[45] 62nd Division.
[CHAPTER IX]
Cambrai and After (II):
November 23rd to December 31st, 1917
The conditions under which the attack was continued were difficult in the extreme. From the 23rd of November onward the enemy artillery fire increased enormously, while the ground appeared to be powdered with machine-guns skilfully and tenaciously fought. The troops of the 36th Division were weary. Even such battalions as had not already been in action were suffering from the long exposure to bad weather. And the weather was worsening. Hitherto it had been wet, but, for November, not cold, though the nights were trying enough for troops in fighting kit and with small shelter. Now it began to appear as though the rain would turn to snow. The most formidable difficulty of all was that of communications. The light railways, of which so much had been hoped, were useful certainly, but had not come up to expectation. The roads were bad beyond expression. The main communication of the 36th Division was the Hermies-Graincourt Road. Over the greater part of its length it was sunken, as were those from Hermies to Demicourt, and from Demicourt to Graincourt. Being sunken, it was impossible to widen these mere country lanes, nor was there anything approaching a sufficiency of metal to sustain the huge volume of traffic upon them. On the Hermies-Graincourt Road there were frequent serious blocks in the traffic during the early days, when a limber broke a pole or a cooker lost a wheel. Eventually the road itself ceased to be used at all, traffic proceeding on either side of the banks, and chalk being hastily tumbled into the holes which it speedily made.
The plans of the IV. Corps for November the 23rd were ambitious enough, yet more modest than those of the preceding day. On the right the 51st Division was to retake Fontaine, and secure the high ground east of Bourlon Wood. The 40th Division, which had relieved the 62nd, was to take Bourlon village. The 36th and 56th Divisions were to advance up the Canal and roll up the Hindenburg Support System. Tanks were to assist the attack of the 36th Division for the first time during the operations.
The advance of the 36th Division was again to bestride the Canal du Nord. The 107th Brigade was to attack on the east side, the 108th Brigade on the west. The former was to be supported by the 93rd Army Field Artillery Brigade and a Siege Battery; the latter by the Division's own Artillery Brigades. The sixteen tanks available were allotted to the 107th Brigade. General Withycombe held a conference of commanding officers and officers of the Tank Battalion at his headquarters near Graincourt. The attack was to have two phases: the first, the capture of the Hindenburg trenches: up to the Canal, of Round Trench and Lock 5; the second, an advance northward to Hobart Street from the Canal to the north corner of Quarry Wood, the northern and eastern skirts of which were to be held. To the first phase eleven tanks were allotted; to the second five, with any survivors of the first. An hour and a half was considered sufficient for the carrying through of the first phase; after which there was to be an hour's pause before the opening of the second.
West of the Canal the capture of Mœuvres was to coincide with the first phase. The second was to be the capture of the trench running westward from Lock 4 to the Hindenburg Support System. Zero for the first phase was fixed at 10-30 a.m., the earliest moment possible, seeing that General Withycombe had not been able to issue his orders till 8-30, owing to the difficulty in collecting the tank officers. One company commander in the 107th Brigade has informed the writer that he had less than fifteen minutes to assemble his men and explain the attack to his officers.
The task of the 15th Rifles was the rolling up of the Hindenburg Support System to the Canal, and on the success of that battalion the whole scheme of the 107th Brigade depended. It was nothing less than a calamity that of the two tanks that should have led the troops, one broke down, while the other turned off to the right and left them. As they went forward they met overwhelming machine-gun fire. One company made an advance of some hundred yards, while one of its platoons most gallantly rushed an enemy crater-post in the road running north from the factory. But the company was inadequately supported, being neither reinforced nor supplied with ammunition and rifle grenades, and, far from being able to improve its position, had eventually to abandon some of the ground won. The 8th Rifles, assisted by a tank, captured and consolidated Round Trench, also Lock 5, where a few prisoners were taken. A frontal attack upon the Hindenburg System was here out of the question, and these minor successes represented all the ground gained. It is doubtful whether more than two tanks out of the eleven ever crossed the Hindenburg Support System, the rest having either broken down or been put out of action by the German artillery fire, now very heavy. Without them, advance was all but impossible. It was the more unfortunate since the 40th Division had made a very fine attack and captured Bourlon, while the 51st again took Fontaine. Repeated and heavy counter-attacks drove the 40th from Bourlon, but the Germans could never penetrate the wood. The 51st were also driven out of Fontaine, and the line of the 40th was represented by a very dangerous salient.