Each will be assigned to certain specific duties which will be explained later. When practicable, especially if he has a number of new men, he will personally take them out in front on little scouting and patrolling expeditions for several nights so as to accustom them to the difficult task of moving about in the open without being detected. During this process, he will probably have to weed out some and replace them with others who are better fitted for this kind of work.
All that now remains is to await favorable weather. The best of all conditions is a cold, driving rain. However, he may have to make the attempt regardless of weather, especially if his tour of duty is drawing to a close and he is under instructions to do the job before leaving the lines. In any case, the date is set and he gets his gang together about dark for final instructions and inspection. He carefully goes over the uniform and equipment of each man. No bit of metal must show that would give out a flash of light under the glare of a star shell. Faces and hands are to be blackened or rubbed with mud. (At one time we were issued masks for this work). Supposing he has twelve men, two of them have been selected as wire cutters and they go out about an hour ahead of the others to cut a lane through the enemy wire at the designated spot, and to remain there throughout the whole maneuver to direct the others when they return. Sometimes they will hang a strip of white tape along the side of a lane, but this is seldom done excepting in the case of large raids.
The remaining ten men have been divided into two groups of three each and one of four. All hands are armed with hand grenades, bayonets and, when available, with pistols. Each group has a designated leader – N.C.O. or private.
Someone suddenly discovers that there are thirteen in the party, and the Lieutenant, with a sigh of resignation, turns to the nearest soldier in the trench and directs him to accompany them to the outside of our wire and to remain there until the party returns. This important matter attended to, he looks at his watch and decides that the wire cutters have had time to do their work, then leads the group over the parapet and out through the previously prepared lanes in our own wire.
The officer leading, they move slowly across the narrow bit of no-man’s-land which lies between the opposing strips of barbed-wire entanglements. Astar-shell (Very light) goes up and all hands stop and remain like statues until the light dies. A sudden sound, off to the left, and again they stop; then obeying the signal of the leader, drop quietly to the ground. The lieutenant thinks fast, “what was it?” Ah! another flare is fired, away up the line and against the lighted background he can see the figures of several men – Germans of course – a patrol. “Now the question is, which way are they going? If they come this way, they are liable to run into us. Also, they are pretty apt to see the gap in their wire. Well, all we can do is lie doggo and find out. If they want, a scrap, we can surely lick them but would probably lose a man or two and we don’t want that tonight.”
After an interval which must have seemed ages to the new men, but which was probably not more than two or three minutes, sounds were heard indicating the approach of the patrol. The officer quietly drew his pistol and all the others held grenades, ready to pull the pins and throw when ordered. Slowly and cautiously the enemy party approached, their movements only betrayed by an occasional rasping sound, as one encountered a bit of old wire or other debris, or the suck of a boot being pulled out of the mud. Lord, will they never get here? The suspense of awaiting such an encounter soon wears men’s nerves to a frazzle – even old heads at the game, too. One’s heart pounds away so loudly that it seems that they will surely hear it.
This contingency had been anticipated and every man knew just what to do. Time after time, in a secluded spot behind their own parapet, they had gone over every movement. Signals were passed by a mere touch of the hand or a wiggle of the foot and anxiously they awaited some sign from the leader.
The whispering noises came nearer and nearer. “Are they going to bump right into us, or will they pass?” The matter was soon settled (even if it did seem like hours). The sounds gradually diminished and were now coming from the right. They had passed, probably within fifteen feet and gone on their way – which, as we knew from former observation, would take them to a point a safe distance further along the line.
After a short wait, the raiding party again moved forward and soon came to the point where the wire cutters had been instructed to go through. At first the officer thought that there had been a mistake and his heart sank; but he was quickly reassured by the whispered voice of Collins, one of the wire cutters. “We heard that patrol, so we only cut the lower wires on the outside, so we could crawl under,” he said. “Everything is clear inside”. “Good head”, complimented the officer. “Now you can cut the rest so as to give us a clear getaway. You and Jackson keep your ears open. That damn patrol may come back before we are ready for it”. With which he proceeded along through the narrow lane and soon encountered Jackson, at the inside edge of the barrier and within a few feet of the foot of the parapet.
With no other greeting than a squeeze of the hand, he quietly slipped through and directed the others as they followed. The groups of three moved off, one to the right and the other to the left. They would each proceed a distance of about fifty yards, then wait a full minute, as nearly as the leaders could estimate it by counting, then each man would hurl a grenade over and during the noise and confusion of the bursts they would move in toward the center, stopping at a point about twenty yards from the actual point of attack – which was exactly opposite the gap in the wire. The group of four, accompanied by the officer, inched their way up the sloping side of the parapet, disposed as follows: the officer in the center, with an old-time sergeant on his right and another old timer on his left. The flanks were occupied by two experienced soldiers whose duty it was to each have a grenade ready, with the pin out, and at the first explosion of a bomb from either of the outside parties they would throw their grenade so as to drop into the bays next to the right and left of the one selected for the attack.
The officer and the two old soldiers with him would be the only ones to actually go over into the trench – unless they met with unexpected resistance. In that case, the other two would follow, while the flanking groups smothered the trench on both sides with bombs.
“KER-OOMP” went the first grenade and, before the flash had faded, the raiders were over. The two soldiers immediately jumped to the ends of the bay and threw their grenades around the corners of the traverses. The officer, in the center, had expected to land right on top of a German but, lo and behold, the bay was unoccupied so he ran after the sergeant, who had entered the next bay and was feeling around for what he might find. Numerous flares were now being sent up, and by their light the officer discovered the entrance to a dugout. Telling the sergeant to protect his flank, he jerked away the burlap curtain and called for whoever was inside to come out or he would blow them out. Whether or not the occupants understood the words, they certainly got the intent, for three men came scrambling up the steps in a hurry.
“I got ’em”, he shouted. “Come on boys, let’s get to hell out of here”, at the same time herding the prisoners into the next bay and driving them over the parapet where they were received by Jackson and the other two men and started, at a rapid pace, toward our lines. The sergeant and the other man were right at his heels and they amused themselves by hurling grenades to the right and left, inside the German trench, until the flanking groups arrived.
The officer checked them up, found all present and started them for home, while he brought up the rear. No attempt was made at concealment. Less than three minutes had elapsed since the explosion of the first bomb and the enemy had not had time to figure out what was going on. A few scattered grenades were coming over his parapet and a machine gun began to stutter but it was just blind firing and no one was hurt.
That was a remarkable performance – getting three unharmed prisoners with no loss beyond a few minor scratches which two of our men received from small fragm
ents of the potato-masher grenades. It was not always that way. Usually there was more or less hand to hand scrapping before we got away with a prisoner and, all too frequently, we went home empty handed. But that was the method of procedure, as practiced by our crowd, and whenever it was carefully followed success was almost assured and casualties negligible. In fact, the possibility of casualties was about the last consideration. The men hardly gave it a thought. Their principal concern was how to inflict the most damage – and the most amusing and daring damage – in the limited time.
This raiding was a fine incentive to inventive genius, and there were always a few in each platoon who were busy devising neat methods of handing out “misery” to the Dutchman. This work was sometimes inspired simply by a desire to repay Heinie for what we had suffered from such nuisances as minnenwerfers and pineapples – to repay him with interest, to give him something bigger and better, as the movie directors would say. But this was only an occasional motive; I think the real and lasting motive was a genuine interest in the game and a desire to score as often as possible, rather than wait about in the mud for something to happen. Once the inventive and ingenious ones had a taste of what might be done in this matter of trench-raiding, warfare developed a new and personal interest. They came to view all the resources and implements of war with an eye mainly to their use in raids; and trench-mortar pits, engineers’ dumps and supply depots of all sorts yielded surprising treasurers. Dud shells were eyed with regret that all that “dynamite” and steel was going to waste, with no way to fix the thing with a short fuse to explode it in the depths of a German dugout. The Stokes gun did yield something along this line, though it was not a dud, but a live shell taken from an ammunition dump. I never knew just how they fixed it so that it could be lugged across no-man’s-land and trusted to explode when it had reached the bottom of a dugout. As I remember, it was a Yankee (there were many of them in the Canadian Corps) who received credit for adapting the first one. And I don’t know how often they were used; but any man who intimated that he could fix one was told to do his stuff at once, and there was always a ready volunteer to steal or borrow a shell from the nearest Stokes gun crew. If the officer in charge of the next raid was a good scout he was in on the business and welcomed the contribution; if not, it was a simple matter to manage it secretly, content in the knowledge that the results would approve the method.
As a matter of fact, there could be no sound objection; but close cooperation was the watchword in these raids, and individual exploits might easily cause failure or disaster. Within the limitations of the tactical necessities, however, individual initiative and daring was valuable, and the ideal raiding party was the one that utilized them to the full, drawing upon the entire platoon or company for ideas and devices. Thus everybody became a participant in the raid, and the chosen dozen men were charged with carrying out – in twenty or thirty minutes of action – the work of the entire platoon or company; and even the man who never went over, but who, on the way into the trenches, espied an odd case of dynamite about an engineers’ dump and made a stick or two of it available, was as much interested in the raid as the man who took it over. Or, back on a ration party at night, he might encounter a detachment of engineers and remember that raid scheduled to come off to-morrow night: “Say, Jack; got a dump about here? How about a ‘buckshee’ stick of dynamite?”
Buckshee is one of those useful words such as come into use in any army. The British Army had many of them, drawn from all quarters of the globe, and so readily borrowed and adapted that only a trace – and sometimes none at all – of original meaning survived. This one had come home with troops who had served in India, where it was spelled, I believe, backsheek. With us it meant, something that could be spared, or which could be used in a manner not foreseen by the issuing authorities, or something left over after the regular distribution was made, or an odd article that came in too small quantities to be issued and thus, not being expected, found its way, ordinarily into the haversacks of the quartermaster’s staff.
As a rule, the engineer was willing to contribute. He might have to be content with intimating where the stuff could be picked up; but if he was not under direct supervision at the moment, he might make it his business to see what could be found in the way of fuses, detonaters, etc., even to locating some of the match-fuses, such as were used early in the war in the manufacture of grenades from jam-tins. Such helpfulness might result in the acquisition of a veritable store of munitions, which was quietly put aside until a raid was ordered. When the men were selected and it was learned how they were to be officially armed, it only remained to pick a couple of men who could be trusted to do the work properly and load them with as much stuff as they could carry unofficially. A Stokes shell per man was enough, or two sticks of dynamite suitably lashed and capped.
If you think these were harmless pranks, you have only to imagine yourself in an underground chamber six feet or so wide, at the bottom of a narrow twelve-foot flight of steps. Now sit quiet while a Stokes shell goes off in your midst. The more I think about it, the more thoroughly convinced I am that trench-raiding was a vital and important part of trench-warfare. I know that it worked out with very satisfying results on our side. It provides the best sort of training in the important matter of working together, seizing the moment when it arrives, doing not only all that was expected of you, but all that you would like to expect of yourself, and yet being able to retire neatly and in order with the party, conscious of a job well done.
As the war went on, the idea finally percolated into Heinie’s head that this trench raiding stuff might be all right, after all. With characteristic German thoroughness, he had to try it out, this way and that. While I am not and never was in the confidence of the German Higher Command, I feel quite sure that I can interpret their deductions. They found out, right at the start, that they had no chance whatever of slipping over and surprising us. Our scouting system and our sentries were too good for that. So they conceived the idea that they would isolate a certain area by a box-barrage and then send over an overwhelming force against the holders of the isolated bit of trench. They tried it on us several times but without success, as we guessed their intention quickly enough to take effective preventive measures. After a month or two of observation, it is nearly always possible to figure out just about what is meant by any artillery demonstration. Our raids were, generally, carried out without any artillery preparation. Stealth and quietness were the main requisites for success. Grenades and firearms were habitually carried but used only when the necessity for stealth had passed. The bayonet, well sharpened and carried in the hand – not on the rifle – was the most effective weapon. I have seen, somewhere, the statement that it was contrary to the recognized rules of war to sharpen the bayonet. Well, now, that is just too bad. The last thing we did before leaving England was to take all our bayonets to the armourer and have them ground to a keen edge and, afterward, there were always files available to keep them in that condition. Personally, if I have to be stabbed with a bayonet, I think I should prefer it to be a sharp, rather than a blunt one, but, of course, other people may have different ideas about it.
Whether they were not properly instructed by the French or due to the well-known cock-sureness and conceit of the American soldier, when the first United States troops went into the line, at Bathlemont, November 3, 1917, they were caught in this old box-barrage game and lost quite a bunch of prisoners, several wounded and three killed – Gresham, Hay and Enright, of the 16th U.S., (regular) Infantry. Eager but over-confident, they allowed themselves to be caught in a trap that would never have bothered older, seasoned troops. No intelligent enemy is going to waste several thousand perfectly good shells. When any kind of bombardment starts, it means something and it is incumbent on whoever is in charge to be able to read the signs and interpret the message. After a month or two, one gets to recognize the symptoms and can nearly always figure out what is contemplated and take whatever precautions are possible to fr
ustrate the attempted raid.
In the Canadian Corps we generally did one of two things when a bombardment started which indicated a raid would be made on that particular section of the trenches. If possible, we promptly pulled out of the first lines and drew back into the supporting trenches and got in readiness to blow hell out of that raiding party as soon as they came over and into our abandoned trenches. Sometimes we drew off into the adjoining trenches to the sides and from there helped to hand it back as soon as the German barrage lifted and their raiding party came over our parapet. There isn’t much doubt but what any individuals caught in such a barrage and forced to remain in dugouts until the raiding party gets into their trench are strictly S.O.L. The thing to do is to be somewhere else and up on your feet, ready to hand things back as soon as the barrage lifts and they come over.
There were times when those caught in such a box barrage went right on out in the open no-man’s-land in front of their parapet, and met the raiding party before they really got started and broke up their game then and there. It all depended upon conditions and circumstances, but experienced troops soon learned not to be right where Heinie expected them to be – which always busted up the Dutchman’s plan badly.
There was one rather startling, but also amusing, feature in the big raid of January, 1917. Our men had been trained for a week or more – working on dummy trenches which were constructed behind our lines, exact replicas of the enemy trenches which were to be raided. During the early hours of the night, the wire cutting details had gone over and opened lanes through the enemy defenses, and just before dawn the raiding party, which comprised a full battalion, slipped over. Everything went like clock-work, but, where they had expected to encounter only the usual thin line of men in the enemy front line trench, they piled in right on top of several hundred Germans who were just being brought up for a raid on our trench, which was scheduled for exactly fifteen minutes later. That’s how we got the 101 prisoners. Ordinarily the bag would not have been more than fifteen or twenty. Taken utterly by surprise, the enemy lost heavily but our total casualties were some six or seven wounded.
A Rifleman Went to War Page 14