Delville Wood

by Ian Uys

  “The Germans were shelling us like old boots but we all, being so dead tired, paid no heed to the danger of the shells and bullets, but instead slept peacefully on — dreaming of home, I don’t think! As I said before, it was a very dark night and raining. I continually woke up with the continuous explosions of the shells. It was just in one of my little dozes when all at once a shell of some kind fell right in the centre of our shell-hole. The explosion was terrific — it lifted me from the ground a few inches. We were covered in mud and sand but none of the four of us got hurt, only the shock knocked us up.”

  *

  Sherman had a peaceful first night in Delville Wood.

  “When I woke up on the Saturday morning I was surprised to see how close we were to the German trench — not 25 yards off.

  “We had two good men killed, Old Dad Macdonald, who brought down several snipers, and Willie Ferguson (son of the baker). He was a good sort.

  “Several were wounded. We had no rations that day, but we had emergency ones which I tackled. All the excitement makes one forget one’s appetite, but still one gets thirsty.

  “Our rations were bully beef and biscuits. We drank from our water bottles. We were not supposed to smoke but we did.

  “I might mention that that night they made a strong counterattack, but we beat them off. The row was beyond description, and we fired where we thought they were.

  “The Germans are very treacherous, and you can believe all you hear of them now, for they have played their tricks on us. One sniper was shot in a tree covered with twigs and on his arm a Red Cross.

  “A dressing-station of theirs in a village with Red Cross flags flying had machine-guns in. They fired on two of our stretcher-bearers carrying a wounded man, and he was killed in the stretcher (witnessed it).

  “They fight like merry dickens until you get within bayonet reach; then up go their hands and they cry for mercy, but they found very little.

  “We were vastly outnumbered. That day we lay low, crouching in the trenches as they were too shallow to stand up in. We slept crouching too.”

  *

  Lawrence and his companions spent a sleepless night in the Longueval trench due to the large naval guns which pounded their position.

  “In the early morning one of those heavy ones fell on our parapet and buried a man close to me. We dug him out as quickly as possible though I was too shocked by the blast to help much. He was carried away unconscious but we heard recovered only to be lost in Delville Wood later.

  “On the 15th our company was needed to press forward an attack in the wood. We filed out of our trench and took up a position next to some of the Argylls. We lay down amongst the bracken for orders to advance, meanwhile keeping very low and quiet.

  “A young Scottie of the Argylls, about my age, had opened a tin of sardines and was thoughtfully and carefully selecting and eating one at a time, slowly as if they were to be his last. I wondered at him not offering me one when I spotted the worsted star of a second-lieutenant on the shoulder strap of his Tommies’ tunic.

  “Just then there was a great shouting and cheers and a long rattle of machine-gun fire. It seemed Captain Jenkins had given an order to his men around him to prepare to charge a strong point, and blown his whistle and as his men rose with him were swept down by the machine-gun. Captain Jenkins and five men were wounded and one was killed. Owing to a gap in our extended line the order did not reach us.

  “There was heavy shelling all that day after we returned to our trench. At dusk we moved into the wood and dug ourselves in. Amongst the tree roots digging was difficult and slow so that we worked until the early hours of the 16th.”

  *

  Captain Herbert Harold Jenkins, the company commander, was wounded in his right arm. At the time his wife, Lucy, was living at Taungs in the Cape.

  Cyril Barnes’s initial impression of Delville Wood was shared by most others. “When we went in it was just a matter of walking in. There was no resistance. The foliage and undergrowth in Delville Wood was thick … we had to hold the perimeter of the wood and had to dig trenches.”

  *

  Private Victor Casson, who had turned 18 two days earlier, used the surname “Clark” as he was under age when he joined up. Victor attended the Christian Brothers’ College in Kimberley then ran away at the age of 16 to become a Maxim-gunner in the Bechuanaland Rifles in SWA.

  In France Casson served in No 9 Platoon under Lieut Cron Bate of Harrismith.

  Lieutenant Cron Ivor Bate, 34, was a bank accountant who had served in the Western Province Mounted Rifles and as a Harrismith despatch rider. He left his fiancée, Bella MacDonald, in Harrismith when he enlisted in August 1915 and was commissioned a month later. The 5 ft 8 in blue-eyed officer was promoted to temporary captain in June 1916.

  Casson was made a sniper and took part in the village fighting at Longueval. “On the night of the 15th at Longueval we were sheltering behind a wall when Capt Jenkins, a De Beers security guard, led the company in a charge and they were mown down. Capt Jenkins was wounded in the arm and came crawling back on his hands and knees. We then went into Delville Wood which was a beautiful thick wood.”

  Casson found that they had no time to admire the view of the wood. “My best friend, James McGregor, 25, was with me. When we attained our objective in the wood we both dug frantically and before daybreak had a funk-hole three foot deep and about five foot square. We remained in this position for two days and two nights and repulsed three German attacks on our position with Mills hand grenades and rifle fire.”

  *

  Lieutenant Aubrey Liefeldt, 23, led No 13 Platoon toward the wood. “We had marched only about fifty yards when a shell landed a few yards away. Bits of shrapnel went through my right arm and into my chest, but none into my lungs, and hundreds of tiny splinters embedded themselves in my face, but my eyes were untouched. It was extraordinary.”

  Lieutenant Liefeldt was carried out of the wood with his arm shattered and face and chest covered in blood.

  “I can’t remember the details as I couldn’t see or hear. I have a dim recollection of being carried down to headquarters and somebody said, ‘Who’s that?’ Somebody else said, ‘That is Liefeldt.’ He said, ‘Oh dear! He’s finished, isn’t he?’

  “The next thing that I can remember is that I was in hospital in Rouen. I still today have specks of shrapnel around my eyes. By extraordinary good fortune my eyes were not permanently damaged.”

  *

  Private Domingo Balini, 22, was a first generation Italian South African. As he had been a crack-shot in the CPR, Col Dawson insisted that he do a sniping course in England. When the brigade entered Delville Wood the snipers were sent in first to clear it of German marksmen. Balini was to be one of the first Delville Wood casualties.

  “We scattered all over to see if we could see any Germans. They were all over and a lot of our chaps got wounded and killed. Then all of a sudden one of our shells came along and dropped short and I was wounded. This was at about 6.20 am.

  “Some of our men bandaged me up as I had a big piece of shrapnel in the calf of my leg and a couple of splinters in my body. I found a stick to walk with, but went the wrong way. When I saw Germans running in front of me I turned around. Once in the wood it is easy to lose oneself.

  “Of the seven of us who came out of the wood at the time three were subsequently killed by a German shell.”

  *

  Coenraad Nelson was a Vickers-gunner with No 14 Platoon, when the Germans counter-attacked that day.

  “We were put into a little section and put into a shell-hole … We were there for about four to five hours when the Germans came down in mass formation. They came downhill and we could see through the wood. They came on top of us and we started firing and frankly I don’t remember much about what was happening …

  “Just looking through between the trees we could see the Brandenburgers coming down in force close to one another. I have never seen anything as brave as that. They
came up right close to us. The ‘condensed milk’ grenades were all around us … it was an inferno as far as I was concerned.

  “I was No 2 on the gun. The chap who was working the gun was a corporal who was given the MM afterwards. The Germans were almost on top of us — a matter of about 30 to 40 yards.

  “As I was feeding the gun I got it in the arm. I went back to get a few more guns and as I came to put them down I got it in the side and I didn’t know very much about it after that, except that my half-section was wounded and taken a prisoner of war …

  “I woke up in the dressing-station. I do remember they plastered me up or something and they were going to take us away in wagons drawn by horses. I offered to walk and they said no.”

  Private Thomas Holiday was acting as orderly to Col Dawson. When the telegraph wires were cut he took a message through the front line during a heavy barrage. He had hardly returned when he was sent again.

  *

  Corporal Archibald Augustus Francis Dagnin, 23, was born in Cape Town in 1882. He was engaged in a furniture removal business before the war, then served for a year with the Cape Peninsula Rifles. In France he served in No 14 platoon, D company.

  A comrade was to describe him as “an unpretentious man of modest demeanour and slight physique, quiet and matter of fact in manner, his high sense of duty and self-disciplined endurance in conditions of stress and danger, were a source of encouragement to many.”

  Archie Dagnin fought throughout the day. “We took Longueval Village and advanced into Delville Wood, the Germans fighting like furies, yet we advanced through a hail of bullets and shells. We had the Prussian Guards and Brandenburgers against us. Every time we advanced and halted we had to dig ourselves in as there were no trenches. We had to retire once about 100 yards but we rallied and threw the Germans back.

  “By that time we had occupied half the wood and I had over half of my platoon killed and wounded. We had lost count of the hour, day and month, which shows that we had no time to ourselves. Before we knew where we were, we had gone without breakfast, dinner and tea. We found that the day had gone and the night just coming. We were hungry and had no food or water … the Germans had blown up our ration dump.”

  *

  Private Ronald Rawbone had been wounded twice since leaving Cape Town. This day would be his third …

  “We were told we had to drive some snipers out of the wood; we put the trench mortars on to them, and I think we drove them out, but the following day they were back again, and I concluded they had an underground passage leading from their trenches into the wood, as it afterwards turned out to be the case.

  “We then started to dig ourselves in, each man digging his own little place. I dug mine pretty deep, and am glad I did so, as they turned their machine-guns on to us, and the bullets were just going over my head.

  “We were then told the Germans were massing for a counterattack; the first attack came off at about 12.30 pm, but they were driven off by our machine-gun fire. All this time it was pouring with rain, and I was wet through and covered with mud from head to foot. It must have been at about 2.30 pm when they attacked us again; this time they managed to get right up to us. I heard a fellow shout, and the next minute our machine-guns started again.

  “I was standing up with two bombs in my hands, and the next minute I felt as if something big had hit me on the arm; it knocked me over, and I sat for quite five minutes before I quite knew what had happened, and then I looked down and saw the blood running out of the sleeve of my tunic; then I realized I was wounded, and I wasted no time in getting to the dressing-station. I had my arm dressed, and found a bullet had gone right through the muscle.”

  *

  Lieutenant-Colonel Tanner commanded the brigade in the wood and later described his first day.

  “On 15 July, 1916 … this wood was a beautiful plantation of large oaks with a very thick matt of spruce undergrowth some eight feet high. So thick was the undergrowth, that it had to be brushed aside to permit passage through it.

  “The battle line had been advanced the day before in a hard-fought engagement at the end of which the right flank of the 26th Infantry Brigade was on the village of Longueval, and from this point the line made an almost right angle turn to the eastern point of Trones Wood. In front of this apex stood Delville Wood, a salient to be defended on three sides.

  “The head of the column detailed for the attack arrived at Longueval from Montauban at 5 am, and after a reconnaissance of the position, a plan of attack was decided upon and orders issued for its execution.

  “We were fortunate in finding that during the night a company of the 5th Cameron Highlanders had occupied Buchanan Street. This gave us a most helpful line on which to base our attack, and it was from there that the assault was made.

  “The morning was that of a fine summer’s day, with light ground mist which, fortunately, covered our approach; so much so that, although we did not enter the wood until 7 am, it was not until the battalion had assembled in front of Buchanan Street that the opposing guns began to shell the point at which we were entering the wood, and opened for us our second engagement in the great Battle of the Somme.

  “Our artillery were unable to give us any immediate support owing to the presence of the tall oak trees, and added to this was the thick undergrowth which made the men almost entirely dependent on their bayonets for clearing the wood.

  “The most difficult side was the northern one, owing to the sunken road which connects Longueval with Flers. Along this road large numbers of men (Germans) could approach to within assaulting distance quite unobserved, and did so on several occasions in attempts to dislodge us. It was also known that the houses in the north-west corner were strongly held by machine-gun detachments, so that it was decided that a separate operation would be necessary to deal with this corner. In view of this, therefore, provision was made to occupy the perimeter of the wood as far as the exit of Strand Street, and to protect that flank by continuing the line along the length of Strand Street to its junction with Princes Street.

  “The attack was launched shortly after 7 am. One battalion first occupied the southern half, viz: the portion south of Princes Street; whilst the other battalion lined Princes Street facing north for the purpose of attacking the northern portion once the southern half was occupied.

  “The southern portion was quickly occupied, and in doing so, our men surprised and captured 130 Germans in the open, south of the eastern exit of Princes Street. The northern drive took some little time owing to strong opposition being encountered. However, by about midday, we were in possession of what we set out to capture and now began the task of trying to hold the positions gained. Several enemy counter-attacks were launched on the northern face arising from the sunken road between Longueval and Flers.

  “The Germans on several occasions penetrated our lines, and had to be dislodged by organised counter-attacks. This constant fighting and almost continuous shelling soon began to tell on our strength, and although the two battalions had been reinforced by the equivalent of another battalion, the line at the end of four days, viz, the 18th July, was held by but a handful of men.”

  Tanner was unable to give an estimate of his losses for the day due to the large area his command covered. Gen Lukin spoke with him by telephone that evening.

  *

  Private Eddie Fitz found that he would not need to repeat the hectic two days he had experienced as a linesman at Bernafay.

  “We marched through the early hours of the morning and we arrived at Delville, through the village of Longueval, just after first light. To avoid any immediate reaction from Jerry we sort of moved right along the sides of the buildings or over some of the rubble. Then we went into an orchard and through it into the wood — to more or less where our OC (Col Tanner) had reckoned his point of entry would be. Because the other chaps had to deploy to other parts of the wood, we deployed in the south-west corner, the section which was never lost.

  “When we got
in there the OC said that he would not require telephone lines. His experience of Bernafay was such that he felt that it was too much of a thing to try and keep up telephone communications so he decided to utilise runners. We never established any signals communications with our units because the wood didn’t allow visual and he dispensed with telephone lines. So we were used as runners and other activities around battalion HQ, digging of trenches for them and all that kind of thing.

  “After we got in, other units were coming in. I think it was a section of the (SA) Scottish that came in from our left. While they were standing about there in columns of ‘lumps’ a big ‘heavy’ came into them and four of those chaps simply disappeared! It landed right in the middle of them.

  “Of course, to start with there was very little activity. Jerry came awake to this rather late. One of my company signallers was going along with his rifle slung over his shoulder, bayonet stuck up in the air, and a telephone hanging from his shoulder. They had the equipment; whether or not they were going to connect it up at that stage didn’t matter. He was pushing his way through because there was bush and undergrowth at that particular stage. He pushed some undergrowth apart only to discover a Jerry sitting in a shell-hole just behind. The Jerry grabbed for his rifle and sort of up and fired — and missed this chap. The signaller in the meantime whipped his rifle off his shoulder and jumped into the trench bayonet first and pinned this fellow to the ground. That’s how Jerry was taken — just like that!

  “In the course of the morning and toward lunch things had warmed up very considerably as Jerry had started to counter-attack both by artillery and infantry fire. Round about 3 pm the cry was ‘ammunition!’

  “We were instructed under a sergeant to go scrounging for ammunition. We scrounged all about and went into Longueval, into a temporary dressing-station we found there and we all came back, strapped around the neck with eight or ten khaki bandoliers — loaded with them. Then we had to distribute them down to our companies and we were sniped at. I didn’t shoot at anybody. I wasn’t in a position to do much as we were occupied. In the normal course of events I would have had to be running lines.