We all knew that we were going to the Somme to take part in that big show and we were very anxious to get down upon them. The First Division had gone down a little ahead of us, but we were going to show them that the 25th could play its part as well as any of the Battalions and we did so.
We stayed a while here in training and then we started on our journey. We would march about fifteen miles each day and would camp or bivouac for the night. Before turning in to sleep we would have a sing-song, all the men being in the best of spirits for at last we knew we were going to have a real scrap with the Hun, and although we had been in France twelve months, we had always been on the defensive and that is always the hardest kind of fighting. As we had quite a lot of old scores to pay off, we were just eager to get at the foe. After a long march we finally arrived at the brickfield in Albert, and there we saw for our first time the brass statute on the Church of Albert which was hanging head down. You would think that it would fall at any moment, but it was well secured so that the person who made the prophecy that when the statute on the church at Albert fell, the war would end, must have known that the war would last a long time.
Well here we were. Thousands of troops ready for a big attack. One day we saw some queer looking objects coming along the road. We were all wondering what sort of war machines they were. There were all sorts of rumors as to what they were and what they could do. We did not find out what they were until the 15th of September and then we knew that they were the much-talked of "tanks." Fritz also found that out—much to his loss. We did several working parties here, going up through Contalmaison, Pozieres and other villages. We should not have known that they had been villages only that there were signs there to inform us to that effect.
Anybody who has seen the German trenches here, and the deep dugouts and steep ridges which the British troops had to swarm over could scarcely believe it possible to take any of their positions; but we had a leader in General Haig and he knew what he was doing. The Artillery pounded the Hun with such vigor that if any were left they were properly demoralized, and then the infantry went over and caught the Germans down in their dugouts. By the night of Sept. 14th we were ready to launch our attack. The great Somme fight was on!
Chapter Seven[ToC]
n the way up to the trenches and on seeing the guns, practically speaking, wheel to wheel, we thought it would be impossible to use more artillery at one time. But I know we have four or five times the number of heavy guns in use on the western front now than we had on the Somme, and that is one of the reasons that the morale of the men in the western area is so good.