They Called it Passchendaele

by Lyn Macdonald

  We jumped out of the trench relieved that the long wait was over, and after getting into some sort of order we marched in artillery formation across the open ground. I felt curiously helpless. The din of the guns behind and the shells in front prevented us from hearing whether the enemy artillery was in action, but no shells appeared to be bursting anywhere near. I fully expected to hear the sudden roar of high explosives, or the crash of shrapnel, but it was singularly absent and we gained confidence with every step. We crossed the enemy front line, which was but the wreckage of a trench system, and when nearing the second line we opened into extended order, just as we had done in the rehearsals of a few days before.*

  And over on Hill 60, just as they had done in the rehearsals a few days before in the sunny fields behind the line, Corporal John Wilson of the 12th Durhams went past the shoulder of Lieutenant Todd of the West Yorkshires. It was an unbelievable coincidence. In the heat of the battle there was no time for chat, just a hasty clap on the shoulder as before.

  ‘Good luck, John lad.’

  ‘Good luck, Jim.’

  Lieutenant J. Todd, 11th Btn., Prince of Wales’ Own West Yorkshire Regiment

  The Durhams were going forward. Our job was to stay where we were and consolidate the new line. We’d skirted the craters and got up to what had been the German front line and taken it over, but the trouble was that it was facing the wrong way round – the line of fire was facing the direction where our positions had been, and now that we’d chased the Germans out of it that was no use to us. And, of course, we found a lot of German pillboxes up there and had to clear them out. There were quite a few Germans in them and we’d shout in to them to come out; if they didn’t, then we chucked a bomb in. They came out fast enough then! It was eight or nine in the morning before we got properly dug in and by then the Germans had started a counter-barrage, so we were having some casualties. Corporal Scott came up to me during the counter-attack and said, ‘Mr Porter’s been killed, sir.’ I said, ‘All right, Corporal! I’ll come down in a few minutes.’ He said, ‘I beg your pardon, sir, I was made a sergeant before we went in.’ I said, ‘Well, keep your ruddy head down or you’ll be a blooming angel before you go out!’

  The Times, Friday, 8 June 1917.

  In the capture of the ridge, both north and south Irishmen have their share. Northerners and Southerners, Protestant and Catholic troops, fought alongside of one another and, whatever may be party feeling at home, it is as well to know that the feeling between the two bodies here is most cordial. The Southern Irishmen recently presented a cup for competition between the various companies of the Northernforce, and of late there has been swearing of the utmost rivalry as to which would get to the top of the Messines Ridge first. I do not yet know which did, but I have no doubt that both were first in good Irish fashion.

  Some of the Irish never got there at all. Just to the right of the great Spanbroekmolen mine, in front of Kruisstraat, Lieutenant Witherow – in obedience to his orders – had set off with his Company as soon as the protective barrage opened. But the Spanbroekmolen mine was late in going up. It exploded fifteen seconds behind the rest, and in that fifteen seconds Witherow’s Company had got well out into No Man’s Land.

  Lieutenant T. Witherow, 8th Btn., Royal Irish Rifles

  We’d made it through the machine-gun fire and had almost got to the German positions, when a terrible thing happened that nearly put an end to my fighting days. AD of a sudden the earth seemed to open and belch forth a great mass of flame. There was a deafening noise and the whole thing went up in the air, a huge mass of earth and stone. We were all thrown violently to the ground and debris began to rain down on us. Luckily only soft earth fell on me, but the Lance-Corporal one of my best Section Commanders, was killed by a brick. It struck him square on the head as he lay at my side. A few more seconds and we would have gone up with the mine.*

  The Times, Friday, 8 June 1917.

  From our Special

  Correspondent

  Our Artillery was magnificent. No praise can be too high for the work of our airmen. The ‘Tanks’ rendered useful help. Indeed, beside the attacking infantry, who behaved everywhere with perfect gallantry, all branches of the Army collaborated splendidly in attaining the great result.

  Rifleman T. Cantlon, No. 33419, 21st Btn., King’s Royal Rifle Corps

  It was the first time I’d ever seen a tank close to. I just kept beside it, I couldn’t see my officer, and by this time the Germans were firing a counter-barrage back at us, and the last I’d seen of Mr Harrison he was caught in between our shells and theirs, so I thought he was gone. I couldn’t see any of my other mates either, so I just kept on going with the bunch that was around me, near to this tank.

  The odds are four to one that the tank round which Tom Cantlon and his fellow troops were clustering, like so many chickens round a hen, was Revenge or the sister tank Iron Rations. Both were attacking in the same sector, ranging, like the other tanks, in pairs – the male tank (Revenge) equipped with cannon, and the female tank (Iron Rations) equipped with machine-guns.

  Corporal A. E. Lee MM, No. 32198, A Btn., Tank Corps

  There were eight tanks altogether in our sector, coming from various points. We each took our own route and we really felt that we were coming into our own at last, being used properly at the right time on good ground. Our job was simply to help the infantry. A runner came up and shouted, ‘We’re held up by machine-guns, just over on the right.’ We went over, found that quite a lot of infantry were taking cover, and a hundred or so yards ahead we could see where the bullets were coming from. So we just drove straight at it, firing as we went, and of course that was the end of that. Once we got near they just put their hands up. We stopped firing if they surrendered. But if they hadn’t surrendered we’d just have kept on going, right over the top of them. When we got further on to what had been the German support line, there were still a lot of them firing from these concrete pillboxes and the infantry couldn’t get past. Iron Rations kept them busy while we went round the back, and we just simply blew the doors off with our cannon. It took about three shells to take the door off.

  The only problem we had was when our sister tank got ditched. That often happened with the tanks. The track would cut through soft earth, wet earth, and sink in until the ground was tight up under the belly of the tank. Then the track just spun round without gripping anything and the tank was ‘ditched’. It was absolutely against orders to stop, in fact it was a court-martial offence. But we weren’t going to leave Iron Rations there. At that time we had two heavy cables – one heavy cable for each tank and this was hooked over the top, shackled to the front and the rear. Well, we’d practised towing out, and we could see that Iron Rations was ditched, so we went across to her and two of her men got out. One of them unshackled the cable at the rear of Iron Rations and the other pulled it over to the front, and as we came by he pulled our shackle-pin out and put his cable in. We didn’t even stop. We just carried on until we took the strain and then pulled Iron Rations out. But we knew that we were disobeying orders in going close together. Apparently they would rather have had the two tanks ditched, unable to do anything, than orders being disobeyed. Later in the day, we got ditched and Iron Rations did the same service for us.

  The boys of the tank crews were a law unto themselves. Having mown down anything that moved in front of the advancing infantry and lumbered through to their rallying-point at the second objective, they waited to see what was going to happen and meantime had their lunch. It was all very well for the Tommies, thankful enough to hack open the tins of bully beef they carried in their packs, but the crew of Revenge turned up their noses at such simple fare.

  Corporal A. E. Lee MM, No. 32198, A Btn., Tank Corps

  In the tanks we were very epicurious, and we’d bought supplies at the local canteens and the shops in the towns before coming into the battle. This time we had tinned sausages. They were cold, of course, but they were still quite a treat for us, b
ecause we hadn’t had any for a long time. Before we went into action we always had a whip-round, and everyone contributed as much as they could to the pool. Most of us had a bit more than our pay, sent by our folks at home, so we always had a few pounds to spend. We had a couple of bottles of whisky on that occasion as well, so we were very well equipped in the way of food and drink. Of course, we weren’t supposed to take whisky and rum in the tank with us but who was to know! There wasn’t a lot of room, but if you were careful you could find places for it, even if it meant dropping a few shells out.

  So we got to our rallying-point and we got out of the tank, because by that time the battle had gone on, and we were eating our sausages and discreetly drinking our whisky when an infantry runner came across and asked for the senior officer. The senior tank officer went over to the telephone, for the signallers had managed to lay a line and get it going. He came back saying that things had gone so well that day that they were running a fresh division up in motor lorries and cars, all the transport they could get, and we were going to start on what had been intended to be the second day’s battle at two o’clock. Of course, they couldn’t get fresh tanks up, so we had to carry on. We were rather enjoying ourselves so we didn’t mind carrying on.

  Tom Cantlon, waiting on the same line, would have sold his soul for a swig of Nick Lee’s whisky, or even for a drop of water. For the infantry, the heat, the dust and the discomfort of mouths parched dry with excitement was almost the worst part of the batde. By twelve o’clock most water bottles were empty, and although the rations were already on their way it would be some time before they got there. All along the consolidated line, flares were burning. The Allied aircraft, which on that day almost had the sky to themselves, were taking back reports of the positions the troops had reached. The guns were already on the move. Looking back from the crest of the ridge Lieutenant Witherow could see them moving forward with the transport wagons close behind. Seeing the exposed positions which the Allies had so triumphantly vacated just a few hours before, he could hardly believe that they had existed for so long under the nose of the enemy.

  The infantrymen who in the confusion had become detached from their own particular units took advantage of the respite to try to rejoin them. Tom Cantlon, meeting up with a group of KRRs, was amazed when one said to him, ‘Your officer’s looking for you, Tommy-boy.’ He was also delighted to discover that Lieutenant Harrison was still alive, for he remembered that water bottle full of blessed whisky. When he eventually found him taking possession of a German pillbox to set up Company Headquarters, Tom was too desperate even to salute. ‘Got a drop in the bottle, sir?’ he croaked, ‘I’m gasping for a drink.’

  ‘Not a drop, Cantlon. It’s all gone, hours ago.’

  Tom turned away gloomily and looked out through the now-silent gun slit of the captured pillbox, down to where the transport wagons could be seen making their way – oh so slowly – to the foot of the ridge, where the carrying parties waited to bring up the precious water.

  In a shell-hole further along the ridge John Wilson and his platoon of the Durhams – now well beyond Hill 60 consolidating the second line of advance – looked up at an innocent cloud in the blue June sky, like thirsty men imagining a mirage in the desert, and hopefully spread a groundsheet to catch any raindrops it might condescend to bestow. The cloud sailed innocuously past. The platoon swore. ‘By God’, said Lance-Corporal Wilson, ‘wherever I am, after this lot’s over, if I want a smoke or a drink I’m going to make ruddy sure I’ll have one.’ Between them they had plenty of cigarettes, but with a parched tongue cleaving to the dry roof of your mouth, there was no comfort to be found even in a fag.

  During the lull at about two o’clock Captain Greener was making his way back, for the job of the tunnelling companies had not finished when the mines exploded. They were specialists in dug-outs and fortifications, and it was their job to see that the German dug-outs were safe after the infantry had taken them. All morning he and his men had been following the troops of the Irish Division, checking the captured dug-outs for bombs and the booby-traps at which the Germans were so expert.

  Captain M. Greener, 175 Tunnelling Coy., Royal Engineers

  The Germans had a habit of booby-trapping anything. There might be a dug-out with a fireplace in it and a chimney, and in the chimney there would be a bomb. Or perhaps a revolver left on the table, and you’d pick that up and you would pull a pin out of a bomb. Some of the dug-outs had steps leading down into them, and you never went down without rolling something down those steps first because there could be a mine or a bomb under one of them, and if you trod on that step, up it went. They booby-trapped their dug-outs as a matter of course and kept everything disconnected while they were in them; but when they saw that something was happening and that there was a chance of their losing that position, they would connect them up again.

  On that day at Messines we did find a few things, especially in the support lines further back, but they hadn’t really had time to do much. However, it was our job to check them all, to neutralise anything that had been left in the way of bombs, and then to let the infantry know what dug-outs they could use and where was a good place for headquarters and that sort of thing. We went across with the Irish Division and we could have practically gone anywhere that day. The support line was no bother and the final objective was no bother, so by about two o’clock I was on my way back. It was my first chance to look at the crater that the mine had made, because we’d been told not to go near it on the way across. Even later in the day we weren’t allowed to go right into it because of the gas – the poisonous fumes from the explosive. But we had a very good look at it. The damage of a mine of that size on the surrounding trenches has to be seen to be believed. It was terrific. Everything had gone, certainly within a hundred yards of the lip of the crater. It was an absolute shambles. Some of these concrete pillboxes had been turned right over. Scores of tons they weighed and they’d been tossed up in the air, foundations and all, and turned upside down.

  The Times, Monday, 11June 1917.

  The attack was so successful everywhere and the resistance was so smothered by the weight of our assault that the experiences of really hard fighting were very few. The New Zealanders seem to have had, perhaps, as formidable a part of the line as any, with the village of Messines itself as the chief objective.

  The German guns against them were apparently quicker in getting to work and less helpless than on some parts of the front of attack, and the New Zealanders had to go through heavy shelling.

  Detached from the guns to go forward as a signaller-observer with the infantry, it was Bert Stokes’ first experience of an infantry battle. And he was in this hottest sector of all.

  Gunner B. O. Stokes, No. 25038, 13th Battery, 3rd Brigade, New Zealand Field Artillery

  We went over with the second line of the first wave of infantry, up and over the sandbags from the trenches in front of Ploegsteert Wood. I was so stunned by the spectacle of the explosions, and the tremendous din that was going on from the guns and machine-guns as we ran across No Man’s Land – from shell-hole to shell-hole, through barbed wire and ditches – that we’d gone possibly a hundred yards before I realised what was happening. Soon we came to a concrete dug-out, and I was just about to walk on past it when one of the infantry boys waved me back. He disappeared for a moment and then, while we were all standing there trying to get our breath, we saw him dragging out a German machine-gun, all by himself. At the same moment a dozen Germans appeared, as meek as you like, all with their hands up crying ‘Kameraa”. All except two of them. They rushed at our officer, Mr Jones, both of them with rifles. He raised his revolver and shot them, one after the other, quite calmly.

  In spite of his months on Hill 63 feeding the guns with the shells that hammered into the German positions a few hundred yards away, these were the first Germans that Bert Stokes had seen. But there was no time to stand and stare. As the infantry advanced, on went the signallers with them,
rolling out the heavy yards of telephone cable as they went.

  Now the German dead lay thick on the ground, and right at Bert’s feet there was a feeble movement. A German boy lay face-downwards with a great red stain spreading across the back of his grey tunic. His frightened face turned and looked up as the big New Zealander approached. Bert stopped and knelt down beside him. As he turned him and propped him up with an arm round his shoulders, looking into the boy’s grey dirt-streaked face, Bert was shocked out of his excitement. He had noted with almost clinical detachment the limp bodies of the German dead flung all around like rag dolls; now, looking down at this boy, for the first time in years he felt like crying. All he could do was to give him a drink. The German soldier drank thirstily from the water bottle but as Bert tried to lower him back to the ground the boy clutched at his legs, crying and pleading.

  ‘I can’t stay with you, matey, I can’t. I’ve got to get on, see? They’ll come and get you, honest they will.’

  He turned to pick up the heavy roll of cable and the boy tried to crawl after him. ‘The ambulance men will see to you, they’re coming up behind us.’

  Bert Stokes plunged on into the heat and the dust, hoping that he was right.

  Gunner B. O. Stokes, No. 25038, 13th Battery, 3rd Brigade, New Zealand Field Artillery,

  Our artillery barrage was about 500 yards in front of us and hung like a curtain. We pushed on towards Messines and before long were on the right of it. The country we had passed over was ploughed up terribly. Nothing but shell-holes and it was very warm and dusty. Now the Hun dead were lying in every direction and this makes you realise what war really means, especially when one also sees our own dead lying there. But so far our casualties seemed to be fairly light with not a great many killed in the initial stage, mostly wounded. We could see our lads pushing on in front of us and we kept following up, but we were now finding it much harder. It was a case of shell-hole to shell-hole as the enemy shells were beginning to stream over. Many times shells lobbed a little too near and you could feel the blast of the explosions rippling over you.