They Called it Passchendaele

by Lyn Macdonald

  I had that duty the very first morning we were there. It was only a quarter of a mile or so from the front, and the whole way was nothing but shell-holes with bodies floating in them. It always seemed worse when you didn’t see the whole body, maybe just legs and boots sticking out from the sides. The shelling never let up. The very first trip back on the morning of the twenty-fifth, the day before the first attack, I heard someone near by calling for help. I dodged round a shell-hole and over a few hummocks before I saw him. It was one of our infantrymen and he was sitting on the ground, propped up on his elbow with his tunic open. I nearly vomited. His insides were spilling out of his stomach and he was holding himself and trying to push all this awful stuff back in. When he saw me he said, ‘Finish it for me, mate. Put a bullet in me. Go on. I want you to. Finish it!’ He had no gun himself. When I did nothing, he started to swear. He cursed and swore at me and kept on shouting even after I turned and ran. I didn’t have my revolver. All my life I’ve never stopped wondering what I would have done if I had.

  The infantry attacked early in the morning of 26 October. We had been ordered to fire 500 rounds every twenty minutes throughout the previous night at targets in front. We were right out in front of the line, and the mud was so deep in our shell-holes that we had to put at least six boxes of ammunition underneath us – 303 ammo with 1,000 rounds to a box – just to stand on to get out of the mud. We had to keep on filling up our belts with ammo. Whenever we did that, we put our groundsheets across to cover the shell-holes while we loaded up. At dawn the infantry went on past us, and we elevated our sights to cover them.

  Once agains the weather had broken. During the night before the dawn attack, the wind blew up and the rain poured down. In spite of it, the Canadians did well. On the left of the curving ridges that enclosed Passchendaele village, it had been the lethal fire from pillboxes on the Bellevue Ridge and a complex lower down at Laamkeek that had massacred first the Tommies then the Anzacs struggling in a frontal attack through the morass, long before they even got within range of the defences of the village itself. Before anything could be done, these pillboxes had to be knocked out, and it was a tall order.

  Sergeant C. F. McLellan, No. 111371, 5th Canadian Mounted Rifles

  Our company commander was one of the very finest men I ever knew, and certainly the best officer we had. He called in his platoon commanders and worked out a plan to deal with the forts. We had to take them by stealth – get our men together, work our way in sections behind the pillboxes, and start bombing. Of course, by doing it this way, in sections and not altogether, we blinded the enemy. He had no real target to destroy. There was terrible fighting and we had many, many casualties, but we did achieve something.

  Working with the 52nd Manitoba Battalion, they succeeded in silencing a dozen strategically-placed pillboxes and gained a determined toehold on the ridge. There was still a long way to go, but in the light of the disasters earlier in the month, it was a magnificent beginning. They achieved the objectives they had been given and jubilantly dug in.

  Thanks to the knocking out of the deadly enfilade machine-gun fire, the infantry lower down were able to make a little headway through the swamp. Across the valley on the other side, the 46th and 47th Battalions were also making progress. Their objectives were a shattered wood named Decline Copse, which lay on the edge of their sector just where the Canadian line met that of the Australians; and Crest Farm, one of the strongpoints guarding the outskirts of Passchendaele village. They didn’t quite make it to Crest Farm. It was Decline Copse that caused the trouble and no little confusion, for both the Canadians and the Australians were attacking it.

  The 46th Battalion moves forward and captures Decline Copse. About noon they are counter-attacked and have to retreat, and Decline Copse is reoccupied by the enemy. All through the afternoon conflicting orders are received from Brigade HQ. The whole forward area is apparently disorganised. Hours crawl slowly by till about midnight, when a runner from the 47th slides through the narrow door of the HQ pillbox with a message that Decline Copse had been retaken. Enthusiasm reigns. A runner speeds to Brigade. The news flashes to Division and across to the Anzacs on the right. Curiously, no one thinks of checking on the report. Some two hours later a stalwart Anzac officer bursts into the little dug-out, boiling with indignation, and explodes shrilly, ‘I’m lookin’ for the bloke as climes ‘e took Decline Copse just now.’ All eyes swivel to the CO of the 47th, who stands his ground valiantly. For a full minute the two stare at each other like a pair of bantam roosters. The tension is broken by the C O of the 47th, who suggests that it is the proper time for a drink. The newcomer explains that he is scout officer of the Anzac unit on the right and, on receipt of the report, he crashes over into Decline Copse with four scouts and runs slap into what he describes as ‘the ‘ole blinkin’ German Army’. For the first time in his entire military service he has been forced to ‘crawl awy like a bloody snike’. Fortified by a few more libations, the Australian strides out into the night, leaving a very chastened group of 10th Brigade officers to think over the situation anew.

  During the hours of darkness the scene on the battlefield up in front is awful beyond description. Stretcher-parties work doggedly in the almost hopeless task of caring for the countless wounded who mingle with the dead in advanced positions.*

  Private F Hodgson, No. $36066, 11th Canadian Field Ambulance, Canadian Army Medical Corps

  I was at a place called Tyne Cot. We had two pillboxes there. It was a group of pillboxes. The doctor and his helpers were in one and we stretcher-bearers were in another about a hundred feet away. It was half under the ground and the entrance was so low that you had to wriggle through on your stomach.*

  The battalion bearers brought the wounded in from the line, which was about a thousand yards away or less. They had the worst job. The doctor dealt with those he could and then we took them down the line. There were three squads of us. Three squads of eight – because it took six of us at a time to get one stretcher out through the mud. That day we drew lots to see who should go first. My squad drew the last carry. This was night-time by now, because it was that late before they could get the seriously wounded out, although the walking wounded had been coming in all day. It was a terrible job carrying in the dark – almost impossible. The first call came at about two o’clock in the morning. We wished them good luck, and off they went. They were a long time away. They hadn’t come back when No. 2 Squad were called out. After a long, long time they returned. Next, No. 3 Squad went out. We were glad that it was daylight by then. Away we went with our wounded man, struggling down the track. After a few hundred yards we were caught in a barrage. We put the stretcher-case in a depression in the ground. He was very frightened, the wounded boy. He said to me, ‘Am I going to die, mate?’ I said, ‘Don’t be stupid, fella. You’re going to be all right. As soon as Heinie stops this shelling we’ll have you out of here, and they’ll fix you up OK. You’ll be back across the ocean before you know it.’ The shelling eased off and we picked him up and set off again. He died before we got him to the dressing-station. On the way back we passed the remains of our No. 1 Squad. There were nothing but limbs all over the place. We lost ten of our stretcher-bearers that day. Hell was never like that…

  That night, 27 October, the Canadians attacked again. A night attack was almost unheard of, but this time it paid off.

  Private R. Le Brun, No. 790913, 16th Canadian Machine Gun Co., Canadian Machine Gun Corps, 4th Canadian Division

  As the companies advanced, there was terrific machine-gun fire. It came from the front and the flanks and it swept right over them. We replied until our guns were burning hot. We had to support the attack wearing gas-masks. Not that the Heinies were firing gas. The Vickers guns we were using were water-cooled. The steam from the gun was forced through a tube into a can of water. The condensed steam flowed through the air, producing a fog – so we wouldn’t have been able to spot a gas attack if it had come. Therefore, safety dictated the
constant wearing of gas-masks. That made you twice as tired in half the time.

  By daylight Decline Copse was firmly in Canadian hands, and on both sides of Passchendaele their feet were gloriously planted on the slightly higher, slightly drier ground. To no one’s surprise, the day after the attack the weather changed for the better. It was Private Longstaffe’s twenty-seventh birthday.

  Private P. H. Longstaffe, No. 922046, 107 Canadian Pioneer Btn., 1st Division

  27 October. Birthday. Up 8 am. Built fireplace in billet. Working party at 2.30. Fine day. Carried planks up the Menin Road. Long walk. Worked until 8 pm. Home. No rum ration. Miller sick. Sergeant Webb and W. B. Smith missing. Smoke and bed. Heard 43 rd badly cut up.

  On the whole he had known better birthdays, and as his brother, Vic, was in the 43 rd Battalion, he went uneasily to bed.*

  In spite of some urging from GHQ, General Sir Arthur Currie refused to move again until the thirtieth. The basis of his strategy was to allow sufficient time for the troops to be relieved, and to give the new men time to rest and accustom themselves to the situation before the assault. An interval of three days was the minimum time in which this could be accomplished. In view of the Canadians’ moderate success, nobody argued. The only people who felt like arguing were Reg Le Brun and his fellow machine-gunners. There was no relief for them, for machine-gunners were in short supply. They had to stay where they were for the next attack. Reg and his team were only slightly mollified when a daring Canadian photographer braved the hazards of the support line and snapped them for the delectation of the Canadian public as they wound their way among the shell-holes. They managed to summon up a smile.*

  In the three days’ fighting of 26–28 October, the Canadian Corps had suffered 2,481 casualties. During the three days’ interval while the reliefs were taking place and fresh troops made their way into the line, the stretcher-bearers, under continuous shelling, plodded up and down the duckboards taking the wounded out.

  Private L. Williams, 60th Canadian Battalion and 11th LTMB (Stokes gun)

  I was a Stokes gunner. As the Stokes mortar could only fire up to half a mile, our place was up front and not exactly bomb-proof. Our one advantage was rapid fire. Pull pins and drop the shell into the gun, putting half a dozen ten-pound shells into the air before the first one landed, then scoot for cover – for Fritz didn’t love us. Obviously we were useless as gunners in the conditions prevailing at Passchendaele, so they made us stretcher-bearers instead. We were under fire all the time.

  The whole place looked like something out of hell. We just slugged along carrying the stretchers, hoping for the best. One of the lads from our battery caught up with us and walked along with us a way. I knew him. We called him Zippo. In a lull in the shelling as we waded through all this muck and mire, he said to me, ‘What’s your home town?’ ‘Ottawa,’ I replied. He said, ‘Same here.’ Then he looked around at the mess everywhere and, after a pause, said, ‘Believe it or not, I was manager of the fuckin’ Theatre.’ It was almost a blood-tie. ‘Anyway,’ he said, ‘I’m off. Got to get on and find billets for you guys. You’ll be relieved in a couple of days.’ We were sure glad to hear it. He waved us goodbye and pushed on ahead. A couple of minutes later some shells exploded near the road. Zippo got a bad head-wound. We carried him to the ambulance, but he died in hospital a couple of days later.

  Zero hour for the next attack was 5.50 am, 30 October, and for once it looked as if the weather was going to be on the side of the Allies. After heavy rain the twenty-ninth was cold and windy, but it was bright moonlight and there seemed to be no sign of storms. The attack started with the Canadians making straight for Passchendaele and its enclosing ridges, with the Australians on their right and the Royal Naval Division just over the Bellevue Ridge on their left.

  A large proportion of the Canadians were very recent Canadians. Although they were citizens and qualified to serve in the Canadian Army, many of them had emigrated in the years preceding the war. Reg Le Brun had been born in Jersey. Jim Pickard was a native of Selkirk. But if, at first, the war had seemed to present an opportunity for a free trip back home, the new Canucks were quickly disillusioned. In spite of leave in Blighty and reunions with relations, Canada had never seemed more attractive. Jim Pickard went over the top that morning as one of a group of signallers.

  Private J. Pickard MM, No. 624781, 78th Btn., Winnipeg Grenadiers

  No previous unit had been able to maintain any communication by telephone with Battalion Headquarters, but our CO decided that that was no reason not to try again. His name was Colonel Jimmy Kircaldy and he was a great soldier and a dour Scot who had served some time in the Black Watch before emigrating to Canada. He picked seven signallers, including myself, to go over with the first wave under the command of Sergeant Nicholson. We collected our equipment of two reels of wire – thin wire, no thicker than darning wool – and two D Mark 3 buzzers and a Fullerphone.

  The bombardment was murderous – ours and the Germans’ – and they weren’t only flinging over shells, they were simply belting machine-gun fire for all they were worth. But it was a case of’Over the top with the best of luck.’ So off we went with the first wave of infantry and started stringing out the wire. We hadn’t gone many yards before the Sergeant and Private Houlihan were ‘napooed’. We kept on going, but it was utterly useless. We could see that the wire we were stringing was being chopped to pieces as fast as we laid it. By the time we’d gone a few more yards the other three signallers were knocked out, and only Corporal Sims and myself were left. There was no choice but to go forward, for we knew full well that Colonel Kircaldy wouldn’t welcome us back. It was difficult to see what was happening. The shells were falling thick and fast and by some sort of capillary action the holes they made filled up with water as you looked at them – or as you lay in them, for the only way we could move was to dodge from one hole to another, hoping that lightning really didn’t strike twice in the same place. Sims and I were separated.I splashed and wallowed through the mud, hoping I was going in the right direction, but none too sure.

  Then I saw something extraordinary. It was a small willow-bush growing out of the side of a shell-hole. It must have been the only growing thing in the whole of the hellish salient, for I had never seen so much as a blade of grass. It seemed like an invitation almost. So I dropped into this shell-hole and lit up a cigarette while I took time to decide what to do. It was an Oro cigarette we used to reckon that stood for ‘Other ranks only.’ Maybe it did. But I’d just got it going nicely when I heard this shell coming straight for me like a freight train. I threw myself down, not bothering about the water in the hole – then there was a thud, then silence. When I looked up again, there was the shell stuck into the root of the willow-bush. It was a dud. ‘Well,’ I thought to myself, ‘if Jerry had my number on that one it was the wrong number.’ But I got out of there like a bat out of hell and made for where the boys were digging in, linking up a row of wet shell-holes to make a new front-line. They’d done well. They’d got far ahead. I reported to a major and explained what had happened to the communications department. He greeted me with open arms, for his runner had just been wounded and he had a report to send back to Battalion HQ. Would I volunteer to get it back? Would I! The Germans were massing for a counter-attack and the shelling and machine-gun fire was wicked. I would have volunteered to walk across the floors of Hell barefooted to get out of that, so I started back to HQ. It was in a pillbox that we called Hamburg House.

  It started to rain in the afternoon, but it went well that day. I was back and forward to the line as acting-runner, and every time we’d got a bit nearer Passchendaele. They stopped eventually at the foot of a lane leading into the village. You could tell it had been a lane by the ruined cottages on either side, and you could see the church just beyond them. It was a place they called Crest Farm. They had to fight hard to get it and the place was thick with bodies. But we took it, and we held the line. Two days later we were relieved.

 
; Pickard and the 78th went out. Baker and the 28th went in. The unfortunate Le Brun and the other machine-gunners stayed where they were to support the next attack.

  The 78th Winnipeg Grenadiers had actually thrown some forward patrols into Passchendaele itself and excitedly reported back, perhaps optimistically, that the Germans were evacuating. But the German artillery and machine-gun fire showed no signs of diminishing, and the patrols were pulled back to strengthen the line. To capture Passchendaele itself without knocking out the fortifications that lay below it on the swamp and on the flanks would be asking for trouble. The final assault could only succeed if fresh troops undertook it, and so General Sir Arthur Currie turned a blank face to the urging of GHQ. He would mount the next attack in his own good time. He decided on the 6 November.

  For once it was not raining. Even though zero hour came just before dawn, Pastor van Walleghem was up and about.

  6 November. On my way to morning mass at 6 am, I suddenly saw a very bright light over Ypres and a few seconds later hundreds and hundreds of flashes, interspersed with shrapnel and many red and white rockets. I had an open view of the whole Ypres salient, and the fireworks in the semi-dark over the whole of the front from Wyt-schaete right up to Vrijbosch was really awe-inspiring. Several thousand cannons spewed their murderous fire over the fighting troops. All the same I heard little noise, as the wind was in the wrong direction, and had I not seen that hellish fire would hardly have believed that an attack was under way. It is now several months since I last witnessed an artillery attack so openly. I had already experienced some nearer ones with thunderous noise, but never had I seen one over such a wide front with so many fire-monsters.