The History of the 36th (Ulster) Division

by Cyril Falls

Then, with one monstrous roar, every British gun upon ten miles of front opened fire. At the same time the great semi-circle of mines exploded, spewing up, as it seemed, the solid earth, of which fragments fell half a mile away, and sending to the skies great towers of crimson flame, that hung a moment ere they were choked by the clouds of dense black smoke which followed them from their caverns. There came first one ghastly flash of light, then a shuddering of earth thus outraged, then the thunder-clap. That opening uproar was heard quite distinctly in England. General Nugent, returning to his command post on Kemmel from the observation post a hundred yards away, declared that the sight he had seen was "a vision of hell."

Amid a gloom still thick and intensified by a smother of dust, the first wave of the infantry sprang from its trenches and went forward. The second followed at twenty-five yards' interval to avoid the German barrage. One of the mines was fifteen seconds late. Curiously enough, it was the doubtful one at Spanbroekmolen. The infantry had obeyed instructions and had not waited for it. A few of the leading men of the 14th Rifles, out in "No Man's Land," were thrown off their feet by the force of the explosion. But there were no casualties, and the men quickly closed in to the barrage. The size of the craters to be skirted and the darkness made the keeping of direction a matter of difficulty. It would have been impossible but for the use of compasses by the platoon commanders. There was considerable overlapping by the troops of the Division on our right, at least two companies of which swung across our front. The body of one of their officers was subsequently found in the bed of the Steenebeek, at L'Enfer Wood, over two hundred yards within the 36th Division's boundary.

There was no resistance by the enemy in his front or support trenches. Dazed and disorganized by the mines and the tremendous weight of artillery, the few survivors surrendered. Two machine-guns only, firing through our barrage, are recorded to have come into action at this stage, on the front of the 109th Brigade. They came into the open when it had passed, on the extreme left flank, and were put out of action, one by a section of rifle grenadiers, the other by a Lewis gun of the 11th Inniskillings. The enemy's barrage was unaccountably light and ragged, even when the violence of our counter-battery fire is considered, and fell upon the British front line. The assaulting troops went straight forward to the Red Line, close upon the barrage, leaving to the "moppers up" the task of taking prisoners. It was reached at Zero plus 35; that is, at 3-45 a.m. Here there was a halt in the barrage of a quarter of an hour, and here the third and fourth company of each battalion "leap-frogged" the first and second for the assault of the Blue Line. The serious business of the attack was but beginning.

As in almost every action of the war, the stoutest-hearted German was the German behind the machine-gun. The artillerymen, with shell hailing upon their positions, were more anxious to withdraw their batteries than to support their infantry, but the machine-gunners lived up to their reputation. As the new waves swept on, dipping now on the right brigade front into the marshy bed of the Steenebeek, guns came into action directly the barrage was past at L'Enfer Wood, Earl Farm, Skip Point, and Scott Farm. At Skip Point, in particular, two guns were handled with boldness, firing till the work was rushed with the bayonet by the 9th Rifles, assisted by a platoon of the 14th, which swung in from the left. There was still resistance in this veritable fortress, and some bombing of its dug-outs. Upwards of a hundred and fifty prisoners were taken in it. At Scott Farm an officer was seen standing on top of the work, encouraging his men. He was shot at long range by a sniper, whereat the defence at this point collapsed. There yet remained, however, Jump Point, the strongest position short of the road. By this time the Intelligence Officer of the 109th Brigade was on the high ground beyond Peckham, in touch with his Brigadier on the telephone. He reported that he saw a yellow flag at Jump Point. Now, the battalion flag of the 14th Rifles was orange, a far more significant shade. "I said," writes General Ricardo, "'Yellow be damned!' slammed down the 'phone, called the Division on the other, and said I wished to report that Jump Point was occupied. Corps was informed accordingly, within a few minutes of schedule time. I was asked by B.G.G.S. Corps next day how we managed our information and communications. I told him, 'by orange flags.'" And so the first flag moved forward from the border of the map at IX. Corps Headquarters, which was to mark the progress of the battle, and was stuck into Jump Point.

All along the front the leading waves, well closed up to the barrage, reached the Blue Line at the appointed hour, 4-50 a.m. The troops of the 36th Division were in touch with those of the 25th and 16th Divisions on right and left, both of which also reached their objectives successfully. Here there was a halt of two hours, during which consolidation was begun, during which also the battalions attacking the Black Line, the 15th and 10th Rifles and the 10th and 9th Inniskillings, moved up in artillery formation. The two former battalions had to pass through a light barrage which the enemy had now put down upon the valley of the Steenebeek, but had not many casualties. At 6-50 a.m. the barrage moved forward once more, the fresh troops following it with great dash.

The severest resistance was not met here till the Green Line was past and the troops were almost on the famous road, upon which they had looked so long. Pick House was strongly held. With the rifle grenade it was attacked, while a captured machine-gun was brought into action against it from the flank.[35] The garrison, which included a battalion commander, then surrendered. A little further north the 10th Inniskillings were held up by a machine-gun. A tank was just in front, but the occupants apparently could not see the gun, nor could the infantrymen attract their attention to it. A sergeant of the Inniskillings ran up to the tank, beat upon its side with a Mills bomb, and so gained the attention of the crew. The tank then bore down upon the machine-gun and put it out of action. Still further north, on their extreme left flank, the 10th had trouble from a line of riflemen behind a ditch. A platoon of their neighbours, the 9th Inniskillings, outflanked this party, killing three and making prisoners of the rest. In their half of Wytschaete the 9th Inniskillings had some "mopping up" to accomplish, and took about fifty prisoners. Their neighbours, the Munsters of the 16th Division, had a like task in the northern half of the village—a village that was now a crumbled rubbish-heap of bricks, nowhere more than a few feet high.

But the point at which resistance was most dogged was on the extreme right, and it was the 15th Rifles which had the heaviest casualties among the infantry. The following graphic account is taken from a letter written by Captain P. K. Miller, who commanded the right flank company of this battalion:

"About a hundred, or perhaps two hundred, yards short of the Messines-Wytschaete Road we came into a lot of machine-gun fire, and the men went to ground to find out where it came from, so I crossed the road and lay down on the other side for about five minutes and got my field-glasses going. Very warm spot, as our barrage was dropping about there! Beat it back to the company, and ordered Lieut. Falkiner to take his platoon, less Lewis-gun team, and put out of action the strong point which I had spotted on my right. Got the L.G. in action to spray the place meantime (had three out of five riflemen killed doing this; however, they kept the gun going). Then I went along to left of line and started Lieut. —— of 'B' Company (forget his name, but he got the M.C. for it) to attack another S.P. which was plugging at our left. (O.C. 'B' Company had got a 'blighty' coming up hill.) Then I went back to the right of the line and found that Lieut. Falkiner had got Lumm Farm. The Huns put up a fight here. However, one of the concrete places was bombed by Riflemen Aicken and Cochrane. In the other the Hun officer and Lieut. Falkiner had a rough-and-tumble fight. The Hun collared him somehow round the waist, but he managed to get an arm free and shot him, and his men came tumbling down after him and finished the rest of them. About fifteen were left alive and surrendered.... I then pushed all the men on a hundred yards and started them digging.... Some time later the commander of the (25th Division) company on my right came along and asked me if I would let him use Lumm Farm as a company headquarters, as he had no dug-outs in his sector. So I gave him one of the rooms—there were three or four in the dug-out."

The final part of this first-hand narrative is inserted because, in a book recently published, the capture of Lumm Farm is attributed to the 25th Division.[36]

Consolidation of the Black Line was started. At 8-40 a.m. patrols pushed forward in touch with those of the 25th and 16th Divisions, and established themselves without much difficulty a thousand yards ahead, on what had been known on the preliminary plans as the Dotted Black Line, afterwards called the Mauve Line, which was held as an outpost line. Meanwhile, in the lull that followed, the field artillery was moving forward. Most of the batteries moved to the neighbourhood of the old British front line, but batteries of the 153rd and 173rd Brigades crossed "No Man's Land," and established themselves as far forward as the Red Line. The gunners, in the enthusiasm of victory, forgot their fatigue and the strain of those sleepless nights of bombardment, and rushed their guns forward over the difficult ground with the delight of schoolboys. At 10-5 a.m. it was reported to General Nugent that batteries of the 173rd Brigade were in position. A few minutes later came a similar report with regard to the 153rd Brigade. Not for upwards of two hours was there sign of a counter-attack in force. Then the IX. Corps announced that long columns of troops and transport had been observed by balloon and aeroplane moving west from the canal at Houthem. The German command had, however, been too slow. By this time good progress had been made with the work of consolidation of the Black Line, and of the strong points in rear of it, the latter of which the engineers of the 121st and 150th Field Companies had already taken in hand. In addition to the wire brought forward on pack mules, far greater quantities of German wire had been found, particularly at one big dump near Guy Farm. All the twelve Vickers guns which had gone forward with the infantry had arrived successfully. There were now three in position north of Lumm Farm, three between Guy Farm and Staenyzer Cabaret, three some hundred yards west of the main road, and two in reserve. All the sixteen guns of the 108th Machine-Gun Company were in position in their rear, a battery of eight east of L'Enfer Wood, four at Jump Point, and four on Hill 94, at the south-west corner of Wytschaete. A big counter-attack would have driven in the outposts on the Mauve Line; it appeared improbable that it would dislodge our troops from the Black. When it came, a little after one o'clock, it was not on the front of the 36th Division, but on that of its right-hand neighbours, the 25th and New Zealand Divisions. The Germans came forward stoutly enough across the open ground, but the attack got nowhere near the British lines. Before the terrific blast of our barrage it withered away and dispersed.