Hunting the Hun

by James Belton; E. G. Odell

In the morning I heard one of the men making inquiries about my batman. I had missed him early in the fight but had been expecting him to turn up at any time. To my consternation I was informed by a man from another company that he had seen my batman's dead body in a shell hole. I regretted this news very much, as he had been like a friend to me. He had completed two years of medicine but like a great many more he had answered his country's call and gave his life for the cause.

The casualties of our battalion were four officers killed and six wounded and 260 men killed and wounded. It was a very hard fought battle but we gained and held all our objectives, inflicting terrible casualties on the Huns.

During the month of May one of our brigades made an attack on Fresnoy-en-Gohelle. It was what we call a little brigade show.

Fresnoy was three miles from Vimy station. At daylight early on May the sixth, the brigade went "over the top." The German barbed wire had all been cut by our artillery, so the Germans, anticipating the attack, met our brigade with a whole German division. This did not stop our brigade from advancing and closing with the enemy. In the little village of Fresnoy, though greatly outnumbered, they fought with the Huns for a whole day and night.

All the troops on both sides were wearing their gas helmets, and it was really a hand-to-hand struggle. Each one tried to tear the gas helmet from his opponent. A gas helmet pulled off a man meant his death, as the fumes were very thick. I later on spoke to an officer who participated in this fight and he told me of some of his experiences.

His eyesight had been rather bad previously. When he started to walk over No Man's Land, in his haste to put on his small box respirator, he lost his glasses and could not see very far in front of him. He led his men more by sense of direction than by sense of eyesight, as he could not see through his goggles without his glasses. He therefore had to go blindly along until he fell down in a shell hole, where he remained until the fumes had been dispelled. When he tried to crawl out of the shell hole German snipers in front of him made desperate attempts to pot him. However, he was fortunate enough to be allowed to remain until nearly dark, when he was located and brought back to safety. Our brigade suffered rather heavily in this attack, but we had the pleasure of inflicting a greater amount of casualties on the Germans than they had on us.

One of the most sanguinary encounters that I was ever in happened during the latter part of April. My company was doing duty in brigade support line which was a captured trench we had taken from the Germans. It was now being used by us as an observation trench. It ran along the slope of the ridge, and from it we could see the smoke coming out of the chimneys of the coal mines at Lens, about four and a quarter miles away. A splendid view of the ground occupied by the Hun could be had, as his trenches lay in front of us. One day about 4.30 P.M. we received information that the Germans were assembling in a certain sunken road with the view of making a counterattack. Our artillery had been given instructions to concentrate their fire at 5.30 P.M. upon this road. Excitement ran high in our trench and we were all anxious to be at the Huns again. Everyone that could was looking through periscopes and some peered over the top of the parapet as we eagerly waited for our artillery to commence.

At 5:30 P.M., much to our surprise, our artillery did not open up. We suspected that the Germans had by some means found out that we knew they were assembling for this counterattack and that they therefore gave up the idea.

That even at dusk we prepared to advance, but during our stay in the observation trench we had five casualties in our company. We were to occupy a lately evacuated German trench which was directly in front of our firing line. The battalions on our right and left flank also had to move up. At 10.00 P.M. we left the observation trench and were met by guides from the battalion which was then holding the sector of the front line trench that we had to pass to get to the recently evacuated German trench, now to become our front line. With my guide I led my platoon in single file for a distance of 50 yards past the firing line. All at once the Germans commenced to bombard us with gas shells. We immediately put on our gas helmets and advanced through these poisonous fumes. When we were within 200 yards of our objective the Huns put up what we call a box barrage. They had evidently been warned of our advance.

A box barrage is shell fire directed along the rear and both flanks. It hemmed us in, although the flanking fire did not harm our company, as it was too far away from us, still the fire from the rear was gradually creeping up to us, and it was a very anxious and trying time for our nerves as it came gradually towards us. I shouted out to form line in extended order and we made a rush for our objective, which we had named "Winnipeg trench." We managed to get into it in the nick of time, as the creeping barrage was almost on top of us.