Elements of Trench Warfare

by William H. Waldron

CHAPTER VII

Working Parties

The infantryman will always be called upon to construct the trench which he is to occupy. Each company is provided with portable tools, which the men carry, and each infantry regiment is provided with tools for the purpose. The digging tools consist of picks and shovels.

When it has been decided to locate fire trenches along a certain line officers will lay out the cutting lines and mark them with tape or otherwise. A company will be assigned for the construction of a definite section of the trench.

Let us work out the procedure, assuming that the work may go on unmolested by the enemy. Such, however, is not usually the case. The enemy will do anything in his power to prevent construction work. If, however, we are familiar with the details of the work and know how to go about it in an orderly and systematic manner under conditions of noninterference by the enemy, we will be able to carry out these details of organization and procedure under more or less trying conditions when the time comes.

Officers have established the trace of the trench and marked the cutting lines. It is the ordinary traversed type, 18 feet bays with traverses 5 feet wide and 5 feet deep, as shown in Plate 14.

The company is composed of, say twelve squads organized into three platoons of four squads each. Six bays of the trench have been assigned to the organization for construction. This gives a task to each platoon of two bays, including one complete traverse and a half traverse on each flank.

Tools have been issued to the first and third squads of each platoon, the front rank men carrying picks and the rear rank men shovels.

The company is marched in column of squads to the site of the trench, approaching it from the rear, and halted with the head of the column fifteen paces in rear of and opposite the right of the section assigned; that is, in rear of the first bay of the section. The second platoon is then conducted by the platoon commander and halted with its head opposite the third bay. The third platoon is in like manner conducted to the rear of the fifth bay. Each platoon commander then has the two rear squads of his platoon, conducted to a point behind the bay on his left, i. e., the second, fourth and sixth respectively. This allows two squads for the work in each bay, the leading squad furnishing the first relief and the rear squad the second.