A Rifleman Went to War

with Corporal Johnson, one day, apparently in just about the safest position one could find, when a bullet struck him in the cheek and went on through his neck. It must have scraped the jugular vein (or the carotid artery), but he soon recovered. The enemy had the same kind of protective traverses and I often wished that I had some low velocity, short-range ammunition — something like our guard cartridges or the reduced loads used for gallery firing — so I could drop a few shots down into his trench. In fact, I made an effort to have our armourer load up some of that kind of stuff but never got any action on it. I also made the suggestion that we be given a few shotguns — sawed-off — and buckshot loads, but the proposal was rejected with horror by the British higher-ups. It was not sporting, or something to that effect. Can you imagine that — against an enemy who had violated all the rules of civilized warfare, both on land and sea?

I was not made a sergeant until along about Christmastime, but, for some reason or another, was allowed all the latitude I wanted — to go where I pleased and do as I liked. All I particularly wanted to do at that time was to stay on top long enough to clean up on about a hundred Germans.

The only time I was away from the line, (that is, outside the zone of active shelling), was on November 25, 1915, when I took a flying trip to Bailleul, to visit Charlie Wendt’s grave and then I left just before daybreak and was back in the front line soon after dark the same day. While in Bailleul I had the first meal I had eaten in a house for several months. At the Hotel Faucon, I had a good dinner, and, happening to remember that it was the last Thursday in November, and therefore Thanksgiving-day at home, I made the best of it by persuading the Chef (bribed with a bottle of their best wine) to procure and cook for me the best poulet available in the market. Turkey was out of the question but I made that old hen serve as a substitute — and not at all bad, at that. A couple of boys from the Fifth Battalion came along just then and helped me out with it — otherwise I might not have been able to get “home” that night.

Mud: mud: MUD. That is the one thing, above all others, that I shall remember always — the memory of that mud in Flanders. We wallowed in it in daytime and slept in it at night. There was one period of forty-two days during which I never had my clothes off. I could have done so on one of the irregular occasions when the outfit was permitted to go back to billets, but it came at a time when I was more interested in sniping than a bath, so I chose to remain up there where I could keep up on my rifle practice.

Chapter 8. Trench Raiding

PATROLS were a natural prelude to trench raiding. They provided much of the necessary information, and they afforded the best sort of training for this work. Combat patrols, in fact, were, essentially, raiding parties which confined their activities to no-man’s-land. It only remained to scale the parapet, raise hell, take a couple of prisoners and come back. I do not intend to be drawn into any argument regarding this subject. Perhaps I am wrong, but, from the best information at hand, I think that the systematic raiding of the enemy trenches was first conceived and carried out by Canadian troops at Ploegsteert. My recollection is that it was members of the Fifth Battalion, of the First Canadian Division, who pulled off the first ‘show’. These affairs were always referred to as “shows”.

The technique is quite simple. Just wait until the enemy is quiet, slip over, bomb ’em a little, hop into their trench, grab off a few prisoners and any machine guns you happen to see and beat it back home. Sounds easy enough and, strange to say, it is easy — provided no unexpected thing happens to disrupt the scheduled performance.

Many raids were made just as easy as I am now writing about them. The sheer audacity of the thing was what carried them through. The slow, methodical Teutonic mind could not at once grasp the idea that some dozen or so of men would ever dare to invade the sacred precincts of their trenches. As one result of which, we had considerable numbers of very efficient workers on our roads, behind the lines.

During the time, from 1915, when the first stunt of this kind was demonstrated, up to early in 1917, when the writer left the front, these raids grew from merely small, local (I almost said personal) affairs, to operations of such magnitude that, at the latter date, whole brigades were taking part in them.

Now, that is literally true. The first enterprise of this character, in my experience, was my little solo affair, related in the last chapter, which netted no prisoners nor information, but a flag; and the last was when the entire Fourth Brigade staged a show opposite Bully-Grenay and brought back 101 German prisoners. The first episode was in November, 1915, and the last January 17,1917.

The purpose of these raids is, ostensibly, to secure information — that is, to grab off a few prisoners, so as to know just what troops are opposite that particular position. As a matter of fact, from our view-point, it was to “put the fear of God” into those poor sons of something or other and make them behave.

During our initial experiments in this line we had varied luck. I remember the first time our outfit made an attempt to go over and get a prisoner. I had no share in it other than to mount a machine gun up on top of the parapet and maintain a continuous fire along the top of the enemy parapet (which was less than one hundred yards away) just to make them keep their heads down until our raiding party got through their wire. That one was not much of a success. Our party never succeeded in getting through the German wire. They did get close enough to throw a few bombs into the enemy trenches and fondly hoped that they had done some damage. Anyway, they came back — all of them — mad as hornets and resolved that the next time they would do better.

And they did. The next venture was away down at the other end of our line, where the opposing trenches were nearly two hundred yards apart. As previously, I am simply an observer, operating a machine gun from the top of the parapet and sort of acting as protection for the raiding party by running a burst here and there along the top of the enemy parapet. As I had been over to the enemy parapet several times previously, in search of machine gun emplacements and sniper holes, I had been able to assist a little in the preliminary work but the officer in charge of the raiding party, Lieutenant Miller, a cool and resourceful officer, had taken the precaution to send out parties several nights in advance to cut paths through the German wire. This show was well staged and undoubtedly the enemy suffered severe damage. Our party did not bring back any live prisoners, as they were forced to retire because of the unexpected arrival of large numbers of German reinforcements; but every man of our contingent came back, a few slightly wounded, but nothing serious, while it was evident that, with their well-placed bombs, they had inflicted considerable damage to the enemy.

The next time was still better — in fact, a complete success. After a carefully planned scheme of operations, we staged what might be called a twin bill. Two parties went out, one merely as a feint and the other the real raiding party. The first one followed the same tactics as the two previous ones; that is, the machine guns swept the enemy parapet and the raiders made their way through the previously cut wire and proceeded to heave bombs into the enemy trench. This resulted in quite a little battle between the bombers on both sides and, as we had hoped and expected, in bringing all the German reserves down to the point of attack. But, in the meantime, our real raiding party, of whom I was fortunate enough to be a member (although I was supposed to be back there directing the machine guns) had quietly slipped through and were ready to hop over. When we were satisfied from the sounds that the time was ripe, this party rushed up and over the parapet and dropped down upon the few and unsuspecting sentries and very quickly escorted them back over the top and to our own lines. There were some very good, hand- to-hand fights and one German had to be shot before he would give up. The others, taken altogether by surprise, offered no resistance. Our party got home with several live prisoners and with no serious casualties. The other crowd, who had staged the feint, had several slightly wounded from bomb splinters but none killed. A pretty good night’s work, we thought.

The success or failure of any trench raid depends to a great extent upon the thoroughness of the preparation for it. To be sure, the officer in command of the venture must be competent, but really most of his work will be in planning the operation, instructing his men and supervising the preliminary preparation. When it comes to the actual invasion of the enemy lines, he is just one man and can do no more, individually, than any other.

The first requisite is to be thoroughly familiar with all the physical characteristics of the section of line to be invaded. This information must be compiled from reports of observers and snipers, from airplane maps and, finally, by the work of patrols, which establish first-hand practical knowledge of conditions as they will be encountered — in the dark — even to visiting the enemy parapet and making a study of the actual battlefield.

Next comes the selection of the men — and that is the hardest part of all. These shows are usually taken over in turn by all the young and enterprising subalterns in the