Beneath Hill 60

by Will Davies

  Before the war, the Ulysses was a comfortable passenger ship of the Blue Funnel Line, but now 2200 men were crammed aboard and her cargo decks had been converted into sleeping quarters and mess decks. The men slung hammocks in rows from the roof, and at night their curved backs provided an unusual image, arcing into the darkness and offering the officer on duty a strange sight as he completed his nightly rounds. That and the sounds of sleep; the snoring and the music of the night of so many men, reminded Oliver Woodward of ‘an invisible choir’.6

  While the men swung in the blackness of the hold, the officers fared a little better. Second lieutenants – the lowest-ranked officers – were four to a cabin, lieutenants were three to a cabin and captains two. Those ranked major and above had a cabin to themselves. Officers also had access to the ship’s dining room, unlike the men, who sat at long mess tables.

  The days were filled with training, lectures and boredom. There were lessons in the care and maintenance of equipment, rifle cleaning and basic field tactics. Men exercised in the narrow confines of the deck or watched the flying fish launching themselves from passing waves. At night, the portholes were closed and the ship blacked out. Men had little to do but write up their diaries, play cards and two-up, and get to know their new battalion friends.

  As on all Australian troopships, the crossing of the Equator was a big day. From 2.30 pm on 12 April, the Ulysses’ crew and the officers devoted the afternoon to a fancy-dress King Neptune ceremony, and rough-and-tumble games for the men. As it was a dry ship, the fun was contained and the men soon slipped below for dinner and an early night.

  The first sight of land after leaving Australia was Cape Guardafui, on the northeasterly tip of Somalia. Then the ship made a tight turn to the left and headed into the Gulf of Aden. Passing French Somaliland and the port of Djibouti, the Ulysses went through the Strait of Babel Mandeb and entered the Red Sea, where it was met by three British warships, to the relief and pride of many of the crew. Travelling north past the island of Perim, on through the oppressive heat of the Gulf, the ship finally made landfall at the southern entrance of the Suez Canal, where they anchored to await orders.

  On 23 April, they entered the Suez Canal, which was protected by British soldiers and artillery. After passing through the Bitter Lakes, as night fell they came to a section of the defence line held by Australians. From the canal bank Australians yelled out, asking who they were and where they were heading. At one point, a voice from the dark bank asked, ‘Is Jim Binny on board?’ and soon Sergeant Binny was exchanging news with his brother.7

  Just before dawn, the Ulysses reached the northern end of the Suez Canal and dropped anchor at Port Said. Alongside was a hospital ship, painted white with a large green band along the hull and distinctive Red Crosses on the sides and deck. At night, the ship was illuminated by red, green and white lights creating, to Woodward’s eyes, a beautiful picture. During the day, the Australians watched as a 4.7-inch gun was mounted on the Ulysses and a naval gun crew taken aboard. This and the Italian cruiser that appeared as an escort focused the men’s minds on the increased danger of German submarines. Creeping into the darkness of the Mediterranean in a blacked-out ship, all were happy to accept the discomfort of continually wearing life jackets.

  Their journey was cut short when the Ulysses was deemed unsafe, despite being repaired in Perth. They were ordered into the Egyptian port of Alexandria, at the mouth of the Nile. The men of the various battalion reinforcements disembarked to join their battalions camped at Tel el Kebir, and the men of the mining battalions were transferred to HM Transport B.1., the Cunard liner Ansonia. Once on board they were told there would be no shore leave, which was unpopular news after they had been cramped on the Ulysses for more than three weeks. And being the men they were, 117 of them ignored the order and went over the side, setting off for town. But the provost marshal, the head of the British military police, was one step ahead of them. Not only were they rowdy, undisciplined Australians – and he knew their type well – they were miners. As the Australians walked from the ship towards the tram terminus, they passed along a straight stretch of wooded road. And what should come along conveniently but some empty trucks? The Australians flagged down the drivers, who invited them aboard to save them the walk. But they never made it to the tram terminus. The provost marshal had simply collected all 117 men. Instead of an evening in town, they spent an uncomfortable night under the guard of the local military police, who threatened to send them home to Australia. The men were pleased the next day to see an armed detachment from the ship arrive to escort them back, and despite having been tricked they gave the provost marshal a hearty farewell.

  The following morning, Oliver Woodward and his mates from the mining companies, along with British soldiers returning to England, left Alexandria and headed west. Once at sea, they were joined by a British destroyer, which established a zigzag course for the ship and at intervals would completely circle the ship at high speed to ward off submarines. Three days later, they began their slow entry into the Maltese port of Valletta, a dangerous exercise after the sinking of a British destroyer and two mine-clearing trawlers the day before. Mines had been laid by a rogue vessel flying the Greek flag, and 120 mines had been located by minesweepers and destroyed.

  That night, the men were allowed ashore to stretch their legs in the historic port. This tiny rock at the crossroads of the Mediterranean had seen many warriors arrive on its shores, from the Phoenicians, Romans and Saracens, to the Normans and Knights Hospitaller and, more recently, the armies of Napoleon and Nelson. The arrival of some Australian tunnellers was perhaps a non-event, but for many of the Australians it was their first experience ashore and a wondrous marvel to their colonial eyes.

  Their four hours’ shore leave gave them the chance to have a feed and knock back a carafe or two of the local vin rouge, something they had probably not previously experienced but would come to know well over the next few years. For dinner, most passed on the offer of Fenek Moqli, or fried rabbit, as they ate ‘underground mutton’ so regularly at home, but they did try the thick vegetable soup, the spaghetti and octopus, and the baked macaroni. Woodward, rostered as the officer in charge of the guard, viewed the city from the deck of the Ansonia and could enjoy only the smell of cooked garlic and freshly baked Maltese bread.

  The coast of France broke the horizon two days after leaving Malta. Running down the coast, they sighted the lights of Marseilles and by 8 pm had dropped anchor in the outer harbour. The next day, after berthing at the quay, the men packed up and prepared for disembarkation. It was just on dark as they bade farewell to their transport and marched up the long hill from the quay to the Paris Lyon Railway Station. Lining the footpath was a polyglot of faces reflecting the city’s long history. For the Australians these were strange faces: Corsicans and Armenians, Greeks and Italians, Spaniards and Berbers and people from North Africa. They wore strange clothes and spoke a mix of languages of uncertain origin.

  After climbing the long stairs to the station, the men found themselves confronted by a strange sight. A long trestle table was erected and a quartermaster sergeant was handing each man a sheepskin vest and two blankets as he passed along. At the end of the platform, groups of men had gathered and, dressed in the new vests made from the finest Australian merino, stood around bleating and laughing. The French railway staff were perplexed at the sound of so many soldiers baaing and must have wondered who had been sent from far across the world to fight their war.

  Amid the cacophony, Oliver Woodward stood and stared at the giant engine. The locomotive was the largest he’d ever seen, to say nothing of the long line of carriages and rolling stock that completely filled this equally long platform. At 11 pm the men boarded the train, made themselves comfortable and prepared for the journey. Half an hour later, steam blasting across the vacant platform, the train and the long trail of carriages slowly began to move forward.

  The dawn light revealed the beauty of the Rhone valley, ‘a pe
rfect natural garden’ as Oliver Woodward observed.8 A stop for breakfast at Orange and the train pushed on, skirting the Rhone River as it headed towards Valence and Lyon. Unlike the dry scrub and rough paddocks of Australia, here the land was heavily tilled with row upon row of crops, without fences to break the extended beauty. There were hedgerows, green with the fresh growth of spring, and line upon line of fruit trees resplendent with blossom. Scattered about were villages of red-tiled stone houses, their long, thin, shuttered windows and ornate doorways like nothing the men had seen before. Wisteria and climbing roses clung to the walls and pencil pines reached for the sky.

  Late in the afternoon, the train slowed and came to a stop at Lyon. The station was overrun by the French Red Cross Auxiliary, which scurried about serving the men sausage and bread. Little did the Australians know they were in the gastronomic heartland of France, sandwiched between the great wine-growing regions of Beaujolais and Côtes du Rhône. As hunger took over, they got stuck into their saucisson de Lyon and baguette.

  As the train sped north towards Paris and their destination, Hazebrouck, the reality of war began to sink in. Woodward wrote:

  The charm and glory of these peaceful surroundings would suddenly seem dispelled with the realisation that we were soldiers speeding forward for active warfare, the great unknown ahead of us. We seemed to envy the inhabitants of these peaceful villages, and then the realisation would come that they already knew the horrors of War – the fathers and sons already fighting for their country. We journeyed through a land seemingly occupied solely by old men, women and children.9

  The colonel believed that the fact they were on a train should not in any way disrupt the appropriate daily operation of a military unit. An orderly room was established, and orders were sent. These were yelled out of carriage windows, passing by word of mouth along the length of the train. In typical fashion, the men took great delight in adding to or altering these commands, as in Chinese whispers, so that confusion and chaos were the real order of the day. ‘It was a polite reminder that all hands wished to be left in peace,’ wrote Woodward.10

  The train passed south of Versailles. Through the flickering breaks in the trees that lined the track, the men could see the Eiffel Tower before they sped on: Rouen, Boulogne and Calais for breakfast. Then the train turned east. The sky was now heavy with cloud, and the rain, grey and cold, cast a monochrome wash across the countryside, so very different from the beauty and sunlight in the south.

  The paraphernalia of war began to appear. Near Paris they saw a military airfield with lines of aircraft. And now there seemed one endless military camp: tents, wagons, vehicles of all kinds, lines and lines of huts, horses, artillery and stores areas. At 11 am on 8 May 1916, Oliver Woodward and the rest of the Mining Battalion finally climbed down off the train, their legs stiff and their heads heavy and tired. After unloading their stores, the officers were allocated billets in town with French families, while the men were sent to a large military billet not far from the station. As Woodward settled down in another strange bed and tried to make himself comfortable on one of the odd sausage-shaped pillows so popular with the French, he could hear the far-off rumble of the guns from the front. He noted in his diary: ‘[I] began to realise that very soon we would receive our baptism of fire.’11

  Though the winter of 1915–1916 had slowed down offensive actions on the surface, the war underground had continued apace. From the high ground at Hill 60 and the Caterpillar, south through St Eloi and Wytschaete, to the end of the Messines Ridge, the struggle raged on, not only against the enemy but against the cold, rising water, the wet, flowing sand, and layers of pebble and clay. Tunnelling was never allowed to stop.

  Within just a year of Griffiths suggesting the formation of specialist tunnelling units, there were 27 tunnelling companies, comprising 20 from Britain, three from Australia, three from Canada and one from New Zealand. Each company was made up of roughly 1000 men. Twenty-thousand men represented a whole division: a lot of men to take out of the frontline, especially given their questionable contribution to the war effort, the vast quantities of material they required and the amount of rum they seemed to consume.

  Griffiths, under pressure for the tunnellers to perform, had another brainwave: mechanical boring machines were used in coalmines and in the clay below the streets of London, boring the underground railway. If such machines were put to work on the Western Front they could speed up tunnel construction and maybe even save lives. With his usual enthusiasm and passion, Griffiths approached General Harvey with the idea, suggesting that the army order six machines, have them fitted with the appropriate cutting blades for clay, and get them to the front as soon as possible. He was only able to convince Harvey to bring one machine, and headed to England to speed its dispatch.

  The Stanley Heading Machine, manufactured in Nuneaton, Warwickshire, was assembled underground at Petit Bois just west of Wytschaete, between Messines and St Eloi, and set to work on 4 March 1916. At first it worked wonderfully well, producing a tunnel two metres in diameter – considered large at the time – at a rate of one metre every two hours. Yet it tended to dive rather than move forward horizontally, and even the expert who had been brought from England to assemble and operate the machine could not control it. When it was stopped for service and routine maintenance after several hours, it was difficult to restart. By the time adjustments were made and the borer started up again, the pressure of the clay was such that the machine was wedged in the tunnel and could not move forward. General Harvey, to say nothing of the tunnellers, lost faith in the Stanley Heading Machine and, after travelling only 60 metres, it was abandoned. Today it still sits 25 metres below the surface, locked into the blue clay that claimed it in 1916.

  Griffiths had lobbied heavily for this machinery, staking his reputation on its potential. After this mishap, although he was still full of energy and enthusiasm, he was effectively sidelined. The tunnelling companies were now far more organised and professional than when he helped create them, and the new layers of command sadly did not include him. He requested two months’ leave for personal reasons and, after a final visit to the front, handed over his beloved and trusty Rolls-Royce to Harvey. On 30 March 1916, his work done, he took a steamer to England, never to return to the front again.

  Instead, Griffiths settled back into family life with his wife, Gwladys, and their four children. He resumed his duties as an MP and worked at the Ministry of Munitions until, on 4 November 1916, he was ordered to report to the Department of Military Intelligence. There he was assigned a secret mission that was akin to something out of a Boy’s Own Annual: to go to Romania and destroy the oilwells, oil, petroleum and grain stockpiles before they fell into the hands of the advancing Germans.

  With a number of expatriate Brits, Griffiths drained storage facilities of oil and petroleum, and either burnt them or drained them into holding tanks to permeate into the soil. He destroyed derricks; plugged wells with anything at hand; smashed lathes, electric motors and any tools with sledgehammers; and destroyed grain stocks.

  With the Germans often just hours behind him, he raced from one facility to the next. Many times, he had just left a burning, mangled oil facility as the Germans arrived; his car streaking away into the distance. The Germans were closing on him all the time. Twice their patrols cut him off and it was only through the speed of his car outdistancing the German cavalry that he escaped with his life.

  At Moreni, which held the most valuable oilwells, he became trapped in his own fire and, had it not been for the bravery and quick thinking of Captain Bibesco, a Romanian aristocrat and later the son-in-law of Prime Minister Asquith, Empire Jack would have been lost in the flames.

  It was estimated that Griffiths caused £55 million in damage at 1917 prices.1

  In late February 1917, Griffiths smuggled himself over the Russian frontier and took the train to Petrograd. There he found the revolution in full flight, demonstrations in the streets, food shortages and the army now j
oining the workers. Finding the British Embassy and reporting on his work, he was issued with a new passport and documents to see him safely across the border.

  But from Britain came Jack’s last orders: to meet the Tsar and report back to the British Foreign Office. Some days later, Griffiths was ushered into the presence of Nicholas II and was invested with the Order of St Vladimir, an honour to go with the Grand Star of Romania that he had received from King Ferdinand before his departure from Romania. This meeting was the final attempt by Nicholas to persuade his cousin, the King of England, to provide him and his family with asylum in Britain as the revolution swelled about the royal palace. It was only two weeks later, in mid-March 1917, that Nicholas abdicated. Empire Jack was probably the last person to be decorated by the Tsar.

  By Easter Griffiths had returned to his family, and to grateful thanks for his work. He was made Knight Commander of the Bath by the British, and the Légion d’Honneur by the French for his service and deeds. It was a fitting end to three years of war. His company, Griffiths and Co., remained in a holding pattern, carrying out small projects and military contracts to keep the business ticking over. In 1917, he added Norton to his name by deed poll, to become John Norton-Griffiths.

  After the war he formed the Comrades of the Great War Association, which later joined with similar organisations to form the Royal British Legion, the UK’s equivalent of the RSL. In 1922 he was made Baronet of Wonham. He remained a Member of Parliament until 1924.