by Peter Brune
There were two additional alternatives. The first was to commit the Americans to capture the remaining ground on 27 September before the main attack of the 29th. The second was to place the American 27th Division’s start line for the attack on that day 1000 yards in the rear of the former Blue Line objective—essentially where the Division was then positioned. Rawlinson chose the first option. In doing so he was probably driven by two thoughts. The first was wishful thinking, in that he hoped the Americans might accomplish in one to two days what III Corps had failed to accomplish in seven. However, it would seem that Rawlinson’s decision was driven more by his reluctance to change his intricate plans at such a late juncture. The point is illustrated by the fact that although Monash offered to change the artillery barrage plans to accommodate a revised American start line, his offer was rejected. In the end, the Americans were now confronted with a one- to two-day operation to take the old Blue Line objectives of the Knoll, Gillemont Farm and Quennemont Farm, before then mounting their Hindenburg Main Line attack on the very next day.
On 23 September Monash held a conference for the American II Corps senior officers. The senior Australian Corps Mission officers were also present. Lasting some three hours, Monash gave an outline of the American preliminary attack upon the Outpost Line objectives of the Knoll, Quennemont and Gillemont Farms. He also described in minute detail the roles of both Divisions in the coming 29 September attack. On the 25th he held his first full Australian Corps conference, and the next day the American Generals and brigadier-generals, the Australian divisional commanders and their staffs, and tank, air force and cavalry officers all attended the final conference.
On that same day (26 September), after Monash had formally assumed command of his new front, with the American 27th and 30th Divisions on the left and right flanks respectively, the planned four-day artillery bombardment of the German Hindenburg Main Line began.
The artillery plan for this operation presented three challenges. The first was the fact that the German defences were far more extensive than had previously been confronted, in that there was an abundance of concrete dugouts across three lines of main trenches; the protection offered by the two tunnels; and the widespread and deep nature of the wire belts. Second, those attributes made the employment of an artillery predicted bombardment at zero hour redundant, and, as a consequence, the prized Principle of War ‘surprise’ could not be employed. The third concerned General Rawlinson’s plan to cross the canal at two places instead of Monash’s original Bellicourt–Vendhuile tunnel-only plan. The canal was about 59 feet wide, some 32 feet ten inches deep, and its average water depth was six-and-a-half feet. Most importantly, its western wired side and its eastern side were both extremely steep. Therefore, a prolonged artillery program would be required to both decrease the gradients of those canal slopes and to cut the wire, and thereby facilitate the British 46th Division’s crossing of that obstruction. There were thus five Fourth Army artillery objectives: neutralise the German defences; cut the wire; lessen the canal slope gradient at the 46th Division crossing point; provide, as usual, accurate and telling creeping barrages for the infantry advance; and generally demoralise the enemy occupants on that line.
The artillery resources for the four-day bombardment were impressive. In all, ‘44 brigades of field artillery, 21 brigades of heavy artillery, and 4 long-range siege batteries’, which amounted to ‘1,044 field guns and howitzers, and 593 heavy guns and howitzers’, were to be employed.12 Of those, General Monash’s front was allotted 23 field artillery brigades and ten heavy artillery brigades.13
There were five parts of the four-day preliminary bombardment. The first was the employment of some 30 000 new gas shells (Mustard Gas), just then arriving from England, which were to be fired in combination with HE by 18-pounder guns and 6-inch Howitzers during irregular periods over the four days. The gas shell targets were the main dugout and artillery locations as far as the range of the guns would permit. The second was counter-battery fire using HE shells with instantaneous fuses and gas shells. When this fire was employed on fortified emplacements and dugouts, delayed action fuses were to be used. The third took the form of intensive harassing fire over each 24-hour period so as to demoralise the enemy. Wire cutting was the vitally important fourth role. This was to be undertaken by 4.5- and 6-inch Howitzers using instantaneous fuses, to be followed by machine gun fire to hamper German repair work. The last objective was the bombardment of selected strong points and locations.
In the realisation that a destructive bombardment certainly upon the tunnel, but also upon concrete dugouts and machine gun positions would not destroy them, the entrances to those features were targeted and harassing fire was to be used. In an effort to disrupt German communications, telephone exchanges were to be targeted, and specially defended locations—such as Bellenglise, Nauroy, Bellicourt and Bony—were to be hit.14 The majority of the Fourth Army’s guns were deployed on good ground stretching north to south on the line Lempire–Hargicourt–Le Verguier.
The counter-battery program for the four-day bombardment was hampered to some extent by poor weather and reduced flying hours, which affected photography, observation and flash spotting.15 However, the use of sound ranging, and most of all the detailed captured maps, compensated for those handicaps.
***
At 5.30 am on 27 September 1918, the American 27th Division’s attack to secure the Outpost Line consisting of the Knoll, Gillemont Farm and Quennemont Farm was launched. Charles Bean:
It had to advance 1,000–1,500 yards on a front of slightly over 4,000 yards. It attacked with the three battalions of the 106th Regiment (53rd Brigade), helped by twelve tanks (a company of the 4th Tank Battalion), behind a creeping barrage laid by nine brigades of artillery and including fifteen per cent of smoke shell.16
Such terms as ‘mopping up’, ‘infantry–tank cooperation’, ‘junior leadership’, ‘communication’, ‘navigation’ and ‘staff work’ are so easy to use; and yet these techniques are so hard to master. And then they must be coordinated into a practised and successful military doctrine. If one or more of the critical elements of time, training and experience are prejudiced in the acquisition of that doctrine, then failure and severe casualties will result.
High endeavour was not lacking in those American troops. Edward M Coffman has recorded that intense fighting raged around the three key locations of the Knoll, Gillemont Farm and Quennemont Farm for much of the day. ‘A reinforced battalion took the Knoll three times and lost it each time.’17 Of the above-mentioned points, the failure of ‘mopping up’, ‘junior leadership’ and ‘communication’ appear to have been the major causes for the American reverses. In their enthusiasm, as ground was gained in the fog and mist early that morning, German machine gun posts were missed, and a ‘mopping up’ second wave of troops failed to deal with them. In all this, the Americans went into the operation with a shortage of officers. Peter Pedersen has pointed out that the American 53rd Brigade had gone in with ‘only eighteen officers in its twelve companies, whereas an Australian Brigade would have employed at least forty officers’.18 Two further points should be made. First, those American officers were handicapped by poor map-reading and navigation skills, and a number were too far to the rear to effectively control their battle. Second, while the Australian officers in such an operation would have been more numerous, if they became casualties, senior NCOs—and indeed other ranks—were familiar with the minor infantry tactics required, and would have carried on. This did not apply to the Americans.
However, communication was the major problem, and it surfaced not only at the local sub-unit level, but right through the chain of command. As the Americans gained ground, their failure to mop up some German machine gun posts saw them fired on from the front, back and flanks, which fragmented their progress into isolated, disorientated and often leaderless groups. In the intensity of fighting, therefore, many junior and senior commanders alike lost control of their battle.
; No. 3 Squadron, Australian Flying Corps, first reported that the early morning fog and mist made identification of the front-line position difficult; it also found that ‘a later contact reported our line not quite on the objective but considerable doubt existed as to where the more advanced posts were. No flares were lit so that the line had to be obtained by recognising our troops.’19 And, late that day, No. 3 Squadron observed that:
Just on dusk it was reported that the most advanced posts of the Americans were cut off with communication with their rear and a plane was sent out to drop a message ordering them to hold on until reinforced . . . Captain L. J. Wackett, Pilot, and Lieut. M. Shelley, Observer, also went up and dropped two boxes of ammunition in this vicinity in case these troops were in need of same.20
Monash’s Corps HQ received conflicting reports throughout the day, which varied from individual officers maintaining that the objectives had or had not been taken, to further contradictory reports from airmen. Further away still from the battle, on 27 September the Fourth Army recorded that an officer ‘who returned from the front line at 5 p.m. reports definitely that the Knoll-Guillemont Farm [sic] and Quennemont Farm are in our hands’.21
It would not be until the early morning of 28 September that patrols found Germans still in control of the three original objectives. In scattered and isolated groups, some behind them and others in front, lay numerous dead, dying and still-unwounded American soldiers. The question was, how many of the latter existed and where were they?
On 28 September the American II Corps Commander, Major-General Read, and Generals Monash and Rawlinson were faced with a harsh choice concerning the artillery barrage for the main attack the next day (29 September) on the left American 27th Division front. Given that Division’s failed attack of the previous day, and the consequent unknown numbers of American troops still scattered between their start line and the still-uncaptured objectives, the generals were confronted with two options. And both were unpalatable. The first was to stick to Monash’s original barrage to comply with his plan of 18 September. But if this option was adopted, the Americans would be forced to cross over 1000 yards of ground in order to reach those three formidable high-ground objectives without artillery creeping barrage support, for fear of bombarding their own isolated pockets of troops.
Monash and General O’Ryan, the American 27th Division Commander, suggested a second option to Rawlinson, which entailed a postponement of the attack for a day, in order to mount a further operation to secure the original Outpost start line. Rawlinson declined, pointing out that the attack on the 29th involved four armies and could not therefore be rescheduled for one division, but that he would allot the 27th Division extra tanks. In the end, the matter was greatly influenced by General O’Ryan, who was not prepared to bring down a barrage on stranded elements of his own troops, which, he stated, would have been ‘repulsive to the mass of the officers and men of the division and destructive of morale’.22
Monash’s original plan of 18 September with its Hindenburg Outpost start line was to stand.
***
5.50 am, 29 September 1918. Under cover of an early morning fog and mist, amid the deafening roar of the Fourth Army artillery barrage, and with the added din of tanks and of planes flying overhead, the infantry began its assault upon the Hindenburg Main Line. The operation conducted by the British IX Corps’s 46th (Midland) Division on the right or southern flank must go down as one of the most audacious and brilliantly executed attacks of the war. And from an Australian Corps perspective this British operation secured its right flank throughout the battle.
On this southern front the 46th (Midland) Division’s 137th Brigade, closely following an excellent artillery barrage, stormed the advanced German trenches on the western side of the canal. This coordinated action was so swift that many of the German defenders were caught in their dugouts and were either overrun or captured. When the leading elements of the Division reached the canal they were confronted by the fruits of the long artillery bombardment upon its slopes. Sections of the wire had been cut and the former steep gradient had been damaged to allow an easier descent to the water and the scaling of its eastern bank. At this point a most innovative plan for the canal crossing was implemented. The Fourth Army had procured all manner of aids for the crossing of that obstacle—some 3000 lifebelts, ropes, a few rafts and ladders—which facilitated not just a crossing, but a rapid one and in large numbers. Further, the rapidity of that crossing led to the capture of an intact bridge near Riqueval just as the German engineers were about to demolish it. Nor did the momentum of this 46th Division slow after its canal crossing.
By mid-afternoon, and still aided by the intensity and accuracy of their artillery barrages, the 46th Division had not only taken the canal from Riqueval to Le Tronquoy, but also the first line of the Hindenburg Main Line defences. After the 32nd Division had ‘leapfrogged’ the 46th, its soldiers went on to capture the critical high ground east of Magny and had, by the end of that stirring day, taken its objectives to an impressive depth of 6000 yards. Prior and Wilson have left us with a telling summation of the 1918 consequences of an intense, accurate, artillery bombardment followed up by disciplined, well-drilled infantry who had kept pace with it: ‘It has been estimated that during each minute 126 shells from the field guns alone were falling on every 500 yards of trench. The intensity was maintained for the entire eight hours of 46th Division’s attack.’23
On the British IX Corps left or northern flank, General Monash’s II American and Australian Corps attack was undertaken by the American 30th Division and the AIF 5th Division on the right flank, and the American 27th and AIF 3rd Division on the left. Each of the two forces were to attack across a 3500-yard front.
The American 30th Division (Major-General Lewis), closely following its barrage, crossed the start line promptly at 5.50 am, and set off for the southern half of the Bellicourt Tunnel. As had happened to their sister 27th Division two days earlier, the heavy fog and mist—and artillery smoke—that concealed many of those soldiers during their advance, also made navigation and the identification of German machine gun posts most difficult. As they progressed, those two factors caused a breaking-up of formations into individual groups of soldiers who often found themselves disorientated, leaderless and stuck in shell holes or trenches and unable to communicate with other personnel.
The 5th AIF Division (Major-General Hobbs) was tasked with ‘leapfrogging’ the American 30th Division on the Green Line. Its 8th Brigade was to advance on the right or southern flank, its 15th Brigade on the left or northern flank, and its 14th Brigade was to act as the Division’s reserve. All three Brigades were supported by eight Mark V Tanks. Strict orders were given that all AIF Brigades were not to cross their start line until 9.00 am and were to ‘leapfrog’ the Americans at the Green Line not before 11.00 am.
The 5th Division’s 8th Brigade (Brigadier-General Tivey), moving in artillery formation, crossed its start line on schedule with its 32nd Battalion on the right, its 29th Battalion on the left, the 31st in support and its 30th Battalion in reserve. Evidence of poor American 30th Division communication and a resulting confusion immediately surfaced. The 8th Brigade recorded that:
At 9.40 a.m. word was received from Brigade Forward Station that the assaulting Bns. had passed Bellicourt: situation fairly quiet. At 10.8 a.m. all Bns reported coming under heavy machine gun fire from direction of Nauroy, also that they could not see any evidence of Americans in front of them. At the same time word was received from Division that 30th American Division had captured their objectives.24
As the right-flank 8th Brigade’s 32nd Battalion approached the tunnel, it came under withering machine gun fire, which stalled its advance. Tanks were called in and the troublesome machine gun posts were taken. By early afternoon, although the 32nd Battalion was able to push forward through the southern end of Nauroy, the 8th Brigade had established the fact that there were ‘no organised American troops in front of the Brigade’.25 The 32nd
Division’s right flank was secured by contact being made with the British 46th Division’s 4th Leicesters. The situation on the 8th Brigade’s left flank presented a tougher challenge. With its sister 15th Brigade’s difficulty in maintaining its forward advance on the 8th Brigade’s left flank, the latter’s 29th Battalion, although managing to reach the Green Line at about 3.00 pm, was forced to withdraw to the Le Catelet–Nauroy Line.26
While these events were in train on the 8th Brigade’s right flank, on the 5th Division’s left flank its 15th Brigade (Brigadier-General Elliott) had also experienced a tough time. Elliott deployed his 59th Battalion on his left flank, his 57th Battalion on the right, and his 58th in reserve. It will be remembered that Elliott’s 60th Battalion had been disbanded and had become a part of the 59th Battalion. The two leading 59th and 57th battalions were each supported by two Mark V Tanks and two Whippet Tanks, while the reserve 58th Battalion was supported by four Mark V Tanks.
Some idea of the degree of difficulty even for experienced troops attempting to navigate their way forward through that dense fog, mist and artillery smoke early that morning, can be gauged by the fact that although compass bearings were frequently taken, the 15th Brigade’s 59th Battalion ‘appeared to have suffered most by loss of direction’.27 Having travelled too far to the north, the Battalion found their supporting 58th Battalion on their right and the right-flank 3rd Division’s 44th Battalion ahead of them. Once again, on the 15th Brigade front, we note poor communication from the Americans ahead: