Photo by Gale & Polden, Ltd., Aldershot.
SERGEANTS' MESS—WOKING, FEBRUARY, 1917.
At 3.10 a.m. on June 7th the Battle of Messines opened with the most tremendous mine explosions and the most magnificent barrage that can be imagined. It was a lovely morning, and there was not a cloud in the sky. With a stupendous roar and upheaval that baffles description the mines exploded. Simultaneously the whole weight of the artillery gathered together for the occasion, and hidden away in every conceivable place, opened on the enemy. From their trenches lights of many colours shot into the air, mutely appealing for assistance from their gunners. These were not long in replying, but our counter-battery work, which had left them in false security during the preliminary barrages, was dealing faithfully with them now. For a few moments the ridge stood out clear and distinct. Then clouds of smoke and dust shut out the view, and it was only by the alteration in the sound that we knew that the barrage was creeping forward, and we waited anxiously for the telegrams announcing the result.
During the first few hours we were unmolested. A 4·2 battery opened on Houplines ten minutes before zero, but switched as soon as the barrage opened. About 7 a.m., however, "whizz-bangs" came down in a regular barrage on the front line, and then high explosives up and down the subsidiary line for about a couple of hours. Between two and six in the afternoon the enemy concentrated on Tissage Dump, putting over 300 high explosive shells into that locality during the four hours. Aeroplanes were very busy, and a German machine dropped two bombs about fifty yards from Battalion Headquarters. The enemy balloons were in a state of great excitement, being hauled down whenever a plane appeared, till at last one of them apparently got tired of this, broke away, and sailed off out of sight. One thing that greatly interested us was that both this day and the next the enemy shelled his own front line opposite the Brewery. Up to the end of this tour the Germans continued intensely active, the left sector and Irish Avenue receiving the lion's share of the shelling.
One very necessary piece of work was completed before we quitted the trenches—the cutting of the grass in front of the parapet. It was now so high and so close to the parapet that it entirely obstructed the view through the periscope, and made it quite possible for a man to work his way unseen right up to the trenches. Sickles had to be obtained and parties went out nightly to "cut the hay crop." To do this just in front of the posts alone would, of course, have revealed their exact position to any inquisitive airman, and a strip had therefore to be cut along the whole length of the front line.
At 9.30 p.m. on June 9th the leading company of the 2/7th K.L.R. began to arrive. At the last moment, owing to the continued harassing fire of the Germans on to the Houplines road, we decided to proceed out by Lunatic Lane in the right battalion sector. This was a long and winding communication trench which so far had sustained little damage. It brought you out by the Lunatic Asylum, and from there you went up the Rue Gambetta and so on to the Rue de Lille. "C" Company remained in the subsidiary line.
On arrival in billets we were somewhat astonished to learn that we were under orders to move at one hour's notice, and that guides to bring up reinforcing troops were always to be kept in readiness at Battalion Headquarters. The retirement of the enemy, after the Battle of Messines, from his remaining trenches north of the River Lys had caused the Higher Command to think that a partial retirement might be effected opposite our front also. Consequently some most elaborate schemes to meet this emergency had been issued, and we were now in the throes of trying to draw up, in conjunction with the 2/7th K.L.R., a scheme of movement in the event of the enemy's voluntary withdrawal. We were therefore not a little surprised to find signs that an attack by the Germans might now be expected. The mental effort required to concentrate your attention simultaneously on an advance and a defence—and both had to be fully provided for—and at the same time to attend to the all-absorbing orders and arrangements for the raid, proved somewhat exhausting. For clearness' sake we will take them one by one, but it should be remembered that three sets of orders, and in addition a salvage scheme (a kind of corollary to the advance orders), were all drawn up at the same time, and the difficulty of remembering which you were working on at any particular moment was by no means imaginary.
Operation Order No. 22, dated June 15th, 1917, began with the words: "In the event of the enemy voluntarily evacuating his present front line system opposite the battalion frontage, companies will be ready to move forward and occupy the sectors of the enemy line with minimum of delay." The orders ran into fifteen headings with seven appendices and, it need hardly be added, three pages of subsequent amendments, dated July 1st. As the orders, fortunately, were never put into operation, it will be sufficient to deal with them quite briefly. Each company was allotted an area in the enemy front line, and on the word "floreat" fighting patrols, consisting of one officer and twenty-four men, were expected to dash across No Man's Land "at ten minutes' notice." The difficulty of this initial part of the proceedings did not at first occur to the higher authorities, but some weeks later the time allowed was suddenly increased to six hours!