A Rifleman Went to War

by Herbert W. McBride

  As these patrols, or scouts, were primarily for the purpose of getting information and not to fight, we did not as a rule, go out looking for trouble. Quite frequently we would pass enemy patrols, within easy bombing distance, without either party “starting things”. Just like a couple of strange dogs which will pass, one on either side of the street, both very watchful and with hair bristling, watching for the first hostile move on the part of the other. But there were times, perhaps just because we were feeling pretty low and ornery, or maybe because the rum ration was late in arriving, that some of us would go out “with blood in our eyes”. Then we went looking for trouble – and nearly always found it.

  On the first expedition of this kind in which I participated, we all carried bombs – no rifles. I happened to have a French bayonet which I had picked up that day and Norton-Taylor also had one of them. I think that he was the first and I the second to grasp the fact that these silent but terribly effective weapons were perfectly adapted to this stealthy night work. I believe that this was the origin of the “trench knives” which were later introduced. Of course, the Gurkhas, with their curious knives were ahead of us; it is the white troops that I refer to.

  Well, this night I am telling about, we slipped over the parapet and through the wire and took up a position where we had reason to believe the regular German patrol would pass. It was understood by all hands that we were out to “clean up”, get a live prisoner if possible, but to kill them all if necessary.

  It was tedious waiting. No man who has not gone through it can imagine the terrific strain under which a person lives during such a time. There we were, spread out along the edge of an old crater, trying to look as much like the surrounding, shell-torn ground as we could. Every time a flare went up, from our side or the other, we simply “froze”. Any movement at that time would surely expose us to the watchful eyes of the enemy, across the way. It was only about a hundred and fifty yards between our trenches at that place and there was no more than one hundred feet between our outside wire and that of the “Allemand”. There were only four of us and we knew that the regular German patrol, at that time and place, consisted of from six to eight men. We had agreed that we would wait until they were directly opposite our position and then each one of us was to throw a bomb, duck until after the explosion, and then wade into them and try to pick up a live prisoner. We knew, from previous observations, just about where they would pass. That is, we thought we knew but, in this case as in many others, the unexpected happened. Whether they had a new and more enterprising leader or whether they had simply lost their way, we never will know, but that patrol came upon us from the rear.

  We all heard them and saw them. They were scouting right along our wire and between us and our own line. Well, that was fine and dandy, if we had had any previous understanding as to what we would do in such a case – but we had never even thought of any thing like that. They would probably have passed our position without seeing us had it not been for one of our crowd who shall be nameless. This individual squirmed around and threw a bomb at the head of the German procession. It so happened that he was at the very left of our line. I was the right-hand man, and Taylor was next to me. We all had grenades – six apiece – but Hugh and I had agreed that we would see what we could do with the French bayonets as persuaders, and our pistols if it came to a show-down.

  Well, then things commenced to happen. The kid who threw the bomb used his head to the extent that he held it a bit, after pulling the pin and releasing the lever, so that it burst at the instant it hit the ground. It probably got a German but it also got himself (the thrower) and the man next him. That left Taylor and me with six or seven Heinies to look after.

  Those Dutchmen were well trained. I remember taking one long jump, over into another big crater and felt Hughie landing on top of me when there came the terrific blasts of the bombs that the other fellows had hurled at us. I think we each threw back at least one – possibly two and then, finding that we were not hurt, started out to “get” someone. It was pretty much an individual matter from that time on. I hunted around at my back until I found my pistol – just in time to use it on a big hulk of a German who was trying to find the way home. I think I fired three shots – at ranges all the way up to four or five feet. Hughie, with more presence of mind than I possessed, had stuck to the bayonet (used as a short sword) and had a cripple to show for it. We got home some way but, on the whole, the venture was more or less of a fizzle.

  From that time on, my scouting was mostly an individual affair. Sometimes I would go out with another man – after the orders were issued that no man was to go out alone – but that was merely a way of evading the spirit of the order while, at the same time, observing the letter. One man can do pretty much as he pleases – that is, if he is not hit by one of the chance bullets or shells which are always floating around – but if there are two or more in the party, not one single individual dare make a move without, possibly, interrupting the game of some other. I learned that it was no serious matter to crawl out, locate a gap in the enemy wire, squirm up alongside their parapet – and take a short course in German. But my chief object was to try and locate their machine gun emplacements. That was something that vitally interested us – me, especially, as a machine gunner. Time after time, I had spent hours, trying to locate a new one. One night Bouchard and I went over and checked up on one which we had been observing from our Snipers Barn look-out. As we lay there, under the lee of the enemy parapet and right alongside the loop-hole of the newly constructed “pill-box”, I was listening to the talk from within while the kid, who understood and spoke good French but knew not a word of German, suddenly grabbed me by the arm and whispered, “let’s get-a-hell out a this” and dragged me down the embankment. Almost instantly came the sound of a terrific explosion in the M.G. emplacement. The little rascal had pulled the pin and slipped a Mills grenade right through the loop-hole. That was a favorite stunt of his and we repeated it several times.

  Well, now, it looks as if we were again getting off the track. This chapter is supposed to be about pistols and here we are, yarning about bombs, machine guns and whatnot. But that’s all right. It is all about “close-up” work and that is the only place that the pistol figures in warfare. Now I am going to tell you the honest truth about something. During my war experience, which extended from September, 1915 to February, 1917 and included innumerable little “contacts” with the enemy and several major battles, I fired exactly seven shots at an enemy with my pistol. Seven – count ’em. I used up quite a lot of ammunition, shooting at rats, rabbits and tin cans but as to shooting Germans, well, I’ve told you, seven was all and the longest range at which I fired at these individuals was never more than ten feet. But brother, those were seven badly needed shots. There may be a moral in this: I don’t know. If so, figure it out for yourself.

  But there is no doubt in my mind that the mere possession of a reliable pistol – and the knowledge how to use it – is a tower of strength for the soldier who goes up against any enemy. He may never use it, may never have a chance to use it, but it sure does give you a lot of confidence to know that you have the old “gat” right there and handy, in case you do happen to bump into some wild-eyed individual coming at you with a bayonet.

  War automatically declares an “open season” on men. You shoot or stab or club them and think no more of it than you do of breaking a clay pigeon thrown from a trap. There’s nothing very personal about it but you know that if you don’t get the other fellow, he will probably get you – and you do your best.

  As to the various kinds of pistols used, both by the Allies and the Germans, after all these years during which to think it over, I still believe that the Colt, .45 Automatic is King of Them All. This new .38 Super-Colt appears to be a still better bet if one is looking for high velocity and all that but I do not believe that it has any point of superiority, as a military arm, over the .45 caliber. I have no authority for the statement, but it is my belief t
hat it is brought out simply to show that we can produce a high-velocity, medium caliber pistol that not only equals but excels the German Lugers and Mausers in both range and power. Candidly, I do not know what it is good for – unless some of our sportsmen are contemplating going in for big game shooting with the pistol. No telling what some of our new crop of cranks will do. They shoot ’em with bow and arrow and I expect, any day, to read in the headlines of where some brave nimrod has slain one of our pet Park bears with a stone hammer.

  I had used both the Luger and Mauser pistols before the war, and often during the war I would pick up one and give it a tryout; but, without attempting to enumerate any specific merits or faults of either, they just did not appeal to me. Now, this is not because of any prejudice against the German, because no such feeling exists. A lot of the best friends I have in the world are either German bred or of German extraction and about the greatest pleasures I have enjoyed have been connected with steins of good German beer and the accompanying good-fellowship – the songs and camaraderie of good fellows when they get together.

  No, it was just that, like the Webley, they always appeared to be clumsy – cumbersome. Shoot? Hell yes, they shot all right for the three Ps – Punch, Penetration and Power – they were about in a class by themselves for these, but to go on down the alphabet, when you come to W, just stop and consider the Colt .45 and it’s Wallop. You better also go back to the beginning of the alphabet and add Accuracy. That old .45 slug has more authority than any of the others, not excepting the 9 m/m Luger, and as for accuracy, there never was a Luger or Mauser made to even come within hailing distance of our Service Colt.

  Say – wait a minute though. I do happen to remember one instance in which the German Luger had wallop enough to do the job right, and maybe I had better tell about it right here. The incident occurred down on the Somme, where I was working along with the advance, commanding a scratch crew of machine gunners. There was a lull in the fighting and we were waiting on something or other at the time, the Germans having all pulled out of their trenches and moved back a bit to the rear. So I decided to look about the German trenches and dugouts and see if we could locate some loaded belts of their machine gun ammunition, as we had just found two perfectly good Maxim heavies that might as well have been put back to work.

  Calling upon a couple of the gun crew to come along with me, the three of us crawled over into the main German trenches and commenced searching around for some loaded belts. One of the chaps who accompanied me was evidently a new replacement, at any rate he still had the souvenir bug in his head, and tried to pick up everything lying in that trench. I soon put a stop to this, and made him throw away most of the junk he was carrying, but he held on to a Luger pistol which was in a holster slung onto a black leather waist belt – this find I decided to overlook. Those trenches were the usual deep and well made German affair, showing the result of months of hard pick and shovel work, but they had been pretty badly battered by our guns and the bottom was mostly covered with a layer of loose dirt, upon which we made no noise as we crawled around the traverses and bays.

  The souvenir hound kept sticking a bit in front of us, I suppose he wanted another pistol or two, but at any rate he kept ahead, swinging that Luger from the buckled belt held in his right hand. In this manner we stepped around the end of a deep traverse and our “point” almost fell over a big Heinie who was down on his knees going through the pockets of a dead British officer – the Dutchman was so busy he never even knew we were around. It was all over in a second – the kid just swung the belt and that holstered Luger made a circle and came down on top of the German’s head with a “womp” – and we went on, leaving both dead men lying there. And that is about the only time I can remember a “slug” from a Luger having sufficient wallop to do a “bang up” job of things.

  But the main thing in considering any military pistol is the matter of dependability. Will it work in all kinds of weather? In mud – in sand – in water? Well, we all know what tests were applied during the two or three years before our Ordnance officers finally approved the Colt. Two solid years of real, practical use, in service in the Islands and then the tests for what you might call “durability” in which all others (there were only two, which shall not be named by me) fell by the wayside while the old Colt, refusing to quit, finally wore out the time and patience of the members of the Board and had to leave it with an unfinished run of some ten thousand rounds without a stoppage or malfunction. I was present at that last test, and that may have had something to do with my attitude toward the ugly brute.

  Still, I can say that my experience in France, as well as that of others of my acquaintance, only tended towards verifying the findings and opinion of our ordnance board. Those of us who were fortunate enough to be armed with the .45 Colt Automatic found it to be a sufficient and dependable arm in every respect. Let me repeat that I have never had a failure to function properly while in action nor did I ever hear or know of any such failure occurring with any of my associates or acquaintances. After I came back from the battlefield I commenced to hear of a great many instances in which the gun supposedly gave trouble, but these were invariably told by persons not in the army or whose line of duty was such as to preclude their ever having actually participated in real fighting, or even front-line service for that matter.

  Furthermore, I did not consider the automatic pistol to need any special care or attention to keep it in serviceable condition. We had trouble enough with all our firearms for that matter, and any rifle, machine gun, revolver or pistol had to be looked to daily to keep the mud and dirt out of its action and bore. If anything, our one-hand guns were a bit easier to keep in proper shape than the others, because they remained in a holster or inside pocket of a tunic and were not laid down on the ground or exposed to the elements very often. Any military firearm requires daily attention and care to keep it in proper readiness for instant use and neither pistol nor revolver is any exception to this standing rule.

  For extremely accurate target shooting and for what I may call comfortable, peace-time pistol practice, there are many revolvers and single-shot target pistols – not forgetting the little .22 caliber automatics – which are more desirable than the .45 Automatic. But when you go to war, you want a regular “he-man” gun with a WALLOP.

  Chapter 11. The Battle of St. Eloi

  ALONG in February, 1916 business began to pick up a bit and we soon entered upon what turned out to be a continuous engagement – running along until June. The Battle of the Bluff, which started the latter part of February, carried on into March. Then began the St. Eloi scrap which, considering the small bit of line involved, was one of the nastiest and most hard-fought “minor” actions on record. From the 27th of March until late in May, it was a continuous dog fight for possession of what was known as “The Mound”, a dominating height at the extreme southern end of the Ypres salient, in what had been the village of St. Eloi. I remember that, in writing home to my father, himself a veteran of the Civil War, I quoted Kit Carson’s famous remark, “lovely fighting all along the line, go in anywhere”. That described it, exactly. Plenty of action for all. Artillery, machine guns, rifles and grenades – all had their innings, every day and night.

  The ruckus started when our engineers blew a series of six great mines under the Mound – which was, at that time, occupied by the enemy – and the Northumbrian Division, consisting of the Northumberland Fusiliers, the Royal Fusiliers and the Yorkshire Regiment, swarmed over and occupied the craters and some of the ground beyond and tried to consolidate it. They were soon relieved by a Scottish Division, consisting of Royal Scots and Gordons. The Argyll and Sutherlands were also in there for a short time but the job was finally wished onto the Second Canadian Division (that was us), and we stuck around there until the finish. When the action started we were stationed adjoining and to the right of the Northumbrian Division, so all we had to do was to “side step” over to the left a little way to be right in it. We of the machine
guns, however, had been in the fight from the start, but our infantry did not take over for a week or so after it commenced.

  As this was our first real battle, the recollection of many of the things that happened there are much more vivid and distinct than those of many other, greater battles that came later. These latter were “just a little more of the same”, that was all; but it is a true saying that first impressions are the strongest, so I will probably have a good deal more to say about that St. Eloi affair than its real significance in the war may seem to warrant.

  It was the evening of March 26, 1916. Two hundred Yorkshire men were coming down the communication trench. They were replacements for the Northumbrian Division, on the left, due to go over the top in an attack in the morning. I was standing at the mouth of the trench where they would enter the front line. The whiz-bangs were coming over from Germany and bursting all around, but we were so used to these that I paid no attention until I happened to notice that there appeared to be an unusual concentration of fire on that particular communication trench. It was only about four hundred yards long and, from my slightly elevated position, all in plain sight. It was just about dark – dusk, we call it – and the bursts of the shells were plainly visible. By this time the “fireflies” were so thick and continuous that I could not help noticing them, and mildly wondered what was going on. We had men whose duty it was to count and report the number of shells that fell on any area and it is a matter of record that more than one thousand shells burst in and over that short bit of trench in less than thirty minutes. The enemy evidently knew about that detachment coming in and tried to clean up on them. Pretty soon the head of the line came into the front line trench, lead by an old, grizzled, sergeant-major who waved them off to the left and, himself, stepped up beside me and dug up an old pipe which he proceeded to fill with shag. After getting the thing going, he straightened up and I ventured to remark: “pretty hot down there, wasn’t it?” He took a few puffs, to keep the pipe going and answered: “Aye: pretty good: gives the younguns an idea what they may expect on the morrow.”