The most important feature of this long tour was the appearance of American troops. The 30th Division of the American Expeditionary Force had been attached to the 49th and 33rd Divisions for instruction. This division was recruited entirely from North and South Carolina and Tennessee. Some of its companies boasted continuity from units of the Confederate Army in the American Civil War, and many of the officers and men were descendants of those who had fought under Lee and Jackson; indeed, the Intelligence Officer of one of the regiments of this division was a grandson of General Robert E. Lee. Physically the men were very fine, and the standard of education among them was very high. They were mostly recruited from agricultural districts, and were magnificent rifle shots. During the tour many officers and other ranks—or, as they are called in the American Army, “enlisted men”—were attached to the Battalion for instruction in trench duties. They proved themselves very keen to learn, and the Battalion got on well with them.
On July 15th the Battalion went back for its second period of rest at Siege Camp. After eight days it went into brigade reserve to the Right Sector. But the same night, before the relief was carried out, the men were engaged in an operation of, to them, an entirely new type. This operation was always known as Scheme B. It was a cloud gas discharge, and was to be carried out as follows:—
1. Nine light railway trains, each consisting of seven trucks, all loaded with gas cylinders, were to be brought up to Austral Dump by light engines. Here they were to be taken over by the Battalion, six men to a truck, and pushed out into No Man’s Land in front of White Chateau, along an old light railway which ran there.
2. The men were then to withdraw into the support line, and the gas from all the cylinders was to be discharged simultaneously by a system of detonators, exploded electrically.
3. When sufficient time had been allowed for the gas to clear, the men were to go out again and push the trucks back to Austral Dump, where they would be taken charge of by the light railway men again.
The Battalion’s part in the operation sounded simple, but it was to prove far otherwise.
On the night of July 23/24th the Battalion was brought up by light railway trains to near Ypres, and marched from there to Austral Dump. The first part of the operation went off smoothly. Apart from one burst of enemy machine gun fire, which wounded two men at Austral Dump, nothing exciting happened. The trains were pushed into position in No Man’s Land without great difficulty, and the men withdrew according to plan. The gas was liberated and a dense white cloud floated slowly across No Man’s Land. The enemy made no sign. Fifteen minutes after the discharge, the men went out again to remove the trucks. Then the trouble began. The trucks should have been much lighter after the discharge, but they were undoubtedly much harder to push. The air was thick with the gas, but so hard was the work that respirators could not be worn properly, and most men simply had the nose-clip and mouth piece adjusted. The oil of the wheels was clogged by the gas, the ground was slippery from the recent rains and afforded little foothold, and there was not sufficient room to move properly between the railway line and the barbed wire fences beside it. The first part of the way was up an incline, and trucks were continually derailed. To get these latter on to the lines again, the cylinders had to be unloaded, and then replaced. It was found impossible to move whole trains, and trucks had to be uncoupled, and pushed in twos and threes. Even then they could only be moved by officers and N.C.O’s shouting to the men to “heave,” as in a tug-of-war. It was almost daylight before the last trucks crossed the British front line. Every man was thoroughly exhausted, and many were suffering more or less from the effects of the gas. It had been a terribly anxious time for the Commanding Officer, who had himself been working as hard as anyone.
Strange to say, through it all the enemy remained completely inactive. The moon was very bright, and the noise must have been audible several hundreds of yards away. Yet, not a shot was fired; not a shell burst anywhere near. Could the gas have had so deadly an effect? Little was ever heard of the result of the operation. Patrols reported many dead rats in No Man’s Land. Later, prisoners from the 6th Cavalry Division, which relieved the 1st Landwehr Division, spoke vaguely of the latter having been withdrawn owing to the use of a new gas by the British. But nothing more definite was ever learned by the Battalion.
After nine days in Brigade Reserve, the Battalion again took over the Zillebeke Sector, this time relieving the 2nd Battalion, 118th Regiment of the 30th American Division. This Division was now undergoing the last stage of its instruction, and during the whole tour the Battalion had an American company in the line with it. Each company came in for three days, the system of instruction being as follows:—
1st Day: Every American officer and other rank was attached to his British “opposite number,” went with him everywhere, and shared all his duties.