The Ypres Salient is the abomination of desolation—one big graveyard. A peculiarly depressing place, nothing can describe it; it has to be felt. A complimentary letter was published from 2nd Division describing the Heavy Artillery’s work in the taking of Passchendaele as the “perfection of Heavy Artillery barrage.”
The Battery moved South again, and for the first time in eight months went into rest at Ham-en-Artois, arriving at that place on Dec. 15th. It seemed almost too good to be true. Jan. 11th found the Battery back in the line again at Petit Vimy. Then followed uneventful moves to Calonne (Feb. 3rd) and Maroc, where there were good cellars for the men.
About this time there was a change in Brigade Commanders. On the new one asking the former one which was the best Battery in the Brigade, the 9th was given a reputation it might well be proud of.
On Feb. 25th the Battery was back again at Petit Vimy position with one section in rear near Les Tilluels. Preparation for the expected Hun offensive was the order of the day. Successive defensive systems were prepared. Batteries were issued with Lewis Guns and were ordered to wire their positions. Many battery positions were prepared and camouflaged. It was hard work for the men who had heavy days and nights of firing to carry out at the same time. Again the Battery found itself the most advanced in the Brigade, and was always being called upon to fire on the most distant target in consequence. In case of a successful Hun attack the position would have been impossible to get out of with the steep Vimy Ridge immediately in rear and all the roads registered and under observation by day. It seemed that the role of the Battery, under such circumstances, was that of a sacrifice Battery. Gradually the infantry in front were drawn in until the line was held by little more than machine gun posts. The field guns took up positions behind and one woke up one night to the unusual sound of our own field artillery shells passing over our heads.
The G.O.C. paid the Battery a visit after a worse than usual “strafe,” but he found the men with their “tails up.” He said they were doing good work and that was why they were being kept in that position. Three distinct times was the B. C. confidentially warned that the attack was expected on the morrow and three times nothing unusual happened.
March 21st passed and the Huns’ great attack which was to last nine terrible days commenced. It was to the south of us, and not till the 28th did it reach our neighborhood. But Arras remained firm, and there was no advance worth speaking about on our front. At 3 a.m. the enemy started shelling the Battery with gas. He attacked persistently with heavy gun fire till 12 noon and again in the afternoon. At night every half hour he put down bursts of harassing fire and concentrations, but the fire of the Battery was kept up in spite of it and gas. The next day the enemy continued his tactics; not a half hour but Battery, billets, roads and railway received his attention. Two of the signallers (Dickey and West) did noble work in repairing our telephone line, nearly a mile, through a regular barrage of high explosive and gas, their job being made more difficult by some defensive wire entanglements which had been recently placed over our line.
Now succeeded several months when the enemy’s chief energies were directed to other parts of the Front, and the British Army was recovering from its wounds, filling up its ranks and organizing for the coming glorious advance which was to end the war. During these months the Battery had positions at Souchez and Lievin, neither of these being pleasant spots, but where life was more or less normal; that is, daily and nightly tasks of firing, sometimes counter battery shoots, sometimes destructive shoots, or harassing fire, to all of which the Hun replied in kind. At Lievin he gave us two bad gas bombardments, but the results, had he known them, would have been bitterly disappointing to him, to such an extent had we been educated by this time in anti-gas measures. At Villers Cagnicourt Chère was some heavy firing and obstinate fighting before the enemy was driven across the Canal du Nord. At Barelle Wood the Battery was a day, and at Sauchy Lestree, during the fight for Cambrai, which was very severe, several days were spent. At this place the Huns’ night bombers were very active.
But it was now moving warfare in earnest. Blecourt and Batigny were hot places for a day or two. At Marquette and Escaydain a night only was spent in each. Wavrechain-sous-Denain was easy. At Herin the Battery took part in the very fine artillery preparation for the taking of Valenciennes, and at St. Saulve on Nov. 4th it had its last casualty of one man killed.
During all this moving warfare, conditions were a great contrast to the previous trench warfare. Guns sometimes took up positions in fields almost untouched by shell-fire. The laborious gun pit was nearly unknown. The woods and trees were no longer shot to pieces, and occasionally one walked into billets to find cut flowers still fresh on the window sill, or table, left there by the retiring Hun the day before or by its civil occupants who had been forced to leave with him.