YPRES. BORRY FARM OR “PILLBOX.”
The Division, now part of the 5th Corps of the Fifth Army, had a strength of 703 officers and 16,972 men on September 1. The sector taken over from the 15th Division was about 1500 yards in width, from a point south-east of the Ypres—Menin railway on the right to a point 500 yards north-east of Frezenberg on the left. The roads were soon left, and the units proceeded to their positions by the duckboard paths which were the arteries from the bases to the front line, and along which generals and privates, stretcher-bearers and casualties, rations and ammunition, passed. It was more easy to lose one’s way than to keep to the track, and soldiers of both armies strayed into their opponents’ lines. A German officer, returning from leave, walked into the territory of the Division one night, and at breakfast time he was being interrogated at D.H.Q. Along the whole dreary length of duckboards the probability of slipping into one of the countless shell-holes filled with water and deep slime, was an ever-present menace which might prove fatal. At intervals small signboards were erected with the distinctive number or letter of the path in luminous paint. The front line was merely a series of linked-up shell-holes, with Battalion and Company Headquarters in pill-boxes captured from the enemy in the recent offensive. Despite such discouraging conditions a covey of partridges would often be put up at dawn by men returning along “J” trench, between Cambridge Road and the Menin Road.
One shrinks from the attempt to describe the conditions that prevailed in the Ypres salient. No part of it was ever at rest. By day, aircraft sought to spot every movement that was attempted on either side, and day and night the guns sprayed the trenches, the roads, the duckboard paths, with shrapnel and H.E., the grim resolve to kill dominating every other thought or desire. The ghastly evidences of the fighting in three great battles and nearly three years of warfare were brought to light by the bombardments that tore and flung up the earth. The flares at night showed up in silhouette the figures of ration and ammunition carriers and of transport men, and brought swift destruction upon them. The runners who bore messages from one headquarters to another took their lives in their hands every time. Even for those few who were endowed by nature with the sixth sense of locality the odds were against their safe arrival and return. But the average town-bred lad has little sense of locality, so the carrying of a message meant wandering in a maze in which lurked enemies real and imaginary, varied by tumbles into shell-holes. Yet the runners generally got their messages through, and when one failed it was because another casualty had been added to the list. But if the Ypres Salient was detested by the British soldier, the enemy, although not penned within the narrow salient, regarded this sector with even greater abhorrence, and German prisoners declared that their troops, on being sent to the Ypres front, considered the order as equivalent to “certain death or worse.”
One night, at Hell Fire Corner, an ammunition depot was set on fire by enemy artillery, which continued to shell the dump and its vicinity furiously. In spite of the bombardment and constant explosions a party of the divisional transport loaded up alongside the depot, and got all teams and wagons safely away. Fighting patrols and working-parties went out nightly, and many were the unrecorded acts of heroism. There were also minor operations, which with one exception were quite small affairs. The 125th Brigade was ordered to attack on September 6 the positions known as Iberian, Borry and Beck House Farms, strong posts protected by the usual elaborate system of outworks. Two similar assaults in this vicinity had already failed—one by the 15th Division, in which a little ground had been gained by the Black Watch and the Gordons, who had lost very heavily and had been driven out in the morning by a counter-attack; and the second, on September 5, against Hill 35 by the 61st Division, had been no more successful. Prior to the date fixed for the attack by the Lancashire Fusiliers a daring reconnaissance in daylight was carried out by Sergeant Finney, 8th L.F., who, accompanied by a rifle-grenadier and two Lewis-gunners, pushed out to within twenty-five yards of Beck House. Although he knew that for the last hundred yards he was under observation, and could see the enemy manning the shell-holes, he worked parallel to the position until forced by rifle fire to withdraw and lie down in No Man’s Land. The following night Finney went alone to this post and lay out to study the enemy dispositions at night. He brought back valuable information, and was awarded the D.C.M. His bold move the previous day had evidently affected German nerves, for the enemy put up a many-coloured firework display and disclosed their general dispositions and barrage line, which previously had only been known vaguely.
Iberian, Borry, and Beck House
Practice barrages had been carried out by the artillery for three or four days before the 125th Brigade launched its attack, and rarely have gunners worked with such keenness as the divisional artillery displayed in the early hours of September 6. Four rounds per minute was the order, but eight, nine and ten rounds found their way into the enemy lines, and the gunners state that never were the guns so hot as on that day. The 5th and 6th L.F., with the 7th and 8th in support and the 6th Manchesters as carrying parties, advanced under the heavy barrage. A thunderstorm on the previous day made the going heavy, and the German machine-gunners, from the security of their apparently invulnerable concrete pill-boxes, were able to direct a devastating fire upon the advancing waves. Within a few minutes many officers and men were down, one company being reduced to thirty men commanded by a corporal. The survivors pressed doggedly on, but their courage was unavailing, and the Iberian and Borry positions were never reached. In the centre the troops attacking Beck House had a less exposed approach, and by 7 a.m. they had gained a footing and had captured the garrison. They now suffered heavily, however, from the machine-guns in the posts not included in the objective, as well as from those in Borry and Iberian, and all who had penetrated into Beck House were killed or captured in a counter-attack by three companies of fresh storm-troops. The order was received to abandon the attack on the other posts, and the survivors withdrew reluctantly and with difficulty from an impossible position, having lost nearly 800 officers and men. Much gallantry had been shown by all ranks, and a number of distinctions were awarded for deeds of which the following are merely typical examples.
Private James Dolan, 5th L.F., though twice blown up by shells and badly bruised, succeeded in bringing his Lewis-gun into action. After the rest of the team had become casualties, he worked the gun alone with great vigour and—to quote the official report—“in an extraordinarily cheerful manner” against two strong counter-attacks. Private W. Walliss, of the same battalion, worked as stretcher-bearer during the attack and for twenty-four hours subsequently, after the attack had been held up and two of his fellow bearers had been killed. He was subjected to harassing fire the whole time, and his disregard of risk and untiring devotion to duty saved many lives. Sergeant George Ward, 6th L.F., went out six times into the open under heavy enemy barrage and sniping to bring in wounded men, and was himself badly wounded on completing his sixth successful journey. Lance-Corporal E. Taylor, 6th L.F., seeing enemy reinforcements threatening, rushed his Lewis-gun into a shell-hole and opened a deadly fire, breaking up the attack. After all other members of his team had been killed or wounded Taylor stuck to his gun until ordered to withdraw. Sergeant J. H. Ashton, 3rd Field Ambulance, “worked unceasingly and without rest for forty-eight hours, often under heavy fire, in charge of squads removing the wounded.”