The attack went through like a hot knife through butter. All the lost ground was regained and then some – and consolidated. Our battalion suffered severely from the activities of a heavy trench mortar which was secreted down in the railway cut, just below Hill Sixty. This was the most awful thing I ever experienced. Even in the later and greater battles down South never did I encounter anything in the way of destructive agents to equal it. It fired a plain tin can filled with 160 pounds high explosive – probably T.N.T. (We got one that did not explode, so know all about it.) The effect of those damnable things was worse than that of any shell. Even the big Austrian eleven-inch howitzers or the naval guns of like calibre could not do such execution. Coming as they did up out of that cut less than a hundred yards from our line and dropping almost straight down, our parapet offered no protection whatever.
We had a machine gun down at the left end of our line where this thing was operating and I got word that the gun crew and a whole platoon of infantry had been wiped out. Well, it was up to me to find out about it. We had a gun crew in reserve and they were sent down, and after making a hasty inspection of the other guns along the line I went down there myself. Bouchard, of course, came along. That boy followed me around like my shadow.
Just as we were starting out, a particularly intense shelling began over our whole area, one big shell striking right on top of one of our signaller’s dugouts, killing the occupants and seriously wounding Captain Caldwell, who was standing in the doorway, dictating a message, I think. Bou and I went along until we reached a “dead-line” – that is, the officers in charge had withdrawn all men from that particular sector until the heavy shelling had subsided. All but the machine-gun crew; they were still out there – somewhere. Colonel Hughes was there with a couple of staff officers. (Depend on that man to be where the trouble was.) I explained to him that it was necessary for us to go down to the M.G. at the end of the line and away we went. We wished the sentries on guard the same as they wished us which was something like “hope you get your heads blown off,” embellished with a few of the apt but not printable adjectives then in common use.
Beyond this point, all was chaos. That deadly trench mortar or, as the Germans called it Minnenwerfer had completely wrecked things. Our parapet was just about obliterated. We had to crawl most of the way but soon arrived at the old M.G. emplacement, right on the bank of the railroad cut and directly opposite Hill Sixty. The gun crew were still there but, as there was scarcely any shelter and nothing for them to fire at just then, I sent them back, outside the immediate shelling area and then stayed there with Bouchard, just to keep an eye on things and summon the crew if it became necessary – that is, if the enemy attempted an advance.
The dead were everywhere. Of the original machine-gun crew, Simpson was laid out on the firing step, covered with a rubber sheet. Head was back at the mouth of a communication trench, both legs blown off and otherwise shot up – dead, of course. The others were unrecognizable. Bodies and parts of bodies were scattered all around, mostly mangled beyond recognition. I spent some time going around and endeavoring, by means of identification tags, to get their names. I located several, but in many cases the destruction had been so complete that no tag remained. While I was doing this, Bouchard was keeping a close watch over the parapet and when he called, “Here, Mac, hurry – here’s a good chance to get some of them,” I hastened back to where he was standing.
From there we could see through a gap in the enemy line, made by one of our big shells, a column of German soldiers going to the left (over toward Hooge where the fight was still raging fiercely). I rustled up a rifle and had Bou go on a hunt for more – and started shooting. It was something less than two hundred yards. I kept it up for some twenty minutes or half an hour, the kid loading and passing up rifles and I shooting all the time. By that time the “targets” had all disappeared – probably found another way around, but so far as we could tell they never knew where this fire was coming from, which was not surprising considering all the other noises.
While doing this shooting, I was standing on the only bit of firing step which remained – astride the body of Simpson – and I remember thinking, as I knocked ’em over, that he would be delighted to know that his death was not going unavenged. Yes, there will always be chances for the rifleman to get a little shooting, in any war – big or little.
Numerous queries have come to me as to the comparative excellence of the various rifles used during the late war. Before going any further into this subject, I want to say a few words in explanation of my apparent (and real) ignorance in this matter.
Of one rifle – yes, two, I can speak with authority. The U.S. Springfield, vintage of 1903 and the Ross, Marks 3 and 4, (III and IV). As to the former, all readers of this book are able to judge for themselves and the latter has been so freely discussed – praised and berated – in the foregoing chapters that we can dismiss them.
Now, I hate to say anything in disparagement of our Springfield Rifle (Model 1903 – with 1906 ammunition). It does not require my recommendation. Too many people know all about it. But, why don’t they put a sight on it? As it now is, I would certainly pick one of the S.L.E. (Short Lee-Enfields) for the ordinary, short-range work of actual battle. Argue all you want to about ballistics but what a man needs when he gets into a fight is a short, “handy” weapon – something with which he can take a hasty, snap shot at a target which only shows for the fraction of a second and then disappears. And he wants a sight that you don’t have to hunt around for – just something that you look through – not look for.
But, when it comes to discussing the merits of the foreign rifles – Mausers and Lebels – the best I can do is to refer the anxious inquirers to Captain Crossman or any other of our well-qualified experts. You see, it is this way – when you get into real war – right up there in front – you have no time to do any experimental firing and no inclination to fuss around with any strange rifle. You have trouble enough with your own without looking for more.
During the course of any engagement, if your side is successful and you get into enemy territory, you will be sure to find rifles scattered all around, and, if fighting over ground that has been contested for a year or more, as we were during the first winter, you can pick up any number of arms which have been used by the various combatants. These things were so common that we paid no attention to them other than, perhaps, pick up this or that one and play with it – just to see what made it tick, as you might say. As we never were associated with any French troops, I know nothing about their use of the rifle beyond what I saw one morning at the capture of Combles, when I was temporarily attached to a unit of the Gloucester Regiment, and that was at a distance of some three or four hundred yards. I have fired the Lebel on a number of occasions but simply at some mark just for fun, you might say.
The same thing applies to the German Mausers, the only exception that occurs to me now being one which I took from a young and cocky Yager who had been wounded and taken prisoner. That one was a beauty. Short and trim – a regular “sporter” in fact. The former owner vouchsafed a supercilious smile when I held it up beside my own heavy Ross, and I don’t blame him. He had a real, honest-to-goodness battle rifle, beside which ours were just clumsy clubs. I never had a chance to really give it a good try-out but did take a few shots. It had a decided wallop both fore and aft with the regulation 8 mm ammunition which was picked up here and there. The initial velocity of this stuff was, I understand, about three thousand feet per second, as against the 2440 of ours. In one way, this worked to our advantage, for where the lines were close together we had a defiladed space or “safety zone,” behind our parapets, much greater than the enemy had and we could get along without a lot of overhead traverses.
And, believe me, anything that lessened the work of filling sandbags and building up parapets and traverses was welcomed by the Canadian soldier. He was always willing to fight, but hated, like hell, to work with a shovel. Some of this feeling was d
ue to the fact that it was almost impossible to dig anywhere within our lines without disintering bodies of men who had been buried by previous occupants of the position. That whole Ypres Salient was one vast graveyard. I do not know what disposition has been made of it, but were it in the United States I am sure it would be declared a National Park. There, in October, 1914, the flower of the old British Army – the so-called “Old Contemptibles” – effectively checked the German advance, just as they, with the assistance of the Canadians, did again in April 1916. Gurkhas from India and Indians from Canada mingled their blood with the flower of British manhood on that field, together with legions of French and Belgians. It should be an international shrine. There are a few other places, notably Verdun, where every foot is holy and consecrated ground but none, I believe, can compare with Ypres and the Ypres Salient.
I just cannot seem to keep going along any single track. We were discussing rifles, were we not? Well, I know of nothing more to say about the ones that were used in the last war, so let’s do a little figuring on something for the next.
There is a gentleman who, so far as I know, never wore a soldier’s uniform, but who has shown by his writings, a better insight into the real business of soldiering than any general or other officer it has been my pleasure to meet, and I wish to quote just one little stanza from one of his poems.
“When half of your bullets fly wide in the ditch,
“Don’t call your Martini a cross-eyed old bitch.
“She’s human as you are; just treat her as sich
“And she’ll fight for the young British soldier.”
(Of course, you know who I mean – Rudyard Kipling.)
The following is probably a repetition of what I have said elsewhere in this yarn: “The only way to learn a game is to play it.”
Do you know of any good football coaches who never, themselves, played the game, just as – well, what we might call, “privates?” Or, in any other line of sport or endeavor. Can you think of any of them who have not, literally, “come up from the ranks?” Why should this great, glorious game of war be an exception?
What a blessing it would be if all the officers who have authority in our army had first taken a course in soldiering in the ranks, in active warfare. Having been an officer before the war, then serving for more than a year as a soldier during some of the toughest campaigns and finishing again an officer, I have an insight into a lot of things that never would be suspected – or admitted – by the gentlemen who have always sported commissions.
This is just a preliminary to the general attack, which will be directed against the proposal to arm each and every infantry soldier with an automatic or semi-automatic rifle. Up to date, no soldier has been able to carry enough ammunition to take him through a day’s fighting – that is, in a real battle. They say they will reduce the calibre and thus reduce the weight of the ammunition. Yeah? How much can you reduce it? You can probably cut it down from say, ten pounds to eight or, to make it more plain, by reducing the calibre from thirty to twenty-six (and keeping up the same velocities) you will have made a reduction such as may be represented by the difference between sixty and fifty-two or thereabouts. Let the school-boys figure out the percentage; it is not worth our while.
What with the machine-guns and automatic rifles already in use, there is absolutely no reason for this innovation. I tell you, and I know what I am talking about, that in a battle you cannot keep those men supplied with ammunition for more than fifteen minutes of real fighting. Having handled machine guns and automatic rifles during periods of desperate fighting, I am sure of my ground – I am not guessing or trying to figure anything out with a slide rule or a mil scale. (By the way, did anyone ever hear of any soldier, in active battle, making use of that mil-scale? I had a standing reward, for several years after the war for any machine gunner who would testify that he had used it, with no takers.)
During one protracted action where we were continuously engaged for fourteen days, I had twelve machine guns – that is, we started in with twelve. As they were wiped out, we got up reserves as soon as possible. One time we had eight German guns working, but assuming that the twelve of our own were working all the time, which of course they were not, I have memoranda, made at the time and on the spot, which shows that we required sixty thousand rounds of ammunition a day. As our machine-gun crews consisted of but six men, and numbers one and two were constantly on the gun, while the others were reloading belts, it can readily be seen that we could not conceivably have brought up our ammunition. Not by a damn sight. What I did was to – well, “holler for help,” if you want to consider it that way – simply passed the word to headquarters that if they wanted those guns to keep going, they would have to send the ammunition up to us. It required the services of one hundred and twenty men just to do that – ten extra men to a gun. Now, mind you, we never did have the full twelve guns going and, as before mentioned, at one time had but four of our own, but just the same we ate up sixty thousand rounds a day just as easy as you eat your two eggs for breakfast. One gun, I remember, fired twenty-eight thousand rounds in one day. (For the benefit of ordnance officers, I will remark that that gun never fired a shot after that.) It was a Colt; the barrel was literally welded to the bands and when it finally cooled off it was of no use whatever. I have often seen those guns going – at night – with the barrels glowing cherry-red.
No officer, I don’t care who he is, can sit back in his headquarters and say that this man or that squad can do such and such. To even get up to where the real fighting is requires almost incredible endurance and devotion to duty. Always will these men have to go through one or more barrages of artillery fire, and rifle and machine gun bullets will be continually picking off men, here and there. Probably it will be raining – it always seems to do that when there is a fight on – and the mud will further handicap the burden bearers.
There is one way the situation might be relieved, to have special tanks to carry up the ammunition; but, hells-bells, if we have enough tanks for that, why not let them go over and rout out the enemy, themselves?
No, gentlemen, what with all the machine guns, automatic rifles, bombers, wire cutters and what not, you’d better let the little old rifleman carry on with his simple magazine rifle. Out of every hundred men in the infantry, perhaps ten are really qualified to rate as riflemen. And you cannot make these riflemen by merely designating them by name and number in orders from headquarters. They must have learned the game by long months of practice and experiment. If, in addition to thorough range training, they have had the experience of hunting big game – especially goats and sheep – so much the better; lacking that, if they have devoted much time to the pursuit of the festive woodchuck in the East or the jack rabbit and coyote in the West, they will be well prepared for the final course of instruction which, as before mentioned, consists of actual war experience.
Take these men (assuming you can find ten out of every hundred who can qualify) and arm them with the very best type of “Sporters,” equipped with both telescopic and modern iron sights and turn them loose during an engagement. Their functions will be to afford a protective screen for the machine guns and trench mortars and to take advantage of every opportunity to harass the enemy. They will also prove effective in abating enemy machine guns whenever there is no tank available, or on ground which is inaccessible for a tank.
The full war strength of a company being two hundred and fifty men, when you have taken out your twenty-five riflemen and all the other specialists there will not be very many left, so if you want to arm them with automatic arms, well and good. In defensive positions, where large reserves of ammunition may be accumulated, this probably would be quite satisfactory, but in any attack where the line is continually moving forward I am of the opinion that it will be found impossible to supply these men with sufficient ammunition to make it worth while. We found that it required the services of six men to keep one automatic rifle going (Lewis gun), and, as above described, it
took sixteen men to the gun to supply the heavy machine guns with ammunition. What is going to happen when each man has an automatic?
I have been asked to state how much ammunition a soldier can carry. Well; I have often carried a case – 1200 rounds – from the ordnance depot to our tent, at Camp Perry. Stronger men could probably carry more. Any individual can decide this matter to his own satisfaction by going out and trying it. See how much you can carry, on a hot day.
With his rifle, his haversack, water bottle and bayonet, a soldier already has quite a load. Add to that the regulation hundred rounds of ammunition which he will carry in his belt and an extra bandolier around his neck – which is always getting in the way and frequently “ditched” – well, you do not have to actually go to war to be able to figure out just about what will happen.
Nothing is impossible. Now, of course, that is merely a much overworked platitude and I do not know whether it is strictly in accordance with the theories of Dr. Einstein or the decrees of Congress, but what I mean is that, with our limited knowledge of the laws of Mother Nature and the daily discoveries of our research scientists, it seems to me to be the height of folly to declare, flatly, that there is anything within the limits of our comprehension that “cannot be done.”
Have you ever noticed that practically every new invention has had its place in war? It may have been evolved for some of the prosaic occupations of peaceful times but let there come a war and all these little tricks are quickly adapted to the use of the fighters. Outstanding among the more recent innovations are the airplane, the radio and the tank. The latter, originally designed to enable the farmer to drag a gang of plows over rough and muddy land, has now become one of the most formidable factors in warfare. I well remember the day they made their initial bow to the world in general and the Germans in particular. September 15, 1916, during the great Somme battle, these monsters first took to the field. Crude as they were at that time, they must have caused almost as much consternation in the enemy ranks, as the gas did to ours when first used. If my memory serves me right, there were thirty-five of them, great, ugly, ungainly things, and our own men were just as much surprised to see them as were the enemy. They waddled and snorted across the field, trampling down machine-gun emplacements and generally making themselves useful until the enemy guns found them, and by direct hits managed to put several out of commission. One, in particular, I remember, half capsized alongside the road. It did not appear to be seriously damaged but was, temporarily, at least, out of commission. As I remember it, a shell had knocked off one of the trailing wheels which, I think, were the “rudders” of the thing and another shell, bursting under one side, had toppled it over into the ditch. On its side was inscribed, in large letters, the name Creme de Menthe, and all the others bore equally ridiculous appellations.
A Rifleman Went to War Page 23