The Story of the "9th King's" in France

by Enos Herbert Glynne Roberts

In October the "Second Ninth" set out for the Ypres salient, and on arriving at Proven was accommodated in tents. There it was told that the Division was about to take part in an attack on Passchendaele, but the weather conditions were so bad that, after an attack by one of the other brigades in the Division, the offensive was finally abandoned. The Battalion then held the shell crater line in front of Langemarck for a few days at the beginning of November, sustaining a considerable number of casualties. The Division was then withdrawn and the Battalion was put into rest billets at Nielles. After about a month spent there in re-organisation and training for the attack, it moved up to Emile Camp, just outside Elverdinghe. The weather was bitterly cold and the ground frozen hard. On Christmas Day the Battalion went into the shell crater line at Poelcappelle, and spent four days there. The weather conditions were very severe, snow had fallen, the ground was wet and the machine gun fire very active. The first week in January the Regiment was once again in its original sector at Armentières. Here things were comparatively quiet, though the trenches were in a very bad condition, and the danger of trench feet was considerable. The Battalion carried out a very successful raid on the 1st February. Several patrols had been sent out to locate the best place of entry into the enemy line. After an intense bombardment on the selected spot, a party was able to enter and secure a few prisoners. This was the most successful raid the Division had accomplished.

The remnants of the first Battalion left Lisbourg for Steenwerck, where they spent a few days awaiting the return of the second Battalion from the trenches. The two units met at Waterlands Camp outside Armentières, and were united to form one battalion. The union, though imperative, was distasteful to some, as many officers and non-commissioned officers had to relinquish acting ranks which they had held for some time, and it perhaps gave rise to some jealousy which fortunately disappeared in time.

After a few days spent at Waterlands, the Battalion moved into support at Erquinghem, with one company in the Lunatic Asylum at Armentières, and after a short stay it did one tour in the line near Houplines, and then went to Estaires, where it was in support to the Portuguese Army.

This was then a quiet country town in which the shops were still open, and incidentally doing a very good trade, and it had suffered little from the effects of artillery. During the next three months it was to be reduced to ruins. The Battalion was accommodated in a Nissen hut camp just outside the town, where the company commanders had an opportunity of completing the re-organisation of their companies.

On the 13th March the non-commissioned officers celebrated the anniversary of the Battalion's first arrival in France by arranging a kind of concert in one of the estaminets in Estaires. This was the last occasion before the Armistice on which such a celebration took place, and it has developed into an annual reunion of the senior non-commissioned officers.

Towards the end of the month the Battalion left Estaires for the Armentières front, and on the 21st March Ludendorff's advance commenced on the 5th Army front, at which time the Battalion was in line in the Fleurbaix sector. Ten days later the unit was relieved and marched to Estaires, where it arrived on the morning of the 1st April. Leaving this town later in the day, it made Haverskerque that night, left there the next day for Steenwerck, and entrained for Doullens. Detraining at Doullens at 1 a.m. on the 3rd, the Battalion proceeded by night march to Sus St. Leger. The night was dark and the roads were in bad condition and a few men fell out, but on the whole, the march discipline was good. On the 5th the Battalion moved to Warluzel, where it remained for three days and then proceeded to Thièvres, staying there four days. These moves meant a great strain on everyone. To march in full pack on bad roads with motor lorries splashing mud, day after day, is an ordeal. In each village a fresh start had to be made. Billets had to be found and allotted, fire orders put up and billet guards mounted. Latrines and cook-houses had to be improvised, and the usual foot inspections were made. Besides this the usual routine returns had to be rendered to people that sat in comfortable offices, and the men had to do ration fatigues and guards. Though the difficulties of the companies were great, the difficulties of the Quartermaster's department and that of the Transport Officer were much greater. The Quartermaster had not enough room to take the stores he wished, and the Transport Officer had as much as he could do to carry all the stores there were.

On the 12th a move was made to Sombrin, and the next day the Battalion left Sombrin late in the afternoon for an unknown destination. Even the Colonel did not know, and there was a vague rumour that the Brigade staff were to look after the unit. The men marched over bad roads and in the dark, and ultimately they were turned into a wood and told there were no billets, and they could bivouac for the night. Officers and men lay down on the damp earth where they were and slept. Fortunately it did not rain. A few tents came up very late, and in the darkness they could not be pitched, but they were spread out and thrown over the men as they lay sleeping on the ground. Fires could not be lighted as the enemy aeroplanes would have used them as aiming marks. In the morning the Battalion on awaking found it was just outside Pas, in what was called Beaucamp Ravine. Here it remained for two days, and then moved to Hénu, where the men pitched a camp in a field, and there the Battalion remained for a little over a fortnight. But it was no rest camp. The weather was very bad and the ground became wet and sodden. Every alternate day large working parties, which consumed almost all the available men, were detailed for work on the rear lines of defence, that were being hastily constructed, in view of the imminence of a fresh enemy offensive. On the intervening days training took place. There was a thirty yards' range in a ravine just in the rear of the camp, where some very interesting competitions took place. Rifle sections were pitted against Lewis gun sections and it was found that, in some platoons a rifle section of eight men was able to get as many shots on the target as the Lewis gun, and it was noticed incidentally that after two hundred rounds the Lewis gun became far too hot to handle. It was a much over-rated weapon, and was only effective in the hands of highly trained men.

Several reconnaissances were made by the officers while at Hénu. The forward area was visited again and again. Defence schemes were studied and prepared, but these tended to become a little too complex, and had it been necessary to put them into operation something would surely have gone wrong.

The morale at this time was low. The extent of the losses on the 5th and 2nd Army fronts were known. The enemy was using British 60-pounder guns against the area occupied by the Battalion, but as the enemy gunners did not thoroughly understand how to set the fuses, the shells were all blind. The Germans seemed to be able to advance whenever they wished, whereas the British had miserably failed at Ypres the last year. The men were not in very good fettle owing to the several recent marches, and the chance of complete victory seemed to be remote. Nevertheless there were many who kept cheerful and intended like game cocks to fight to the last.

The first week in May the Battalion went into line at Gommecourt. The other two units in the Brigade were in the outpost line, and the 9th King's was in close support in Gommecourt Park. It was accommodated in what were formerly the front line enemy positions in 1916. It was an education in military engineering to examine them. The trenches were deep and wide, and there were traverses every few yards. They were revetted with hurdles and planks of timber which were kept in position by iron pickets, which were securely wired to anchor pickets driven sideways into the walls of the trench. So well anchored were the revetments that in spite of the continuous bombardments of the Somme Battle they were still in position. The whole line was stellated with concrete machine-gun emplacements, which gave a perfect command over the former British front line trenches. Armoured look-out posts for sentries were at the top of all the dugout stairs. The dugouts were deeply mined and well timbered, and would provide shelter for a large garrison.