Walk a War in My Shoes

by Murray Ernest Hall

  What I learn on my arrival is that while I have been on leave, Fritz just dug in deeper.

  The day I went on leave, “D” Company and a substantial amount of equipment were transported the thirty-five miles north-east to Reninghelst which is around six miles from Ypres.

  They only spent the night there before being sent out again into the forward areas, the south-western defensive perimeter of Ypres. Working under the command of the 1st Australian Division – Artillery, their instructions were to construct gun pits and a dozen deep dugouts for the Artillery chaps.

  Working alongside the Artillery has the disadvantage in that Fritz wants to kill you even more. Standing alongside an artillery battery is like being the rabbit in front of a shotgun. You might not get peppered, but it’s a game you just don’t want a part of.

  There are many Battery camps set up behind Ypres and the big guns are sending out thousands of shells over the top of this tortured town and into the German front line. In response, Fritz is constantly countering by trying to destroy our Battery camps. It’s a simple tactic used by both sides, annihilate the machinery that is doing the most damage to you.

  Throughout their four-week stint, “D” Company excel in constructing shelters/dugouts and evacuating the wounded while under constant shelling of their position. In one incident when the shelling became too severe, they were ordered to move back. Rather than scamper back with their tails between their legs, they stayed and salvaged sixteen thousand, 18Lb shells and a variety of other equipment. Slowly and methodically they transferred the armoury back to safer territory, all the time, shells which included mustard gas, dropping in and around them.

  By all accounts, our chaps were magnificent. Committed, forceful and arrogant in achieving a great result in unimaginable circumstances.

  It came at a cost though. The casualty list is extensive.

  It upsets me to think that while I was off in London, kicking my heels up, my pals were working their guts out and copping a flogging in the process.

  A few weeks later a letter of commendation written by Lieutenant Colonel Viney on behalf of the 1st Australian Division was nailed up outside the Battalion headquarters. It was full of praise and thanks for “D” Company’s efforts. The chaps had performed their duty beyond the expectations of the command. I am exceptionally proud of them. My only regret is that I wasn’t with them in their finest hour.

  I spend my twenty-second birthday, Saturday 25th August 1917 in Lumbres Camp. No rum, no plonk, no birthday chatter. Just another day. This one was spent training on anti-aircraft procedures and swinging on the end of a Lewis machine gun, firing live rounds down the rifle range the 1st Pioneers had constructed.

  France

  17th Aug 1917

  Dear Wal,

  Here I am again a bit long winded as usual. Just back from Blighty so you can guess the reason for not writing – making the pace a cracker with the tabs. I believe I received a letter from you on the morning I left but have forgotten the date, about May I think – our mail is coming to hand very slowly.

  Well, my 10 days in England was grand but it’s hard to have to come back to this among the shells & things are pretty warm around this quarter. I put in a few days in London and then went up to Sheffield & Chesterfield - the people up there are grand and treat one as if he was home – the girls also are grand – I went to theatres & shows galore, never without a tab though and sometimes 2. Their way of speaking is comical, one has to listen closely to catch what they say at times, while one shire is different to another. I had a pass to Scotland but I did not have enough time in the other places let alone get up there.

  The tube system in London is wonderful - one can get almost anywhere within a very short space of time – a bit puzzling at first, but one soon gets to know the ropes. Going over across the Channel was good-o but coming back made up for it, rough wasn’t the name for it, some even began to heave. We had life belts on both ways, ready for any tin fish. I was lucky to have good weather while I was over there which is a big item – it is still keeping fine.

  Well I think this is all for the present I can’t think to write tonight & Fritz is putting a few over. Best wishes to all & hoping you are well as I am.

  Your Aff Bro, Ern

  P.S Fenton is in Blighty with a wound in the arm – a fairly bad one I believe.

  CHAPTER 14

  YPRES – ZILLEBEKE – HOOGE –

  POLYGON WOOD

  August - September 1917

  Intelligence Summary

  1st Australian Pioneer Battalion

  30th September 1917

  Casualties for the month of September:

  Killed: 3 Officers, 19 Ordinary Ranks

  Wounded: 2 Officers, 109 Ordinary Ranks

  Evacuated/sick: 65 Ordinary Ranks

  Died of Wounds: 4 Ordinary Ranks

  Wounded & remaining on duty: 8 Ordinary Ranks

  THE THREE REMAINING companies of the 1st Australian Pioneer Battalion pull up stumps in Lumbres Camp on the 31st August 1917. It takes a couple of days to load up our equipment and transport it out. All the troops board motor lorries and are transferred the thirty miles east to the small village of Vieux-Berquin.

  We jump out of the lorries and as soon as one’s feet hit the ground you know you’re back in the fight. Fritz’s front line is around five miles due east, the big guns are roaring and the ground shakes again.

  This camp is very close to where I was working with the 2nd Tunnelling Company in Armentieres exactly twelve months ago. I’m back on familiar territory.

  “D” Company haven’t been sighted, they are still in Ypres working with the artillery chaps. They have been out there in the thick of it now for three weeks straight. The trickling of information coming back in is that they have been knocked around a bit, which worries me. I don’t know who’s still standing upright and who’s not, who will walk back into camp and who will be carried in. I am real keen to see them again and be back rubbing shoulders with the mates I’ve spent a lot of time with. The rumour mill has them re-joining the Battalion any day.

  Two days later, 2nd September, two companies and the Battalion headquarters are moved a couple of miles south to Neuf-Berquin. I remain with the others, under canvas at Vieux-Berquin.

  Late on the 3rd, the dregs of “D” Company ride into camp on lorries to re-join the Battalion. My worst nightmares are realised as I run to greet them. Of the two hundred and fifty men sent into Ypres, less than one hundred and fifty come back through the gates. The others are either dead or injured.

  The sight is horrific. Shell shocked, filthy, disorientated and hardly able to stand, the lads have been tortured. I struggle to keep my composure, trying hard not to ask too many questions, doing everything I possibly can to welcome them back in, offer some comfort and unload their packs. These boys need strength and solidarity right now, a helping hand, warm handshake and a smiling face, they don’t need to smell weakness. Every man in camp has come forward to help, offering encouragement and good will.

  The mess runners hand them a decent cup of tea and jam sandwiches. Most of them sit straight back down on the ground and sip on the clean, sweet, warm tea, savouring every drop as if it’s the best liquid to ever touch their lips. There isn’t much talk, just quiet chatter here and there. Water buckets and face clothes are passed around. They will be offered a bath and decent scrub soon enough but having clean hands and face will suffice right now.

  I look around, ticking off in my mind who’s not here. There are a lot of faces missing.

  The Battalion is rotating fifty men a week on Blighty leave. As “D” Company settle back into the warmth and semi secure camp life, other men line up at the front gate with their leave passes in hand, itching to get out of the place. The irony of war.

  That night I spent a lot of time trying to rub the stabbing, pencil pressure lump over my heart away.

  On the 7th September, the big move is on. The entire 1st Australian Pioneer Battalion are moved to
Ypres. The fleet of lorries deliver us to shell-pocked, flat, farm land around a mile and a half south-west of Ypres town centre. A sign says we are at Marquise Camp but it’s mostly open paddocks and certainly not enough canvas to accommodate the thousand men walking in. We pitch a few tents of our own and by nightfall every man is under cover.

  I am ordered to transfer supplies to an imposing privately owned building opposite, known as “Belgium Chateau”. It is now the Battalion headquarters. I walk up a dozen or so steps to the large glass-stained double front doors and into the foyer. A spectacular timber staircase and beautiful white marble floor take my breath away. An Officer’s aid ushers me down a corridor on the first floor and out the back to the kitchen. I’m in awe that some person or family would own a property as magnificent as this. From the kitchen window I can see a handful of shell craters in the paddocks, they have had a couple of close calls. Looking out across the flat, wide-open, windswept countryside the front line is only five miles away. It would be very sad if this mansion was ever destroyed.

  Four hundred yards east of the Chateau is the infamous Belgium Battery Corner where the Belgian Army have been sending out thousands of shells for months on end. They’ve had a few come back their way though, It’s certainly not one sided. The area has shell holes sprinkled all over the place.

  I’ve been soldiering in France, and now in Belgium, for the last eighteen months. Working up, down and under the front line, over a one hundred-mile front. I’ve had the living daylights scared out of me too many times to remember. There have been many occasions when I genuinely believed I’d seen my last sunset. Some places I’ve been comfortable in, some I hope I never see again.

  And now there’s Ypres.

  The French name, Ypres, is difficult for English speakers to pronounce. British troops see an easier option and pronounce it “Wipers”. There is a British Army rag (newspaper) issued here called “The Wipers Times”, it’s a play on the English pronunciation of Ypres. The Dutch version of the name is the easiest, they call it “Ieper”.

  What would once have been a spectacular, beautiful town, now lays in ruins, trashed and flattened. Not an intact building can be seen.

  How stunning it must have looked in its prime with the cobble-stoned town square, the breathtaking gothic architecture of St Martins Church and Cloth Hall, both built around seven hundred years ago. All that remains of those two buildings now is their burnt-out shells and amazingly, a couple of spires on adjacent corners.

  As far back as the eleventh century, Ypres was known as the centre of the cloth and wool trade. So, the old girl has been an active hub of Europe for a very long period.

  A moat surrounds the city that has helped keep the town protected from invaders since the Romans were here. No longer effective though in this modern war that we now find ourselves in.

  The main corridor through Ypres has had the debris shovelled to one side or another to allow clear passage eastwards. Walking from the direction of the main train station, past the debris of Cloth Hall, over the moat, turn right and you’re on Menin Road. Its current claim to fame is that it is the deadliest piece of road known to man. That’s not a very comforting thought when you’re tabbing along it.

  The Germans have been trying to take back Ypres for nearly three years. In the first instance the city was a stepping stone for their army marching through Belgium on their way into Northern France. The secondary importance, in recent years, is they need to take Ypres and push us back to the coast and off European soil.

  Fritz occupied the town early in the war, but the British Army took it off them in a month-long battle through October and November 1914 and forced them back to the Ypres Salient. (High ground to the east). The Germans have had Ypres surrounded on three sides for most of the time since then and have been merciless in shelling the town and surrounding areas.

  There have been several savage battles fought along the Salient with horrendous loss of life. Our big guns rain thousands of shells on Fritz, our men go over the top only to be cut down with machine gun fire minutes later. If we have had a good day we would take a few yards off them, on a bad day they would pull a few back on us. This has been going on for years now.

  Fritz first used gas as a weapon when he opened six thousand Chlorine gas canisters just a couple of miles from here, in April 1915. The tactic claimed six thousand casualties that day and the end result was that not one yard was gained.

  And that’s why, in September 1917, the 1st Australian Pioneers are now camped up around Ypres. To help keep Fritz out and preferably, one day, push the mongrel back to Germany.

  “D” company haven’t had time to scratch their backsides since they re-joined the Battalion a few days earlier. Some reinforcements have arrived to lift the company numbers back up and of course, I’m back with them as well. The chaps that spent three weeks here in Ypres recently, cannot believe that they are now back in the same region after having only three days “resting”. We camp up for one night only in Marquise Camp and then our company is marched out.

  We zig-zag our way in an easterly direction, skirting the southern end of Ypres. Crossing over railway supply lines, along duckboard tracks, through trenches, bomb craters and a variety of artillery camps. It takes us most of the day to make our four-mile journey to Zillebeke Lake.

  There is a need to keep very low and travel mostly via the trenches as machine gun sweeps are very regular. The rattle is on and off and coming in from various directions. There is a saying around here that if you hear the rattle, it’s too late to duck, the shell is past you long before you heard it. Human reflex kicks in and you duck anyway. It’s a brave, and very silly man who leaves his head up.

  The territory may once have been perfectly flat and magnificent farm land. It’s now a shell-holed, stinking shambles. Acre upon acre of turned and tortured land. Dead, bloated animals, upended machinery, abandoned and destroyed artillery pieces litter the landscape. The trenches criss-cross the area like an eight-foot deep spider web.

  We pass through a couple of recently established cemeteries with handmade timber crosses prominent. The thought on everyone’s mind is “there’d be a few of ours in there”.

  Our initial, primary objective in this area is to construct or rebuild roads and tracks that are crucial to keeping the front-line supplies flowing. The front line here is very hot, there is no rest in artillery going out or old Fritz lobbing shells our way. Because the land is so flat there is a clear view over a large area and shells can be seen landing all over the place. We camp up in a row of trench dugouts.

  In the morning we are into clearing debris and shovelling it and clay into pot holes, running out duckboards, attempting to clear a passage a mile or so eastwards towards Hooge. It seems a fruitless exercise. No sooner have we established a respectable hundred yards or so, and Fritz drops a shell on it. Honestly, I could strangle the miserable coot.

  In the first twelve hours we took eleven casualties, three took a direct shell hit and eight were gassed when a gas shell landed amongst them.

  Relentlessly, we pushed on, the lay of the land running very slightly uphill until we reached Hooge. There was a town here three years ago. All that remains of it now is half a dozen shattered tree trunks. There is nothing that indicates any building, not so much as a dunny, ever stood here. One of the mine explosions along this ridge that our boys let go last year probably helped take the town off the map, a massive crater, half full of filthy water, can be seen a few yards away.

  We camp up on the west side of Menin Road. The remnants of the road run east – west through Hooge, not exactly a road anymore but certainly a strategic line on a map that we are fighting tooth and nail for to stop Fritz putting one foot over it. We rest in a ditch that runs along the edge of the road. The front line is around four hundred yards away. Beyond that, the Germans hold it.

  There is heavy artillery to the left, right and behind us and it’s going out at a steady rate. The shells are whistling out over our heads all
the time.

  Thousands of ANZAC troops are in front-line positions, forward of where D Company is positioned. They are creeping forward on Fritz ever so slowly, relying heavily on our big guns to keep the pressure on and limit any counter attack on our chaps. There must be tens of thousands more troops backed up behind us in support and artillery. I’m told that the ANZAC’s are responsible for around six miles of front line territory here. A ragged trench line running near enough, north-south.

  The company sneak an hour or two with our heads down before joining in with the construction of a light railway support line running from Hooge to “Clapham Junction”, half a mile to our east.

  Clapham Junction is the nickname the Tommies (English soldiers) gave to a slight kink in Menin Road some time ago. I was in Clapham Junction (London) a month ago and have a decent chuckle at the comparison. Our Clapham Junction on Menin Road is a “Y” junction with a track heading off to the north. It is however, a strategically important piece of land in that it keeps supplies moving forward.

  The light gauge rail line buckles and weaves its way through some very torn up paths running parallel to Menin Road. Two shelled out tanks, half submerged in mud are off to one side. They must have been there for a while looking at the damage and rust.

  Continuous maintenance and rebuilding of the track is a minute by minute operation as the line is actively being used. Fortunately, the weather has been kind to us in recent weeks so most of the earth required to fill in holes and level the timber sleepers is reasonably firm and free of water. The situation would be unimaginable if we were working in knee deep mud and snow again.

  The first day working on the rail line, 12th September, wasn’t a good one for the 1st Pioneers. We took another twelve casualties in a gas shelling attack.

  Being in the Pioneers requires flexibility. The job tasks are endless, and every soldier is required to adapt or change his role at a moment’s notice. You might be digging a dugout twenty yards underground and then called to “stand-to” with rifle and bayonet locked in anticipating Fritz coming over the parapet. You might be laying railway line and suddenly you’re a stretcher bearer or jump up to load a machine gun because the second gunner has been taken out. The conditions change in an instant and you do whatever you are required to do as a dedicated and conscientious soldier. There is no such phrase as, “It’s not my job”.