The history of the Twentieth (Light) Division

by Valentine Erskine Inglefield

On the 9th of December units began moving forward again to relieve the 29th Division in the left sector of the XIVth Corps front. On the 12th Major-General Douglas Smith took over this sector, with headquarters near the Briqueterie south-east of Montauban. The front line ran in a curve on the south and south-west of Le Transloy and from 2000 to 1400 yards distant from the town. It was held by two groups of six battalions each, the right group consisting of the 61st Brigade with the 10th K.R.R.C. and the 10th R.B., the left group of the 60th Brigade with the 11th K.R.R.C. and the 11th R.B. At the same time the C.R.A. took command of the artillery covering the Division. The 91st and 92nd Field Artillery Brigades remained at the Citadel and at Corbie till the 14th, when they both moved to Morlancourt, so that the only brigade of the 20th Divisional Artillery under Brig.-General Browell’s orders was the 93rd.

The fortnight that followed was comparatively uneventful. On the 13th four prisoners were captured by the 7th Somerset L.I.; on the 14th the right group was heavily shelled, and an attempt of the enemy to leave his trenches was stopped by the artillery, which carried out a very successful shoot on the following day. It was, however, one of the most disagreeable times that the Division ever spent in the line. The weather was cold and wet; rain and snow turned the ground into bog which swallowed up all signs of roads and tracks. The only communication trench to the front line was impassable, so that rations and material were got up to the trenches with the greatest difficulty. At first it took as long as nine hours to complete one of the reliefs, and one stretcher party took seven and a half hours to get from company to battalion headquarters. The trenches were very bad and kept falling in, especially in the first few days spent in this sector, and frequently men had to be dug out of the mud. The 11th D.L.I., composed chiefly of miners, and well known for their good work under the worst conditions, improved matters so that before the Division was relieved communication trenches could be used up to a certain distance. The conditions were so trying that after a week the period which a battalion spent in the front line was reduced from three days to two.

On Christmas Day the Division was relieved by the 17th and went back to Corbie. Divisional Artillery Headquarters moved to Morlancourt, where the 91st and 92nd Brigades were resting, leaving the 93rd in action until the 28th, when the 91st relieved it.

About this time the 93rd Brigade became one of the (Army) Field Artillery Brigades which were then being formed, and No. 3 Section of the Divisional Ammunition Column consequently became the 93rd Brigade Ammunition Column. D/93 was split up, one section going to each of the other howitzer batteries. The 93rd Brigade remained for some time longer in the XIVth Corps, but ceased to belong to the 20th Divisional Artillery, which henceforth consisted of only the 91st and 92nd Brigades.

By the 4th of January 1917 the Division had taken over from the Guards a line running from south of Saillisel to north of Sailly-Saillisel. Half of the former village and the whole of the latter were in our hands. For the first week this was the right sector of the XIVth Corps front, but after a readjustment on the 10th it became the centre sector, with the 17th Division on the left and the Guards on the right.

The 91st Field Artillery Brigade was in the line. The 92nd came in on the 10th, when Brig.-General Browell took command of the artillery covering this sector, and consisting of the 20th and 29th Divisional Artilleries, two batteries of R.H.A., and a Heavy Artillery Group.

Little occurred to mark the month spent in this sector. The front covered by the XIVth Corps, however, was most important, and the Sailly-Saillisel sector was the key of the position. The ridge along which the front trenches ran not only flanked the enemy’s position at Le Transloy, but also commanded all the approaches from Combles to the front line system. The valleys on the north and east of the ridge, as well as the large wood of St Pierre Vaast, gave the enemy covered approaches in which he might collect his troops in order to assault our line.

The front was held in two brigade groups, the 61st Brigade with the 10th K.R.R.C. and the 10th R.B. on the right; the 60th Brigade with the 11th K.R.R.C. and 11th R.B. on the left. Divisional Headquarters was at Arrow Head Copse. The front line trenches consisted of a series of isolated posts, in some cases within 30 feet of the enemy, but they were much better than the trenches in front of Le Transloy; nearly every man had a shelter of some sort, and the number of sick was very small.

Early in January a long list of New Year’s honours for the Division was published, headed by Major-General Douglas Smith, who was promoted to the substantive rank of Major-General. On the 6th, Lieut-Colonel Maddocks, G.S.O.I., with several others who lived in the deep tunnel dug-outs at Divisional Headquarters taken over from the French, was suddenly taken ill with a severe form of influenza and invalided to a base hospital. He was succeeded on the 10th by Lieut.-Colonel J. M’D. Haskard, D.S.O., Royal Dublin Fusiliers.

In the early morning of the 17th, during a heavy bombardment, a small party of the enemy advanced towards a post held by the D.C.L.I., at that time the right battalion of the right brigade group. A bomb falling into the post killed one man and wounded eight others, but the garrison of the neighbouring post by bombing and the fire of Lewis guns forced the enemy to retire in great disorder, leaving a number of dead and wounded on the ground.