Fighting the Boche Underground

by H. D. Trounce

The bombardment preceding these daily attacks was very intense, more so even than those of the Somme operations. It was a very interesting spectacle both by day and night. Close up one could hear the continuous roar from the guns and at night the flashes would light up the sky all around. Most of the batteries were set up on the sides of roads. In the retreat and the fast succeeding offensive there had been neither time nor opportunity for the gunners to construct their usual emplacements. It was appalling to consider the cost of some of these bombardments. As an example, the 9.2-inch howitzer shells, thousands of which were fired weekly by each battery, cost about $150 apiece.

In many of the daylight attacks the assaulting infantry would wear small tin plates on their backs. These would flash in the sunlight and enable the gunners to keep them in sight as they advanced over the ridges while they maintained an effective barrage ahead. Many difficulties were encountered in bringing up guns, ammunition, and supplies. On account of the state of the roads, which for a long time were almost impassable, the traffic had to be handled with much judgment and care. One-way traffic routes were established in many places, and military police, usually from cavalry units, were posted by the road control officers at all crossroads. Tie-ups frequently occurred, often resulting in a line of traffic a quarter to half a mile long being held up. The Boche airmen promptly took advantage of this situation by flying over and dropping bombs on us. While we were on road-work it was our business to keep the trucks and wagons steadily moving along. Whenever a truck was ditched we made every one climb down and get behind the wheels and move it off into a field out of the way, or get it out onto the road again.

Since the retreat had started we had been living half the time on our "iron rations," the latter consisting of bully-beef (corned beef), hard biscuits, small cubes of Oxo, with tea and sugar. The tea and sugar were usually carried up in a sand-bag, and when boiled formed a curious concoction which tasted strongly of sand-bag.

The open warfare which developed in this retreat was welcomed by all ranks, and their increased cheerfulness and rise of spirits were very marked. The enemy losses must have been extremely high. In every village, and alongside all roads, the bodies of German soldiers could be seen. I was in Neuville-Vitasse the day after it was captured and saw their dead lying in hundreds in the ditches, on the wire, and in the brick ruins. Ghastly sights they were too. The front line of the famous Hindenburg trenches ran through this village. As we walked into the village we noticed a broken German machine-gun left on a simple earth platform, in a shallow trench by the side of the road. It appeared that the man in charge of this gun had sold his life dearly, for fifty yards beyond some sixty of our poor fellows had been killed by its fire and were already buried there. The infantry were fighting hard at Chérisy, a short distance on our right, and many of their "walking cases" and "stretcher cases" (wounded) passed us going back to the nearest ambulance-station.

The fighting in the air was very active. Observation-balloons were up in large numbers. During this time I saw one of our planes bring down six enemy balloons in less than half an hour. The airman's usual plan was to suddenly drop out of a cloud away above them and let fall a bomb on the hydrogen bags. These would at once burst into flames, and the observers would seldom have time to get into their parachutes.

It was a common practice when the Huns were shelling our balloons, which, by the way, afford a nice large target for shrapnel, for our observers to signal the crew on the winch-truck below to pull them down and then send up an empty balloon again for the Huns to shoot at. No doubt the same ruse is adopted on each side of No Man's Land, but I can vouch for the fact that much German powder was wasted in this way.

The work of the Canadian railway-construction engineers was very fine here. They rebuilt the old standard-gauge French lines which the Germans had destroyed and carried the new roads up to within a mile of the then front lines in the Hindenburg trenches. They were forced to rebuild many trestle-bridges, and their pile-driver crews carried on the work with great rapidity, calmness, and efficiency. The steam from their upright boilers provided an excellent target for Fritz and they were shelled consistently, but nevertheless the Canucks accomplished the work successfully. Twelve-inch naval guns were run up on this standard-gauge railroad and often fired from one to two miles back of the trenches. Previous to the retreat of 1917 it had evidently been more or less the policy of the British to rely mainly on their mechanical transport rather than on light railroads and standard-gauge railroads for transportation of supplies to the most advanced zones.

Since that time the general tendency has been to construct the light railroads almost up to the support-line, or to points within a mile or less behind the front trenches. The standard-gauge railroads also are now carried up much closer. On most sectors on the British fronts the light railways are now laid right up to the front line and supplies sent up on them at night. Previous to this time it was the exception rather than the rule to take them up so far. In this change they have more or less followed the example of the Boche engineers, whose light and standard-gauge roads are run up very close to their forward trenches.

The main difficulty in the constant use of large trucks or motor-vehicles was that the roads could not stand the constant and heavy wear on them. Adequate maintenance for the roads for the last two or three miles was out of the question, on account of the lack of men and material necessary for their repairs, to say nothing of constant hostile shelling. During the previous winters, road control had been established, and the most direct routes to the firing-trenches were often closed for weeks at a time, while all heavy traffic was routed along third-class roads, which were often double the distance of the more direct roads.

During the first week or two of this offensive we were employed on repairing the destroyed roads or building new ones. In many places where they crossed the old trenches we were obliged to take out the timber from the German trenches and dugouts, and corduroy the roads with it. Their lumber proved very useful. In many other instances we used the only material available—brick from the ruins of the buildings near by. These brick roads were naturally not much good, but they served our purpose for a week or two. We found considerable quantities of German high explosives in various dugouts. These we used in demolishing many of their own concrete emplacements, being able later to utilize the concrete so obtained in our work of road-repairing. The large trees which they had felled in such numbers across our path gave us much trouble.