron Max Aitken Beaverbrook

The 19th Battalion continued during this assault to maintain the positions in the Canadian craters it had taken over from the 31st Battalion on April 8th, and continued to do so until its relief on the 12th, Lieuts. Thomson and Macdonald commanding the garrison of Crater 7, and Lieuts. Pepler and Cassells of Crater 6. An advanced machine-gun emplacement in a very exposed position was held by Privates D. C. Ballantine, A. W. Sharpe, and W. Hull, for 70 hours without repose or relief. There were many other notable examples of gallantry in the regiment. Cpl. A. F. Lynch went out and dragged in a machine-gun, the entire crew of which had been killed. Private Hagan carried Private Hoffman, who had been wounded in both legs, to a place of safety 500 yards away through a heavy artillery barrage. Lance-Cpl. Bishop and Private Schwann, D.C.M., carried food and water out from the front trench to the garrisons of the craters, who had been cut off from all supplies for 48 hours. This act was done in broad daylight, when to move was almost certain death. The 19th did well.

Nor were the 20th, though less continuously engaged, far behind them in their record of individual heroism. Lieut. C. A. Thomson helped to dress the wounded men of his own and other companies under heavy fire during the night attack of April 9th-10th, though he himself was hit through the leg by a rifle bullet. He remained with his men till dawn and then dragged himself back for first aid—a journey which took four hours. Private Cooke, too, a stretcher-bearer, went on binding up the wounded long after he was hit, and Private B. Asquith carried a comrade to safety single-handed under a heavy fire.

The Lewis gun team of the 20th, under Sergt. Simpson, also exhibited marked courage and endurance. They were under fire continuously from April 5th to 12th, held Crater 6 against an encircling attack of German bombers, repulsed the attack, and took three prisoners.

Wave upon wave of men had been thrust forward in succession to retake the lost positions, yet as each party came up it seemed to melt away in the noise, squalor, and confusion of the front line. The telephones from behind were perpetually jangling with the urgent messages from the Brigade, "You must get on at any cost," and when the wires were cut in spite of the heroic efforts of the regimental signallers to make them good, runner after runner risked his life in a dash across the shell-swept area with the same pressing orders. Urged on by their commanders and their own indomitable spirit, the regiments renewed the attack again and again. But they could not get on. In the daylight the air was full of flying steel, and the bright light showed the assailants to their enemies so plainly that the lines of the attackers withered away under that devastating hail. By night the impenetrable darkness and the chaos of earth and water enveloped each succeeding party before they could get to grips with the enemy, in the dark hours small parties were wandering round trying to find their location in vain. The survivors returned almost fainting with exhaustion to the nearest detachment they could find. Some were left behind as day broke, in the precarious shelter of small holes. Private Warn, of the 29th Battalion, lived for nine days in such a position subsisting on the rations and water-bottles taken from the bodies of men of the 3rd British Division killed in the fighting of the last days of March. Marvellous to relate, he rejoined his unit in safety after his long sojourn with the dead.

The company officers had throughout behaved with unflinching gallantry and vigour, nor had their men failed in any way to second their continued efforts. Man had done his best, but he had been defeated by Nature.

With this assault, then, ended the second phase of the Battle of St. Eloi. The first period had witnessed the success of the German raid on the craters, the second the repeated failure of the counter-attacks; we now enter on the third phase, the consolidation of the line which remained in our hands.

Night, April 11th-12th, 1916.

On the night of the 11th began the relief of the 4th Brigade by the 5th; their casualties had been 14 officers and 389 men.[[1]]

The whole action must be regarded as a counter-battle fought under the worst possible circumstances. The original advance of the 3rd British Division over the shattered mine craters had met with strong resistance and an unexpected concentration of artillery fire, parallel to that of Verdun. It is probable that the enemy were already planning an attack of their own. They were, however, taken by surprise and lost the first trick in the game. Their reply was instant and effective. Smashing down the ruined trenches in front of them before they could be made good by the defenders under a deluge of high explosive they found a hole in the line and seized the dominant position. After this coup, the weather and the guns combined to make movement on either side almost impossible in a front battered out of all recognition. Had the Germans known it, there were no front-line trenches worthy of the name opposed to them at St. Eloi itself for days, and even the second-line positions had been battered to bits. But, in fact, they could no more advance than we could. The barrage of our artillery prevented, for them too, any heavy concentration behind the craters, and they hung on desperately, as we did, to the ground in their possession. From the beginning General Turner had formed a clear view of the situation on which he based his operations. From the infantry point of view the weakness of the position was the extreme narrowness of the front, which enabled the enemy's guns to concentrate on a line the length of which was only from 600 to 1,000 yards. This made successful movement impossible under fire, for there was no cover for the massing of men preparatory to the assault, and the small parties available were cut down in a narrow area by the full weight of the massed guns. On the other hand, the weakness from the point of view of the British and Canadian gunners was the nearness of our lines to those of the enemy and the uncertainty of all precise locations. This latter factor was terribly aggravated by the mistake about Craters 4 and 5. Two alternatives then offered themselves. The first was to make a renewed assault on a far wider front from Ruined Farm or beyond, on the left, to Piccadilly Farm on the right, and so scatter the enemy's shell fire. The second was to get well back from the craters and destroy their garrison by a concentrated hail fire from the heavy guns. It was not practicable to adopt either of these courses, and it was decided to reconstruct the old British line and to hold fast to the two craters in our possession.

The work of reconstruction fell to the lot of the 5th Brigade under General Watson. As has been stated, on the night of April 11th the moves for the relief of the 4th Brigade began and General Watson took over the line in the early morning. The front was for the moment comparatively quiet. The 26th (New Brunswick) relieved the 19th on the left, the 22nd (French Canadians) took over from the 21st on the right, the 24th (Victoria Rifles) relieved the 18th in the Centre Support position, while the 25th (Nova Scotia) remained for the moment in Brigade Reserve. By April 13th the relief was accomplished. The position taken over by General Watson consisted of the tenable trenches and posts in the old British line, the Craters 6 and 7 and the advanced trenches in Crater 1, and Sackville Centre and outposts to the north. The task of consolidating this last position fell to the 24th (Victoria Rifles). Night, April 14th-15th, 1916. Two very daring reconnaissances were made on the night of the 14th-15th by Lieuts. Robertson and Duclos, and by Lieut. Greenshields and Major Ross, who was in charge of this particular part of the line. As a result, the position of the posts in the old German trench leading into Crater 2 were considerably strengthened and the approaches to Crater 1 were heavily wired. From this time on it may be said that the ground recaptured on the night of the 9th-10th by the 21st passed finally and firmly into our hands. Lieut. Vernon, of the Corps Intelligence Staff, came down during the relief from the Corps Commander to clear up the actual state of affairs. His report was of immense value, though it failed to note the crucial error about the craters, and confirmed the Higher Command in the view that the first necessity was to remake a sound front line. Nowhere, as Brig.-General Watson discovered, were we anywhere as near the German positions as previous reports had led us to imagine. So deep was the mud and slush that no patrols could move, and the greatest difficulty was experienced in carrying up materials for the repair of the line. From the trenches on the right to the trenches near Shelley Farm, in the rear of our own craters was a gaping void held precariously by a few isolated posts. The Brigade, however, set to work tenaciously to make defences out of slush. Basing itself on the line held in the extreme left, it succeeded in re-establishing a considerable part of the line in the direction of the trenches on the right. All this was done under heavy fire, and the repairing of smashed-in parapets occupied as much time as the preparation of the renewed line.