Beneath Hill 60

by Will Davies

  On 1 November 1918, Woodward’s section was attached to the Royal Engineers of the British 1st Division. Their task was to build a bridge at a lock on the Canal de la Sambre à l’Oise in three days’ time. And this was no ordinary bridge. It had to be strong enough to support a 34-tonne Mark V tank … and it had to be constructed under enemy fire.

  The original bridge, which had crossed the canal 50 metres from the lock, had been destroyed by the retreating Germans. Now the only place to cross was at the narrow lock wall, whose gates were jammed slightly open. They had fortified and set up two machine guns in the boiler house near the lock gates and were also manning the adjacent pump house and the lock-keeper’s house. The plan was for the British infantry – the 2nd Battalion, King’s Royal Rifles on the right and the 2nd Royal Sussex Regiment on the left – to storm across at the partially opened lock gates, take the fortified boiler house and eliminate any resistance. They were then to form a perimeter on the German side of the canal to allow the bridging detail to do their work.

  The Australian Infantry Divisions had long gone from the front. Germany and its allies had been collapsing for a couple of months. The papers were full of the news that they were seeking peace treaties. The German Navy in Kiel had mutinied, and some elements of the army were in open revolt. In Berlin there were food riots, widespread acts of civil disobedience and people openly burnt pictures of the Kaiser. With the end of the war so close, it was not a time to risk one’s life building a bridge.

  The task of leading the construction of the bridge had fallen to Oliver Woodward because, 18 months before, he had attended a bridge-building course at Aire, a canal port to the west of Lille. It had been realised that as the Allied armies pushed towards Germany, the enemy would destroy the bridges as they retreated, so bridge building became an important function of the engineers. The bridges needed to be pre-fabricated, and simple and quick to assemble, but they also had to be able to take heavy loads, especially the tanks that were now an important part of the Allied armies.1 Towards the end of the course, he was given a practical test of rebuilding Bridge No. 2 over the Haute Deûle Canal. He, along with another officer, had three days to complete the plans and schedule to the most minute detail to undertake this work, something that prepared him well for the task ahead.

  Woodward blamed his bad luck at being given this job on his knowledge of bridge building. But he blamed the need to erect the bridge under fire on the Americans. According to his diary, the Americans had failed to press home an attack there. They had not driven the Germans from the bank, and this had allowed them to dig in and fortify their side of the canal. As a result, crossing had become dangerous for the Allies. Though proud to be working with such a famous and celebrated British division, Woodward knew he and the men were in for a perilous time.

  Woodward was briefed by the Royal Engineers on the afternoon of 2 November. At 6 pm, as rain poured down, he visited the Tank Corps depot at St Benin to measure the width of the tanks and their tracks and to check on their weight to make sure the bridge could support it. From here he went to check that the necessary bridging material was available, and it was not until 10.30 pm that he returned to camp exhausted.

  He woke the next day in the dark, shivering, his feet frozen, the flimsy, flapping tent offering no warmth. The weather was cold and overcast, the rain close to freezing, the ground muddy and soft. And the next two days offered grim prospects and dangerous possibilities. He left camp at 7 am and inspected the work of his carpenters, who were preparing the bridge’s decking. Satisfied with this, he moved on to examine the steel fabrication and the welding that had been done overnight.

  Woodward had heard of cases where a man had a premonition of his own death before a battle, asked a mate to send his last letter and personal effects home and then lost his life in the engagement. And as the men assembled to leave camp for the canal, he was approached by Corporal Albert Davey, who asked if he would post his personal belongings to his wife at home should anything happen to him. Woodward considered Davey, a 33-year-old married miner from Ballarat West who had been with the company since early 1917, one of his best non-commissioned officers. Davey said he’d had a premonition that this was to be his last action, that he would be killed.

  Woodward was himself concerned about what might lie ahead. ‘I frankly admit I was more disturbed by this turn of the tide than at any stage in my War Service,’ he wrote. ‘The query which kept coming before one’s mind was, “Shall I be fated to come through safely?”’ Yet he tried to lift Corporal Davey’s spirits, assuring him he would be fine. The corporal persisted, saying to Woodward, ‘Captain, nothing you can say will remove the conviction that I will be killed. Will you please do me the favour I ask?’2 Woodward replied that he would and took the man’s possessions for safekeeping.

  Woodward went over the construction details with the CO of the Royal Engineers, and after a final briefing the tunnellers and the infantry set out for the lock. They headed north and reached Mazinghein just on dusk. Leaving their motorised transport, the men marched southeast to the small village of Rejet-de-Beaulieu. The road was swept with enemy artillery fire and a number of English infantry were wounded. Before Rejet-de-Beaulieu, Woodward took a side road, skirted the village and led his men to a point about a kilometre from the lock, arriving at 8 pm.

  On schedule, the steelwork pre-fabricated in the Engineers’ workshops arrived soon after by heavy horse-drawn wagons. They too had come through the shelling of the road and, with the horses skittish and edgy, the drivers were keen to unload and get out of the firing line. An enormous and daunting pile gradually rose: five tonnes of steelwork and girders, six metres in length. Also arriving on the wagons was the sawn timber that made up the bridge decking.

  A cold drizzle set in. The rain was the last thing the men needed. Their hands were numb and the water trickled down their backs and filled their boots as they contemplated their task: to move this pile of steel and timber to a staging post 300 metres from the German fortified boiler house. The night had come down pitch black as they laid their cold fingers upon the freezing steel. One efficient lift and the first 360-kilogram steel girder was balanced on the shoulders of ten men. They stepped forward gingerly, feeling with their feet for rough ground. They knew that just before they arrived, the narrow dirt lane they had to walk along had been shelled; it was smashed and cratered.

  Slowly they stepped forward into the unknown, slowly they tested the ground with their feet before planting their weight. Should one man fall or unbalance the others, the heavy iron girder could fall and crush them. Even if a shell burst close by, they must not lose their balance. On they went. A shell exploded 50 metres ahead and shards from the explosion whizzed over their heads and disappeared into the distance. Then a machine gun opened, a stream of tracer searching out attackers somewhere out in the darkness off to the right. As one team of men moved off, the next stepped forward, hoisted a girder and set off.

  Slowly they edged forward. The road was dotted with potholes filled with water and loose, churned-up soil, creating a sticky, slippery mud. The weight of the girders bit into their shoulders, their collarbones ached and their fingers froze to the icy steel. A slow step, a re-balance, a glance up at the dim horizon, and then heads down as the cold rain beat into their faces. Somewhere ahead were the Royal Engineers who had moved off earlier to build a narrow footbridge across the lock. The Australians envied their task. It was more dangerous, because they had to build the footbridge under fire before the British infantry went in – but they were carrying only a light timber bridge, in handy, easily managed bundles.

  Exhausted, the men finally made their assembly point, a sunken road that ran parallel to the canal. They put down their loads, rubbed their sore and aching shoulders, and prepared to lie down and wait until it was time to move forward to the lock. But Woodward was apprehensive. Sunken roads were known assembly points, making them favoured artillery targets. It was time to leave. Neither his officers nor his men
had the strength or the inclination to move, but when he quietly explained their predicament, they dragged themselves to their feet. They respected his authority and experience.

  Woodward led the men out into an open field a couple of hundred metres from the sunken road and selected a position for them to lie up until the Germans had been taken out by the British infantry. Quietly they dug themselves shallow trenches or crawled into shell craters – and watched as shellfire hit the sunken road where they had been assembled. The following day when they returned along the sunken road, they would find the ground strewn with the bodies of dead English troops who had been caught in the German bombardment just minutes after they had left.

  As the rain came down, the men settled into their shallow trenches and muddy shell scrapes – small dish-shaped holes scraped into the earth, each big enough to give one man some shelter from exploding shells – and tried to sleep. As a thick mist came in from the canal, the men shivered. Their clothes saturated, some lay in the mud shaking, as a kilometre away across the canal a German field gun began a slow traverse. Its crew fumbled with a cold shell, slid it into the breech and pulled the firing cord. The shell arced across the canal and crashed to earth among Woodward’s men. Earth and mud flew up, and the rank smell of cordite filled the misty air. A low moan came from the smoking earth as two wounded men rolled around in agony. Nearby lay the prone and lifeless body of Corporal Davey, his destiny fulfilled.

  ‘This incident left me somewhat dazed … In temperament Corporal Davey was of the calm type, he was a soldier who was as fearless as any soldier can truly be in War, had never failed in carrying out his duties in a most efficient manner and inspired the confidence of his men,’ wrote Woodward. He believed it was not fear or panic that caused Davey to approach him before they left camp and ask that his personal belongings be sent to his wife. ‘He knew his call was coming.’3

  At 4 am the German guns fell silent. The mist shifted, swirled and broke up, showing the tunnellers spread out among the shell holes and their shallow trenches. Woodward did a quick count of his men then called for stretcher-bearers to take the wounded to the temporary Casualty Clearing Station situated near the village.

  At zero hour, 5.45 am, a British-artillery, machine-gun and Stokes-mortar barrage crashed onto the German side of the canal. The sound of incoming shells could be heard, fired from beyond Rejet-de-Beaulieu. Ahead of Woodward’s prone men, four British 18-pounders fired directly at the three buildings occupied by the Germans across the lock. Soon, the German artillery opened fire. The shells were concentrated on the sunken road and the advancing British infantry, but again some landed in the open field among Woodward’s men.

  The British engineers edged towards the tree line just 30 metres from the lock and lay there waiting for their orders to storm the boiler house. Bent low, Woodward and Sergeant Hutchinson crept forward, and arrived just in time to see Major Findlay lead his men from the 409th Field Company across the lock. As the British barrage lifted, the men raced from the cover of the trees, over the exposed grassy verge and across the partially opened lock gates. The German machine gun located in the boiler house barked and bullets whistled off the concrete and steel, sparks flying. The men followed Findlay, who crossed the canal first, hurling bombs at the boiler house as he went. The German gun fell silent but the ground was strewn with English dead and wounded. For this action Major George Findlay, MC and bar, was awarded the Victoria Cross.

  By 7.30 am, it was considered safe enough for the Australians to begin their bridging of the canal. Although the German machine guns had been silenced, intense artillery fire was landing on both sides of the canal and the narrow dirt road that materials still needed to be brought up. The Germans knew that the Allied bridging operation was under way. Through this bombardment came Lieutenants Sawyer and Thomson leading the tunnellers, who manhandled the long, heavy bridge sections up to the side of the lock.

  Hutchinson and Woodward raced across the exposed grassy verge and leapt across the canal gates. They quickly prised off the coping stones inlaid along the top edge of the canal and squared off the rough angles. This would allow a snug fit when the first girder was dropped into place. As it was being eased across the gap, suddenly a small-calibre shell fell among the men, sending three spinning backwards wounded. Then the second girder was ready and this was quickly slid into place, a task now much easier with the first one in position. The Germans had lifted their bombardment so that their shells were falling 100 metres forward, where the British infantry were moving out into the open fields.

  Across the two laid girders, the men could attach the cross members and then lay down the timber planking. In just two-and-a-half hours, the bridge was ready and the first tanks began crossing the lock. It was an amazing feat. Sadly, five Australians had been killed and another five wounded, just a week before the end of the war.

  At 11 am, Major Findlay ordered the Australians to return to the village and rest. With them went the bodies of their dead mates, back along the muddy, narrow lane and back past the shattered infantry bodies in the sunken road. With them went the padre of the Royal Engineers who conducted a burial service for the Australians. Their bodies were laid to rest in the village cemetery at Rejet-de-Beaulieu. The tunnellers bowed their heads and said a last goodbye to five brave mates who had survived so long and contributed so much and were now in the cold earth, lost to their families back home.

  The men, tired from a strenuous and dangerous night and morning, marched back to Mazinghein, where they rested until a convoy of trucks arrived to take them back to camp. Woodward reflected in his diary:

  As we lay in that grassy field on a bright sunny day, there was an atmosphere of sadness, more pronounced than usual. I feel that this was entirely due to the fixed belief that we had taken part in the last staged battle of the War, and this thought carried our minds to our comrades who, as it were, had just been given one glimpse of the long expected Armistice, only to lose their lives before it materialised. It was a matter of a few hours, but it was not to be.4

  The men received accolades from their commanders. General E. P. Strickland, the commander of the First Division, in the Special Order of the Day praised their ‘cool gallantry’, and the commanding officer of the 1st Australian Tunnelling Company, Major E. S. Anderson, commended their ‘very gallant conduct’. He went on to say: ‘The Section, under the command of Captain Woodward, displayed such great courage, devotion to duty, and disregard to personal risk.’5

  Woodward was praised for his ‘complete disregard of personal danger’ and ‘great gallantry’ by Colonel C. E. Sankey, the commanding officer of the Royal Engineers, First Division. Sir Douglas Haig’s Dispatch of 8 November 1918 noted his ‘gallant and distinguished service in the field’. And at a ceremony in Australia in 1920, HRH The Prince of Wales would award him a second bar to his Military Cross, for his ‘conspicuous gallantry and devotion to duty’.6 It was one of only four second bars awarded to Australians during the Great War.7

  Lieutenants Thomson and Sawyer were each awarded a Military Cross for the operation, while Sergeant Hutchinson received the Distinguished Conduct Medal.

  This was the last action fought by Oliver Woodward’s tunnellers and the last action fought by Australians in the Great War. Just one week later, on 11 November, the guns fell silent, an Armistice was signed and the killing stopped.

  Early on the morning of the 11th, a fine and clear day, the Tunnelling Company were called to parade. With deep emotion, his voice breaking, the commanding officer announced that at 11 am hostilities would cease. Germany, he said, had signed an unconditional surrender. The Germans were to withdraw within 14 days from all captured territory and within a further 16 days to ten kilometres beyond the Rhine into Germany. All Allied prisoners of war were to be returned, but German POWs in Allied hands would remain in captivity to prevent them reforming a fighting force. Germany was also required to hand over the majority of its weapons, fighter aircraft and naval vessels, and trans
portation.

  He thanked the men for their contribution, but added that there was still work to be done before they could all go home. Woodward recalled: ‘The outward manifestation of joy which could be expected on such a memorable occasion was absent. We were as men who had completed a task which was abhorrent to us. The occasion called for thanksgiving.’8 Around the world, people crowded the streets to cheer and celebrate, sang patriotic songs and gave thanks. Oliver Woodward and his section, like many men still on the front, reacted very differently. They had signed up for the period of the war plus four months. For them, the stage was still set for war. ‘This probably accounts for the difference in reaction between men in the Front Line areas and those in the Cities and Towns of our Empire,’ Woodward wrote. ‘Instead, officers and men moved quietly about from one group to another giving and receiving a handshake among comrades. It was an occasion too great for words.’9 Many quietly said a prayer of thanks for their delivery from this awful war, and their minds now turned to their families and their loved ones so far away back in Australia.

  Oliver Woodward’s men had special skills, not the least being an understanding of explosives and a knowledge of German delayed mines and booby traps. So it was that over the next two months they travelled all over northeastern France and the eastern border regions of Belgium removing mines. They were attached to the 9th British Corps and proceeded with the advanced guard of the 1st Brigade of the 1st Division. It was seen as a great privilege to be attached to such an old and honourable regiment.

  The Germans provided maps on which the positions of the mines were marked, and full particulars about how their mines worked. Most were fired conventionally with an electric detonator and were easily disposed of, because they were not likely to fire without an electrical current. A small percentage was set off by delayed-action fuses, and disposing of them was highly dangerous. To set these mines, the Germans would dig a two-metre shaft and into this place heavy-calibre shells. To one shell they would fit a special nose cap that held a small container of acid through which passed a wire. The acid would eat away the wire, and this would cause the release of a percussion spring that would fire the detonator and explode the mine. By varying the thickness of the wire, they could crudely time the length of the delay. To render the mine harmless the nose cap had to be removed, and this was dangerous work, as the mine could explode at any time. ‘In carrying out this work, I honestly believe we were more nervous than any time in the war,’ Woodward revealed.1