| H.Q.R.A. | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| C.R.A. | Brigade Major. | Staff Captain. | |
| Brig.-Gen. C. F. Blane, C.M.G. | Major H. K. Sadler, M.C. | Capt. T. C. Usher. | |
| 156th Brigade. | |||
| Lieut.-Colonel Rochfort-Boyd, D.S.O. | |||
| Adjutant: Lieut. E. H. Prior. | |||
| "A" Battery. | "B" Battery. | "C" Battery. | "D" Battery. |
| Capt. Lutyens. | Capt. R. D. Russell (wounded). | Capt. G. Lomer. | Capt. M. A. Studd. |
| Lieut. W. G. Pringle (temporarily). | |||
| Capt. Mansell. | |||
| 162nd Brigade. | |||
| Lieut.-Colonel O. M. Harris, D.S.O. | |||
| Adjutant: Lieut. Hill. | |||
| Lieut. B. R. Heape. | |||
| "A" Battery. | "B" Battery. | "C" Battery. | "D" Battery. |
| Capt. F. C. Packham. | Major R. G. M. Johnston (killed). | Capt. A. van Straubenzee. | Major W. P. Bennett (killed). |
| Capt. Hill. | Capt. V. Benett-Stanford. | Capt. T. St. P. Bunbury. | |
| 166th Brigade. | |||
| Colonel A. H. S. Goff, C.M.G. | |||
| Lieut.-Colonel Murray. | |||
| Adjutant: Lieut. S. M. Wood. | |||
| "A" Battery. | "B" Battery. | "C" Battery. | "D" Battery. |
| Capt. H. A. Littlejohn. | Major T. E. Durie. | Capt. H. Freeman. | Capt. W. A. T. Barstow, M.C. (wounded). |
| Capt. Maxwell. | |||
| 167th Brigade. | |||
| Lieut.-Colonel L. T. Goff. | |||
| Lieut.-Colonel C. G. Stewart, C.M.G., D.S.O. | |||
| Adjutant: Lieut. H. C. Cory. | |||
| Lieut. J. S. Campbell. | |||
| "A" Battery. | "B" Battery. | "C" Battery. | |
| Capt. S. Talbot. | Major D. Stewart. | Capt. G. Fetherston. | |
It is now necessary, in order to understand what follows, to turn our attention from the affairs of the batteries, and to endeavour to grasp the tactical situation as it presented itself at 4.0 A.M. on July 15th 1916. At dawn on July 14th the great attack had been launched on the German Second Line from Contalmaison on the left to Longueval on the right. This line covered the important villages of Bazentin-le-Petit, Bazentin-le-Grand and Longueval, while to the rear of it lay the sinister woods of Bazentin, High Wood and Delville Wood. The actual assault was carried out by the 23rd, 7th, 3rd and 9th Divisions, the 23rd being on the left opposite the northern end of Bazentin-le-Petit, while the 9th Division on the right faced the village of Longueval. At 3.25 A.M. the great attack began, and the German Second Line on a front of three miles was broken; the flanks remained firm, however, and before the advance could be carried further it was considered essential that the gap should be widened by an attack towards Pozières on the left, and against Ginchy and Guillemont on the right. In addition to this, certain local operations had to be carried out upon the front from Bazentin-le-Petit to Longueval, which embraced the zone covered by the 33rd Divisional Artillery, and it is with these operations that we must necessarily concern ourselves.
Scale 1:20,000.
By nightfall on the 14th the whole of Bazentin-le-Petit Wood, village and windmill, Bazentin-le-Grand and the southern portion of Longueval were in our hands, our line running just to the north of these places; but High Wood, although reached and captured by a gallant charge of cavalry supported by infantry, proved too tough a nut to crack, and remained in German hands together with the still uncaptured Delville Wood and the northern end of Longueval Village which was under the fire of enemy machine guns in High Wood. To clear these two woods and the remainder of Longueval was essential, and therefore, on the morning of July 15th, an advance was ordered by the 98th and 100th infantry brigades of the 33rd Division upon that portion of Switch Trench which ran westwards from High Wood, while a South African brigade was ordered up from Montauban to capture Delville Wood and the northern part of Longueval which still lay in German hands. With the latter attack, which indeed culminated into a battle of assaults and counter-assaults spread over several days, we cannot concern ourselves now. This history aims at perpetuating the deeds solely of one unit, and, to preserve the sequence of events, it is manifest that the operations upon that unit's immediate front must receive the closest attention; for this purpose we shall turn to the attack on Switch Trench launched on the morning of the 15th by the 98th and 100th infantry brigades covered by the guns of, amongst others, the 162nd and 166th Brigades of the 33rd Divisional Artillery, the first big attack in which these brigades took part.
From 8.30 A.M. for one hour the guns of both brigades bombarded Switch Trench where it ran west from High Wood, and at the end of the hour lifted on to Martinpuich, while the infantry assaulted the objectives which had just undergone this short but intense shelling. On the left the 98th infantry brigade reached its objective, but the 100th brigade was held up by machine-gun fire on the flanks and, after suffering some casualties, returned to its original line; the 98th brigade, with its right flank left thus in the air, had to follow suit, and by ten o'clock in the morning the battle had died down, leaving the guns free, apart from the usual day firing and registration, to get slightly more settled in their new surroundings. It should be remembered that the batteries had been marching, travelling by train and marching, day in day out, since the early morning of the 9th, and now, plunged into a great battle, it might have been hoped that at least a few hours' rest could have been obtained. This was not to be, however; no sooner had the batteries ceased co-operating in the infantry operation above referred to than they set to digging rough shelter trenches for the men in case of bombardment, digging pits for ammunition, camouflaging the guns as far as possible, getting up from the wagon lines heavy dumps of ammunition, and generally trying to get the battery positions into such a condition as would enable the guns to inflict the maximum of damage upon the enemy with the minimum of casualties to themselves. Open warfare was still the order of the day, and at any moment orders might be received for a further advance by the batteries, but on the other hand those orders might never come, and all ranks had already seen sufficient of the fierceness of the enemy's barrage to give them will to urge their already tired limbs to further efforts at self-protection.
As events turned out, no further assaults were made by the infantry on the zone covered by the 33rd Division batteries till the 20th; for five days the batteries were able to register accurately every outstanding feature and point of importance on their zones, while communications were elaborated and perfected from the somewhat rough and ready open warfare methods which had been set up when first the brigades came into action. O.P.'s were established in the old German second line between Longueval and Bazentin, from which points very clear observation upon High Wood and the ground lying to right and left thereof could be obtained, although the ground, consisting as it did of open undulating downs, offered but few salient objects upon which to register; there were, however, one or two points—the corner of High Wood, the orchards north of Longueval and the mysterious iron gate standing on the sky line between High Wood and Delville Wood—which enabled every battery commander to divide his zone up into areas each containing at least one fairly clear reference point, while to the left of High Wood an odd bush or tree and an occasional view of Switch Trench served the same purpose.
It must not be supposed, however, that because there was no infantry assault the guns had little to do. From the 15th until the night of the 19th/20th every battery kept Switch Trench under continual fire, cutting wire, bombarding the trench itself and generally rendering that line of defence as difficult and as uninhabitable as possible to the enemy. By night Switch Trench and Martinpuich were kept under intermittent bursts of fire, and it is safe to say that at no moment between the dates given above were all four batteries of any one brigade silent. This was no trench fighting position; the enemy had been got on the move, he must be kept on the move, and to do this every battery was firing more ammunition in twenty-four hours than had been normally fired by a whole brigade in a week on its late front opposite to La Bassée. On the 17th C/156 (Captain Lomer) was forced to withdraw to Flatiron Copse, 800 yards south of Bazentin-le-Petit Wood, as part of High Wood was still in German hands, and the battery, being under direct observation, was not only subject to a galling fire but was in serious danger of being rushed by a counter-attack on the part of the enemy. B (Captain Russell) and D (Captain Studd) batteries of the same brigade stuck it out until the early morning of the 21st, and then, the operations of the 20th which we shall shortly describe being over, withdrew to south of Bazentin-le-Petit Wood and Flatiron Copse respectively. As A/156 (Captain Lutyens) had in the first place dropped into action at the northern end of the valley running from Caterpillar Wood to Bazentin, the result of this movement was that the whole of the 156th Brigade was now behind, that is south of, Bazentin-le-Grand Wood, and no longer in the exposed position north of the village which it had hitherto occupied.
It has already been stated that, from the O.P.'s in the old German second line, a very fair view of the ground to the right and left of High Wood could be obtained; this was indeed a fact, but with such skill had the Germans sited their main front line—the ill-omened Switch Trench—that it was exceedingly difficult to observe the actual effect upon it of the shelling to which it had been subjected, nor was the condition of the wire visible even through powerful field-glasses. Accordingly it was ordered that one officer per artillery brigade should advance from the outpost line of our infantry and make such examination of the German wire by daylight as was possible at close range. The opposing infantry were still in a condition of open fighting—sentry groups and outposts being the order of the day, with the main front line some distance behind them; shortly before dawn on July 19th, therefore, the officers in question crawled out from our sentry groups and, passing in some cases right through the line of German outposts, made an examination, as careful and thorough as the proximity of the enemy in broad daylight would permit, of the condition of the Switch Trench wire. The examination was not reassuring; in many cases the wire stood firm and untouched, and it was realised that further and strenuous efforts by the batteries would be essential that day if the coming attack was to have any chance of success. It is a regrettable duty to relate that one of the officers (Lieut. Elliott) who made this reconnaissance never returned; having passed beyond a German sentry group he was severely wounded, and, although his orderly dragged him into a shell-hole and left him in such shelter as it offered while he went for help to bring him back into our lines, his body was never again found. The whole of the day was, indeed, a bad one for the 33rd Divisional Artillery. Colonel A. H. S. Goff (166th Brigade) was wounded and evacuated; all the batteries were heavily shelled, in particular the batteries of 162nd Brigade which wilted beneath a storm of shrapnel during the entire day, while the headquarters of the same brigade received a three-hour bombardment of lachrymose gas shell, making the carrying on of the administration extremely difficult. None of this, however, was allowed to cause any interruption of the day's work, and by nightfall all batteries of the Division had received orders for the following day's assault upon High Wood, and had made the necessary preparations.
At 3.25 A.M. on Thursday, July 20th, the first infantry operation took place in this zone since the attack on the morning of the 15th. Following on a half-hour bombardment by the 33rd and 21st Divisional Artilleries (XV. Corps) which began at 2.55 A.M., the 19th infantry brigade advanced to the assault of High Wood. Two thousand rounds of 18-pdr. and 500 rounds of 4·5 in. howitzer ammunition per brigade were fired in support of the infantry, the target of the batteries being High Wood until "zero" hour (3.25 A.M.), when the batteries lifted to the northern or enemy edge of the wood, bombarding it for half an hour until 3.55 A.M. and then making the final lift to the far side of the wood. The assault was successful, the wood was carried, but during the whole day the infantry were subjected to the most intense and galling artillery fire by the enemy guns, light and heavy. All day long our batteries searched the roads and approaches from Flers, and the hollows north of the wood—anywhere whence an enemy counter-attack might develop—and, with the exception of one which was launched at 12.30 P.M. and beaten back by artillery and infantry combined, this fire was successful in keeping the enemy at bay.