Sniping in France: With notes on the scientific training of scouts, observers, and snipers

by H. Hesketh-Prichard

FIRST ARMY SCHOOL OF S.O.S.

Sniper’s Robe on a 6ft. 4in. man in the open, Hawkins position. Distance from camera, 8 yards.

The only ladies who visited us were Mrs. Humphry Ward and her daughter. It was terrible weather when they came and the little path which led up to the range, and which was really more or less the bed of a stream, had become a glacier of ice several feet in thickness. On the range the wind was blowing exceedingly cold, and few worse days could have been picked for a visit. I remember Mrs. Ward saying to me that she thought sniping—the terrible and ruthless killing of men with weapons of precision—one of the most dreadful sides of the war. I pointed out to her the life-saving side of sniping, and how many hundreds and probably thousands of British officers and men were alive at that moment who, if it were not for our snipers, would have been killed by the Germans. Mrs. Ward quite saw the force of this argument and wrote a most admirable account of her visit to the school. I saw this in proof, but when it appeared the censors had clearly cut out a certain amount. Why they had cut it out no one could ever tell. We had at that time a good number of snipers’ robes of painted canvas at the school. The Germans had somewhat similar robes and both sides knew that the other was using them; but the British Censorship would never allow any mention of these robes. You might mention something really important, some new invention, or the effect of some new bullet, or any other matter which would be of real assistance to the Germans, but these robes were the one thing which seemed to interest the Press Censorship. Speaking as an Officer-in-charge of a very technical branch of work, I can only say that the Censorship was at times just like an ostrich hiding its head in the sand.

Mrs. Humphry Ward went over the whole school, and I must say that her questions probed our work more deeply than those of the average sight-seeing officer who visited us.

Apart from visitors who came for various purposes to see the school, we had also several officers who came on duty. Among these was Col. the Hon. T.F. Fremantle, now Lord Cottesloe. Lord Cottesloe knew more of telescopic sights and rifle shooting than did any of us at the school, and there can be no doubt whatever that his visit was of the greatest assistance to us. With him came Lieut.-Col. Robinson, who was in charge of the manufacture of telescopic sights at Enfield, and who did so much to assist us in a hundred different ways. I never had the opportunity of visiting the school in England of which Lord Cottesloe was the Commandant, but I had many officers and men who had received a sound grounding there.

Lieut.-Col. P.W. Richardson, the well-known Bisley shot, also visited the school. He was interested in sniping from the very earliest days, and was probably the first officer to advocate schools for the teaching of shooting with telescopic sights.

One evening after the school had been running well over a year I was sitting by the mess-room fire when a couple of officers were shown in. Both were wearing Burberrys, so that I was not able to see their rank, but both were very young-looking. One of them said: “We looked in to have a talk to you about schools, for we are going to start one. What we want to know is, how this school manages to get everyone who comes to it so damned keen on their job?”

I pointed out that we had a really interesting subject to teach, and enlarged upon the great theory that I always used to hold that you did not want to have officers on a course too near a big town. If you have a good subject to teach, and can teach it intelligently, you ought to be able to interest them enough in the course to keep their minds at work, especially if you have at least two hours’ games for those who want them every afternoon. If you are near a big town, it means dinners and sweet champagne, and other things which do not conduce to accurate shooting. Our school was rather more than four kilometres from Aire, and no one was allowed to go there without a pass. A pass could be had by any officer for the asking, but I found that, once the course got its grip, except on Sunday, Aire was very little visited.

My two visitors then ran through the curriculum of the school with me, and as the room was hot, removed their Burberrys. I then realized how great a compliment had been paid to the School, for both were regular soldiers of long service—as I could tell from their decorations and medals—and high rank. Presently, they went, and I never saw them again, nor did I learn their names, but we always thought that their visit was about the highest compliment ever paid to the First Army School of S.O.S.