Hunting the Hun

by James Belton; E. G. Odell

The tank is a factor of the great war and is emblematic of Britain's purpose, slow but relentlessly sure. It lumbers out over the waste of No Man's Land toward the German line, mowing down the enemy with its deadly machine guns and is undeterred by the rifle or machine gun fire of the enemy. It goes crashing on to and over the enemy trenches, going down one side of the shell or mine craters, and up the other, trampling down the strongest of barbed wire entanglements, trees, etc.

As this monster goes on, few Germans are brave enough to face an advancing force. In our advance on Lens the artillery preparation was so perfect that the wire barriers were everywhere swept aside. The German high command made a desperate attempt to divert our advance on Lens by a heavy counterattack along the Cambrai-Bapaume Road, which was delivered by about four divisions. We repulsed it, taking 300 prisoners and inflicting a casualty of some 10,000 of which 1500 were killed; our success was largely due to the artillery.

All officers and men look forward to the delivery of the mail. In the early stages of the war, it was a very common practice for both officers and men that had no lady relatives to write to the "Agony or Personal Column" of one of the London daily papers, asking for some lady to correspond with them. The ads would read, "Lonely Officer, or Lonely Soldier, would like to correspond with some Young Lady for period of War." Invariably a nom de plume and designation of battalion were used, and the result was that a large number of letters were received.

I remember a young officer who put an ad in the paper, and for some days there was no result. The officers all began to tease him and I think he regretted having informed us what he had done. However, one day the mail corporal brought three full mail bags all for the "Lonely Officer." Things began to look lively. He was now in a dilemma. Could he read and answer them all before he would have to go in to the front line? It seemed a stupendous task. He had a few volunteers to help him to read his correspondence, but no one was willing to answer it. For three weeks afterwards there were no letters, then one day Brigade Headquarters post office sent word that there was a transport car coming along with Lieutenant K.'s mail. The car was completely loaded down with his correspondence, so they wished to know what he wanted done with the balance. It was not long afterwards that correspondence from the Agony Column ceased.

The censoring of the mail is sometimes very amusing. Yet it has its pathetic side. I censored a letter from a boy to his mother. He had run away from home, and enlisted under an assumed name. He just had begun to realise that if he was killed in action, his mother would never know, so it was a very penitent son that sent a very loving letter to his mother at home. The war brings out all that is best in the "boys," though some of them are sad rogues as they vow eternal love to many girls at the same time. No harm is meant, I am sure, it is probably to break the monotony of the life in the trenches. Some of the letters have quite a number of crosses on them, like this xxxxxxx, denoting kisses, and probably stuck away in one corner we will see one small x with "For the Censor," marked above it.

The reason why all letters in France are censored is to prevent any information of military importance reaching the enemy.

While out at rest our battalion received orders from brigade headquarters to prepare a small raiding party with the object of putting out of action a German machine gun that had given the troops that were then holding the line considerable trouble.

Aerial photographs and map location of the small sector of the German line where the machine gun emplacement was located had been sent us. I was detailed to take charge of the party and was given instructions to destroy this machine gun emplacement and if possible to bring back some prisoners for purpose of information.

I selected ten men including one sergeant and one corporal and for three days we practiced for this raid by going over the tapes and also making use of some previously dug trenches, so that every man would know exactly what part he would take when the actual raid would be pulled off.

These men were equipped just as they would be when the actual raid would take place, four men were armed with rifles and bayonets, the others were armed with bombs and knobkerries and in addition all had their wire cutters.