Hill 60 was valuable to the Germans because it overlooked the lower ground on which the British had dug their trenches. Observers on the hill could watch what was going on down below, and direct the fire of their heavy guns which were stationed a couple of miles or so to the rear. The whole hill was seamed with trenches and saps. The Germans held the upper slopes and the summit, and their positions were only fifty yards away from those of the British. They had strongly fortified the hill, because they knew that its loss would force them to give up a large part of their line. For this reason, and because it would afford us a gun position commanding much of the German front, we now prepared a bold attack upon it.
Since the Battle of Neuve Chapelle and the counter-attack at St. Eloi there had been a lull in the fighting. Of course, the big guns on both sides fired daily, and the aeroplanes of friend and foe made constant raids and observation flights; but the infantry had been but little engaged. On 1st April an Allied aviator played a practical joke on the Germans. He flew over Lille, and dropped a football on the aerodrome.[34] It bounded up to a great height, and the Germans, thinking that it was a new kind of bomb, at once scuttled away into cover. The supposed bomb did not explode, and after a time they ventured out to examine it, and discovered this inscription on it: "April fool—Gott strafe England,"[35]
In the early days of April our engineers, all unknown to the enemy, were busy driving galleries under Hill 60, and preparing mines. At seven o'clock on the morning of 17th April, when the 1st Royal West Kents and the 2nd King's Own Scottish Borderers were waiting with fixed bayonets, the mines under the hillock were exploded. There was a terrific roar, and it seemed as though the German trenches had been struck by an earthquake. Parapets, sand-bags, wire entanglements, and the bodies of the men were blown high into the air. The trenches disappeared, and in place of them yawned huge craters and mounds of piled earth. Before the dense columns of dust and smoke could subside, our guns belched forth shrapnel and high-explosive shells, so as to prevent the enemy from sending up reinforcements. In the midst of the whirlwind of shot and flame the Germans who had survived the explosions were seen falling over one another in their efforts to escape by means of the communication trenches. They were so panic-stricken that some of them forced a way to safety by charging through their own ranks with the bayonet.
Then the whistles blew, and the West Kents, closely followed by the Scottish Borderers, clambered over their parapets, and, rushing up the slope, took possession of the craters, while some of their comrades pursued the flying Germans and fought furiously with them in the narrow trenches. Barricades were erected in the communication trenches, and over these the enemy flung hand grenades. The British, however, made good their hold on the craters, and twenty minutes after the charge was made were strongly posted with machine guns on the coveted position. Hill 60 was ours.
Hill 60.
(From a sketch made just before its capture by the British. By permission of The Illustrated London News.)
Early next morning (Sunday, 18th April) the Germans in mass formation made two attacks on the hill, but they were mown down by machine guns and shrapnel. Nevertheless they kept up their assaults all day, and by 6 p.m. had won back part of the southern edge. The 2nd West Riding and 2nd Yorkshire Light Infantry were now sent up to relieve the West Kents and Scottish Borderers. Supported by heavy artillery fire, they dashed forward and drove out the enemy at the point of the bayonet. While doing so they captured fifty-three prisoners, including four officers. During this advance we lost heavily, but the Germans lost more, and the slopes were littered with the bodies of friend and foe.
For three days the struggle continued, almost without pause. The Germans fiercely shelled the hill, and hurled upon it a constant shower of bombs. Our men were exposed to fire from three sides, but they held on like limpets to a rock. On the evening of the 20th the Germans made another infantry attack, which lasted for an hour and a half, but once more they were repulsed by the stubborn British. It was during this period of fighting that Lieutenant George Roupell and Second Lieutenant Geoffrey Woolley won the Victoria Cross, as you will read on a later page.
At dawn the next morning we discovered that the Germans had dug themselves in on the north-east edge of the hill. In the afternoon they were driven off, and then their artillery literally plastered the hill with shells of all kinds, some of them containing gases which blinded and choked our men. Against a tiny table top of 250 yards long by 200 yards deep tons of metal and high explosives were flung from howitzers and field guns at close range. It seemed to observers that nothing could live in that zone of fire; nevertheless the defenders hung on for four and a half terrible days. The hill was still ours on Thursday, the 22nd. Then came a lull: the storm of battle had begun to rage over a far wider field.