by Bill Lamin
Soldiers’ letters were censored usually by a company or battalion officer, a job that most officers loathed. Quite apart from the time it took, they disliked reading personal and sometimes intimate details that they regarded as private to the sender. Military censors employed in rear areas at field post offices tended to be rather less sympathetic, however.
By great good fortune (and a good illustration of the power of the Internet), I have been able to obtain an account from the German viewpoint. One of the followers of Harry’s blog, Bob Lembke, has a special interest in the German flamethrower detachments. His father had been a member of one of these units, and Bob has kindly sent me this short account:
The Death Book of the German Flamethrower Regiment, a Prussian Guard unit sponsored by the Kaiser and [his son] the Prussian Crown Prince, indicates that two flame pioneer privates died fighting in Flanders on that day. I must comment that this death roll must be very accurate; the commander of the regiment, Major Dr Reddemann, had to report to the highest Army Command . . .
The death roll states that Flamen Pioniere Paul Kraus and Friedrich Maas fell in Flanders that day. . . . As one flamethrower was found on the battlefield [captured by the 9th York and Lancasters], which the Germans tried hard to prevent, it is likely that the two privates were the two-man crew of the flamethrower, which almost certainly would have been the Wex model, a very sophisticated design . . .
Generally flame attacks took two forms, one being perhaps two or four devices advancing with extreme stealth; or, alternatively, of massed devices (sometimes thirty or sixty or more) attacking suddenly, the shock effect of the surprise mass attack and the manner in which the smoke of the devices screened the operators from counter-fire often leading to a complete if local breakdown of the defence. This attack seems to have been neither, probably leading to the failure of the attack. Over the entire war, Dr Reddemann’s statistics indicate that 82 per cent of these attacks were ‘successful’ . . . (Most of the [German] dead in this attack must have been supporting infantry.)
From Bob Lembke’s detailed knowledge, it does seem certain that the flamethrower units were only used in circumstances where success was extremely likely (hence the 82 per cent success rate). Harry and his comrades were fortunate to have come through this ordeal mainly unscathed.
A contemporary account of the day’s action almost certainly refers to the attack on Harry’s trenches:
Passchendaele Sept 30th
Early this morning the enemy heavily bombarded our positions between Tower Hamlets and Polygon Wood, and subsequently launched three attacks, all of which were repulsed with loss. The first attack, delivered south of the Reutelbeek, was beaten off by our fire before reaching our position. Shortly afterwards hostile infantry advanced astride the Ypres-Menin road under cover of a thick smoke barrage and accompanied by Flammenwerfer detachments, and succeeded temporarily in driving in one of our advanced posts. An immediate counter-attack by our troops recaptured the post together with a number of prisoners and machine-guns. Later; in the morning an attempt to repeat this attack was broken up by our artillery fire.
This card (below) was included among the letters, although I don’t know to whom Harry sent it. It commemorates 23rd Division’s action. I can find a record of the artist, J.V. Breffit, not as an artist, but as an Army officer. The date, 20 September, was the start of the Battle of the Menin Road – another step in the advance astride that road towards Passchendaele.
The loss of Harry’s company commander in the action on 30 September – ‘the captain got killed’ – initiated some detective work. One of the purposes behind a visit I made to the Flanders battlefields, with others, in the summer of 2008, was identifying this officer and locating his grave. Since searching the many cemeteries in the area appeared a daunting task, it seemed sensible to start with the Bedford House Cemetery. There are more than a thousand graves in the cemetery, but luck was on our side. As soon as we located the date area for September 1917, there he was: ‘Captain A. W. Sykes, York & Lancaster Regt., 30th September 1917 Age 42. The dearly loved husband of Mary Sykes, Netherleigh, Huddersfield’.
‘The captain got killed a jolly good fellow too’ – Captain Sykes’s gravestone in Bedford House Cemetery.
I was initially a little hesitant about the identification, as the war diary entry for June 25 reported Captain Sykes as joining the battalion and being posted to A Company. Yet since there was only one officer killed on that tour in the front line (29 September–2 October), he must have been given temporary command of C Company. Harry’s epitaph for him – ‘a jolly good fellow too’ – is the more eloquent for its simplicity and obvious sincerity.
Whatever the event, or the casualties, the battalion, caught up in the huge war machine, carried on as usual. The war diary entry states that on 3 October ‘Battalion moved to METEREN area by bus, embussing at 2pm and arriving in billets by 6pm.’ This was a return to the familiar training area west of Ypres. For the soldiers it meant relief from the trenches, with the opportunity to write letters and perform many other tasks: wash themselves and their clothes, dry and clean weapons and other equipment, delouse themselves and their uniforms – even catch up on some sleep, if drill and training permitted. In the end, the respite lasted a week. The war diary takes up the narrative:
5th The Commanding Officer inspected the Bn. on the 5th inst. [i.e. of the current month].
2nd Lt D H WEBBE was transferred to England & struck off the strength. Capt C Palmer ordered [to attend] a Medical Board and also struck off (Authy A G No D/1981).
10th At 2pm the Bn moved to the front line and relieved the 11th Bn W. Yorks.
11 to 14 [October] Casualties Capt. S. Riddell killed 2Lts A.J. Walters & R Coyles wounded. 12 O.R. killed 77 OR wounded 4 OR missing believed killed.
Night of 14th to MICMAC camp.
[The war diary then lists what has happened to four officers wounded before the latest tour in the front line] Major Gylls A.R. wounded to England 1-10-17. 2Lt A Barber ditto 2-10-17. 2Lt H G Smith ditto 29-9-17 2Lt J.E. Hall ditto 25-9-17
There must be an explanation for the heavy casualties suffered between 11 and 14 October, but the battalion war diary merely records the losses in officers and men for the battalion’s stint in the front line. There is absolutely no account of any action, or even of any notable events, on those days.
The casualties were heavy. Around 10 per cent of the notional strength were killed or wounded – over four times the losses in the action of 30 September–2 October, for which the war diary provides a relatively detailed account.
On 12 October, while the battalion was in the front line, the next stage of the advance was launched, the main assault carried out this time by Australian and New Zealand troops. Their losses were enormous, though they met with little success. The 9th York and Lancasters must have been incidental to the main attack, yet the battalion drew significant casualties from the fighting resulting from it.
After the relatively dry September, the wet weather had emphatically returned. In the two days up to 9 October an inch (25mm) of rain had fallen, over half the normal rainfall for the month. The whole battlefield became a sea of mud. October 1917 was thought to be the wettest October in Flanders that century.
Two extracts from contemporary accounts of the events may help us to understand something of this terrible time. The first, from a New Zealander, is recorded on the ‘Flanders 1917’ website:
Recovering the New Zealand wounded from the battlefield took two and a half days even with 3,000 extra men . . . The conditions were horrendous and up to eight men were needed to carry each stretcher because of the mud and water. The Germans suffered the same problems and an informal truce for stretcher-bearers came into force, although anyone without a stretcher was fired on. By the evening of October 14 there simply was no one left alive on the battlefield.
Field Marshal Sir Douglas Haig’s account of the battle paints a sorry picture of brave men engaged in a futile task:
&nb
sp; They advanced every time with absolute confidence in their power to overcome the enemy, even though they had sometimes to struggle through mud up to their waists to reach him. So long as they could reach him they did overcome him, but physical exhaustion placed narrow limits on the depth to which each advance could be pushed, and compelled long pauses between the advances.
Although not engaged in the main push, there was little respite for the 9th York and Lancasters, as the war diary records (the curious combinations of letters and figures, such as ‘J11a’, are map references):
15 & 16 [October] MICMAC CAMP. Cleaning up: C.O.’s inspection. 2Lt A J Walker died of wounds 16th: Capt S. W. Wicks hosp[italized] sick 16th.
17 Relieved 11 W Yorks in reserve Zillebeke Bund about 5.30 pm
18 Batt moved to line and relieved 8 KOYLI. 2 Lt Wheliker to England.
20 Batt relieved by 11 W Yorks. Batt H.Q. B & D Coys to BUND: A Coy relieved Coy of 11 W Y[orks] nr J11a & became support coy to 8 York [Yorkshire Regiment; generally known as the Green Howards]: C Coy to bout Jsc in support to 11 W Y. Total casualties for tour 4 O.R. killed, 20 O.R. wounded.
21 To Brewery Camp.
Once again, the casualties are recorded without comment. These losses would have been considered ‘normal’ for three days in the front line at a time of much activity.
From 21 October, the battalion moved away from the front line and returned to rest, recuperation and routine training. Harry’s letter to Jack a few days later sums up his experiences and adds some pleasant personal details. We get a picture of the comradeship and sharing that were so valued among the soldiers, and we can see that winning a medal was not high among his priorities. Willie’s mug figures again, and we learn that Harry, clearly, had been enjoying married life before the war interfered. At the end of the month, two of the top brass visited for inspections. On the 29th the divisional commander, Major-General Babington, inspected the battalion. Two days later, the Commander-in-Chief, Sir Douglas Haig, inspected the brigade. I would guess that it was Babington who spoke to C Company, rather than Haig himself.
Dear Jack,
I was very pleased to have another letter from you I have not had many lately. I have not heard from Kate yet will you send me her address at once I think some of her letters must have got lost. We have had a busy time in the trenches since seventeenth of September till just now. We are out for a rest we have earned it we were in the trenches five Sundays out of six so you can tell, we want another draft [of replacements] now there is not many left now. I think there is more military medals in our company than any other in France. No 1 & 2 in our gun team has got one so you see we are proud. The General said we can’t all get them if we earn them but I’m alright and I don’t bother about one. There is above twenty in our company now with them, as long as I am alright I don’t care. I was going up to the trenches last month and on the road got talking to an artillery man. It come too his home was in Oxford. he said there was some East Oxford lads with him. I told him my name but he did not know me as he went to school at Henley. He gave me a packet of chocolate a package of cigs box of matches and two candles not a bad sort what you think. The pillbox we took over was one the Australians had taken a day or two before. The Germans would not come out so they burnt them out it was in a state. We have been on the range today firing. I did not do at all bad only I am not much good at rapid firing but at 300 yards application, fires [fire as] you like, plenty of time I got 19 points out of 20 4 bulls and one inner. I was very pleased to hear that you are thinking of getting married. I should not wait a day. I should not like to be single again and I think that you will say the same let me know as soon as possible. They tell me Willie likes his mug and is very pleased with it. I got your packet alright. I should be glad when the war is over so that I can come and see you. Don’t forget Kate’s address when you write and write soon yourself
with best love from
Harry
The letter is undated, but by referring to the battalion war diary it is possible to date it with some confidence to 27 October – the day on the rifle range.
Almost certainly the Lewis gun No.1 and No.2 were awarded their Military Medals for the action on 30 September. Without their names and a specific mention in the war diary, however, it has not been possible to uncover any citation. I would also have liked to have been able to identify the pillbox that seems to have been taken with a flamethrower, or possibly phosphorus grenades (P bombs), but, without a specific date, it proved impossible. The Australians cleared many pillboxes on the road to Passchendaele.
On the day after Harry wrote to Jack, a brief entry in the war diary signalled an enormous change for him and his comrades.
28 To billets in Wizennes [Wizernes] 2.15 pm arrived 5 pm. instructions recvd to recall all men on leave, courses etc.
The Passchendaele offensive as a whole lasted from 31 July to 10 November. Despite the fine spell in September, what is chiefly remembered about the battle (or series of battles, really), other than the enormous casualties, is the misery of fighting in mud and water. The area to the north of the Menin Road had been a marsh before ever the battle started. The bombardment and the rain simply combined to produce a morass of almost impassable mud.
After five months of heavy fighting, Canadian troops finally took the village of Passchendaele on 6 November. By then, the once substantial village had been reduced to a smear of rubble and brick dust in a sea of mud and shell holes. The cost had been immense. The Allies had sustained almost half a million casualties, while the Germans reported just over a quarter of a million men killed or seriously wounded. For the Allies, a gain of around five miles (8km), capturing the high ground around Ypres, had cost 140,000 lives. Yet despite this cost in lives and the suffering of the troops, the Allies were forced to withdraw from the high ground just four months later, virtually back to their original line.
This ‘last-push-to-achieve-a-breakthrough’ philosophy permanently damaged Haig’s reputation. The huge losses to achieve little of any importance, and his determination to persist with the offensive in such terrible conditions, were unforgivable.
There are many accounts of Passchendaele by those who survived it. The overall German commander in the sector, General Erich Ludendorff, shows nothing but admiration for the men of both sides:
The horror of the shell-hole area of Verdun [February–December 1916] was surpassed. It was no longer life at all. It was mere unspeakable suffering. And through this world of mud the attackers dragged themselves, slowly, but steadily, and in dense masses. Caught in the advanced zone by our hail of fire they often collapsed, and the lonely man in the shell-hole breathed again. Then the mass came on again. Rifle and machine-gun jammed with the mud. Man fought against man, and only too often the mass was successful.
More succinct, but no less telling, is a line from the war poet Siegfried Sassoon, who served on the Western Front as an officer of the Royal Welch Fusiliers:
I died in Hell – (They called it Passchendaele).
CHAPTER 7
THE JOURNEY TO ITALY
AFTER A VERY UNPLEASANT time in or close to the front line, Harry’s battalion moves away to regroup and reorganize. The war diary for the last three days of October reports the arrival of three separate drafts, totalling 220 soldiers, replacing casualties, which need to be absorbed into the unit. After being relieved in the front line on 20 October, the battalion spends a day in Brewery Camp ‘cleaning up’ before moving by train to Wizernes, a training camp in France some thirty miles (48km) west of the front line at Ypres. For the next three weeks, they spend their time cleaning, training and generally sorting out in the relative calm of the Wizernes training area.
The war diary for the period has some interesting entries:
29 G.O.C. Div [general officer commanding the division] inspected batt 10 a.m. draft of 95 O.R. joined.
30 range practice for the draft; cleaning up etc. for C in C’s [commander-in-chief’s] inspection. 2Lt W T S Smith joined.<
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31 C in C inspected the Brigade
drafts of 50 O.Rs & 75 O.R.s joined.
As early as 28 October, the 23rd Division, along with four other British divisions, had received orders to prepare to move to an unknown destination. It is these orders that would have triggered the recall of personnel. At that date, five divisions would have totalled well over 50,000 men. Their departure from the front would have put more pressure on the remaining troops in the sector.
Field Marshal Haig inspected the division at Leulinghem, near Wizernes, on the 31st. It is a widely held view that Haig never actually saw the front line in all his time as Commander-in-Chief on the Western Front. His entire appreciation of the state of the soldiers under his command and the conditions they were enduring was based entirely on reports from his staff. His own assessment of the Passchendaele offensive, reported near the end of the last chapter (see here), was a condensed version of reports he had received. Harry’s letters make no mention of his inspection.
The war diary continues:
November 1917 Wizernes
1st to 9th During this period the Battalion carried out a satisfactory training programme, and the specialists were trained by their own officers. Range practices were fired on the 1st 3rd 4th 6th & 7th the shooting was very satisfactory, and the men of the new drafts showed improvement. The Divl [Divisional] Gas officer inspected SBRs on the 2nd and lectured to all officers and Platoon Commanders on the 6th. A Church parade was held on the 4th. A draft of 50 ORs joined on the 5th inst and were inspected by the G.O.C. on the 8th. Whilst in this area there was very little sickness in the Battalion and the men benefitted from the rest.