The History of the 33rd Divisional Artillery, in the War, 1914-1918.

by John Victor Macartney-Filgate

Many and varied have been the reasons put forward for the breaking off of this attack. Some say that the advance of the enemy at Lombardzyde early in July put a check to our plans; some attribute it to the long spell of wet weather and to the non-success of the great attacks at Ypres on July 31st and August 16th, while many assert, not without truth, that the enemy obtained our entire operation orders for the battle and took counter-preparations accordingly. Undoubtedly an attack had been planned, and an attack on some entirely novel lines. The 1st Division had, for weeks past, been kept isolated from all other troops while it practised unusual offensive operations. Some of the batteries had received orders that on a certain date they were to embark on a certain ship at a certain port—all at present described in code—and the general belief was that an offensive by land was to be launched in conjunction with an attack somewhere near Ostend from the sea. Imagination, running riot, spread the report that large rafts were to be towed inshore on which there would be field-batteries firing as they floated in, while other rafts were to carry infantry and tanks. The whole idea sounded fantastic and a desperate adventure in view of the manner in which the Belgian coast bristled with enemy guns and submerged wire-entanglements; and, with the memory of Gallipoli fresh in the minds of all, it is surprising how any such operation could have been considered worth the gamble and the inevitable cost.

Whatever had been planned, however, nothing was carried out. The batteries were left to reorganise in their wagon-lines for two days—a period which the enemy utilised by bombarding with long-range high-velocity guns the horse-lines of both brigades, and especially those of the D.A.C. which suffered severe casualties—and on Saturday, September 1st, under sudden orders they marched out, battery by battery, on a three-day trek which brought them in glorious weather through Ghyvelde and Cassel to the back areas of the Ypres Salient. At Reninghelst and at Dickebusch their march terminated, and wagon-lines were there established while parties went up to the line to prepare positions for the guns to occupy. At last, after nearly two years' fighting, they were to experience the desolation and horror of the Salient, the deadliest portion of the whole line for gunners, and were to take part in the autumn battles for the Passchendaele Ridge; had they known it, few of the men who, early in September, marched up past Dickebusch and Shrapnel Corner to the battery positions beyond Zillebeke Lake were ever destined to return, while the majority of those who did came down on stretchers, the wreckage of modern war.

CHAPTER VIII.
THE AUTUMN BATTLES OF YPRES AND PASSCHENDAELE.
(SEPTEMBER—NOVEMBER 1917.)

In and around the Salient of Ypres there are to be found the graves of more gunners than in any portion of the line, and even those graves represent a mere particle only of the many thousands to whom Ypres brought death. That much discussed, much described and oft-portrayed area will never and can never be properly comprehended by any man who has not fought there, for, before the real meaning of the Salient can be understood, the picture of destruction which it offered must be accompanied by the realisation of the dread, the feeling of utter desolation and misery, the terrible haunting horror which seized all men as they stepped out through the Lille or Menin Gates with their faces set towards the east. No man, be he ever so brave, was without fear in that place, while the majority were in constant terror, a terror so rending, so utterly shattering that death came often as a merciful release. Yet of that fear no man need be ashamed; it was a terror entirely within and invisible, and to outward appearances there were no signs thereof; in the which there is not shame but honour.

The 33rd Divisional Artillery had yet to undergo these trials, but their beginning was not long delayed. On the night of September 5th/6th, twenty-four hours after the conclusion of the march, one section of each of the 18-pdr. batteries of the 156th Brigade went into action and relieved portions of the 11th, 12th and A/298 batteries; "A" and B/156 occupied positions south-west of Fosse Wood, C/156 lay north of Maple Copse, and on the two succeeding nights, one section at a time, the remainder of the batteries came up. The 162nd Brigade was not so rushed as it had no "opposite numbers" to relieve, but on the other hand the batteries had to prepare the positions they were to inhabit, and this, in view of the appalling state of the ground, was extremely difficult. To begin with, the finding of any patch of ground which guns could possibly reach, and from which they would be able to fire more than two or three rounds without sinking into the mud, proved an arduous task, while the work of preparing platforms and shelters on the positions, when chosen, involved not only great labour but a still greater patience.

ORDER OF BATTLE.

September—November 1917.

H.Q.R.A.
C.R.A.		Brigade Major.	Staff Captain.
Brig.-Gen. C. G. Stewart, C.M.G., D.S.O.		Major T. E. Durie, M.C.	Capt. W. E. Bownass, M.C.
156th Brigade.
Lieut.-Colonel B. A. B. Butler.
Adjutant: Capt. W. G. Sheeres
Capt. H. W. Smail.
"A" Battery.	"B" Battery.	"C" Battery.	"D" Battery.
Major H. McA. Richards, M.C.	Major M. A. Studd, M.C.	Major Barker, M.C.	Major W. A. T. Barstow, M.C. (wounded).
			Capt. W. G. Sheeres, M.C.
162nd Brigade.
Lieut.-Colonel E. J. Skinner, D.S.O.
Adjutant: Capt. R. H. Pavitt.
"A" Battery.	"B" Battery.	"C" Battery.	"D" Battery.
Major W. G. Pringle.	Major Walker, D.S.O. (gassed in September).	Major L. Hill, M.C.	Major W. P. Colfox, M.C. (wounded).
	Major H. C. Cory, M.C.		Major Beerbohm (killed).
			Major F. L. Lee.

The enemy, fully alive to the indications of a renewed offensive on our part, swept the whole of the battery positions with shell storms of increasing density, inflicting casualties amongst the working parties and wrecking the work they had done, so that at times it appeared as though nothing would be ready for the remaining guns of the division when they were ordered up into action. No sooner was one platform in a position prepared, with a few sandbags thrown up around it for the protection of the detachments, than a 5·9 in. shell would blow the whole thing to pieces, and the work had to be begun all over again. Day after day the working parties, reinforced by men from the D.A.C. and from the Trench Mortar batteries, toiled unceasingly not only at their own positions but at the two positions they had been ordered to prepare for the 23rd Divisional Artillery, for they saw, after a very few hours of the Salient, that without protection of some sort or other no detachment could possibly survive a single barrage.

At length, after eight days' work, some reward for the labours of the working parties showed itself, and it was well that this was so for now the remaining batteries were ordered to move up into action. On the night of the 13th/14th "A," "B" and C/162 took up the positions marked out for them, to be followed on the next night by D/162, and by the early morning of Saturday the 15th the whole of the Divisional Artillery was in action and registered on the zones to be covered.