A Rifleman Went to War

inflict the most damage — and the most amusing and daring damage — in the limited time.

This raiding was a fine incentive to inventive genius, and there were always a few in each platoon who were busy devising neat methods of handing out “misery” to the Dutchman. This work was sometimes inspired simply by a desire to repay Heinie for what we had suffered from such nuisances as minnenwerfers and pineapples — to repay him with interest, to give him something bigger and better, as the movie directors would say. But this was only an occasional motive; I think the real and lasting motive was a genuine interest in the game and a desire to score as often as possible, rather than wait about in the mud for something to happen. Once the inventive and ingenious ones had a taste of what might be done in this matter of trench-raiding, warfare developed a new and personal interest. They came to view all the resources and implements of war with an eye mainly to their use in raids; and trench-mortar pits, engineers’ dumps and supply depots of all sorts yielded surprising treasurers. Dud shells were eyed with regret that all that “dynamite” and steel was going to waste, with no way to fix the thing with a short fuse to explode it in the depths of a German dugout. The Stokes gun did yield something along this line, though it was not a dud, but a live shell taken from an ammunition dump. I never knew just how they fixed it so that it could be lugged across no-man’s-land and trusted to explode when it had reached the bottom of a dugout. As I remember, it was a Yankee (there were many of them in the Canadian Corps) who received credit for adapting the first one. And I don’t know how often they were used; but any man who intimated that he could fix one was told to do his stuff at once, and there was always a ready volunteer to steal or borrow a shell from the nearest Stokes gun crew. If the officer in charge of the next raid was a good scout he was in on the business and welcomed the contribution; if not, it was a simple matter to manage it secretly, content in the knowledge that the results would approve the method.

As a matter of fact, there could be no sound objection; but close cooperation was the watchword in these raids, and individual exploits might easily cause failure or disaster. Within the limitations of the tactical necessities, however, individual initiative and daring was valuable, and the ideal raiding party was the one that utilized them to the full, drawing upon the entire platoon or company for ideas and devices. Thus everybody became a participant in the raid, and the chosen dozen men were charged with carrying out — in twenty or thirty minutes of action — the work of the entire platoon or company; and even the man who never went over, but who, on the way into the trenches, espied an odd case of dynamite about an engineers’ dump and made a stick or two of it available, was as much interested in the raid as the man who took it over. Or, back on a ration party at night, he might encounter a detachment of engineers and remember that raid scheduled to come off to-morrow night: “Say, Jack; got a dump about here? How about a ‘buckshee’ stick of dynamite?”

Buckshee is one of those useful words such as come into use in any army. The British Army had many of them, drawn from all quarters of the globe, and so readily borrowed and adapted that only a trace — and sometimes none at all — of original meaning survived. This one had come home with troops who had served in India, where it was spelled, I believe, backsheek. With us it meant, something that could be spared, or which could be used in a manner not foreseen by the issuing authorities, or something left over after the regular distribution was made, or an odd article that came in too small quantities to be issued and thus, not being expected, found its way, ordinarily into the haversacks of the quartermaster’s staff.

As a rule, the engineer was willing to contribute. He might have to be content with intimating where the stuff could be picked up; but if he was not under direct supervision at the moment, he might make it his business to see what could be found in the way of fuses, detonaters, etc., even to locating some of the match-fuses, such as were used early in the war in the manufacture of grenades from jam-tins. Such helpfulness might result in the acquisition of a veritable store of munitions, which was quietly put aside until a raid was ordered. When the men were selected and it was learned how they were to be officially armed, it only remained to pick a couple of men who could be trusted to do the work properly and load them with as much stuff as they could carry unofficially. A Stokes shell per man was enough, or two sticks of dynamite suitably lashed and capped.

If you think these were harmless pranks, you have only to imagine yourself in an underground chamber six feet or so wide, at the bottom of a narrow twelve-foot flight of steps. Now sit quiet while a Stokes shell goes off in your midst. The more I think about it, the more thoroughly convinced I am that trench-raiding was a vital and important part of trench-warfare. I know that it worked out with very satisfying results on our side. It provides the best sort of training in the important matter of working together, seizing the moment when it arrives, doing not only all that was expected of you, but all that you would like to expect of yourself, and yet being able to retire neatly and in order with the party, conscious of a job well done.

As the war went on, the idea finally percolated into Heinie’s head that this trench raiding stuff might be all right, after all. With characteristic German thoroughness, he had to try it out, this way and that. While I am not and never was in the confidence of the German Higher Command, I feel quite sure that I can interpret their deductions. They found out, right at the start, that they had no chance whatever of slipping over and surprising us. Our scouting system and our sentries were too good for that. So they conceived the idea that they would isolate a certain area by a box-barrage and then send over an overwhelming force against the holders of the isolated bit of trench. They tried it on us several times but without success, as we guessed their intention quickly enough to take effective preventive measures. After a month or two of observation, it is nearly always possible to figure out just about what is meant by any artillery demonstration. Our raids were, generally, carried out without any artillery preparation. Stealth and quietness were the main requisites for success. Grenades and firearms were habitually carried but used only when the necessity for stealth had passed. The bayonet, well sharpened and carried in the hand — not on the rifle — was the most effective weapon. I have seen, somewhere, the statement that it was contrary to the recognized rules of war to sharpen the bayonet. Well, now, that is just too bad. The last thing we did before leaving England was to take all our bayonets to the armourer and have them ground to a keen edge and, afterward, there were always files available to keep them in that condition. Personally, if I have to be stabbed with a bayonet, I think I should prefer it to be a sharp, rather than a blunt one, but, of course, other people may have different ideas about it.

Whether they were not properly instructed by the French or due to the well-known cock-sureness and conceit of the American soldier, when the first United States troops went into the line, at Bathlemont, November 3, 1917, they were caught in this old box-barrage game and lost quite a bunch of prisoners, several wounded and three killed — Gresham, Hay and Enright, of the 16th U.S., (regular) Infantry. Eager but over-confident, they allowed themselves to be caught in a trap that would never have bothered older, seasoned troops. No intelligent enemy is going to waste several thousand perfectly good shells. When any kind of bombardment starts, it means something and it is incumbent on whoever is in charge to be able to read the signs and interpret the message. After a month or two, one gets to recognize the symptoms and can nearly always figure out what is contemplated and take whatever precautions are possible to frustrate the attempted raid.

In the Canadian Corps we generally did one of two things when a bombardment started which indicated a raid would be made on that particular section of the trenches. If possible, we promptly pulled out of the first lines and drew back into the supporting trenches and got in readiness to blow hell out of that raiding party as soon as they came over and into our abandoned trenches. Sometimes we drew off into the adjoining trenches to the sides and from there helped to hand it back as soon as the German barrage lifted and their raiding party came over our parapet. There isn’t much doubt but what any individuals caught in such a barrage and forced to remain in dugouts until the raiding party gets into their trench are strictly S.O.L. The thing to do is to be somewhere else and up on your feet, ready to hand things back as soon as the barrage lifts and they come over.

There were times when those caught in such a box barrage went right on out in the open no-man’s-land in front of their parapet, and met the raiding party before they really got started and broke up their game then and there. It all depended upon conditions and circumstances, but experienced troops soon learned not to be right where Heinie expected them to be — which always busted up the Dutchman’s plan badly.

There was one rather startling, but also amusing, feature in the big raid of January, 1917. Our men had been trained for a week or more — working on dummy trenches which were constructed behind our lines, exact replicas of the enemy trenches which were to be raided. During the early hours of the night, the wire cutting details had gone over and opened lanes through the enemy defenses, and just before dawn the raiding party, which comprised a full battalion, slipped over. Everything went like clock-work, but, where they had expected to encounter only the usual thin line of men in the enemy front line trench, they piled in right on top of several hundred Germans who were just being brought up for a raid on our trench, which was scheduled for exactly fifteen minutes later. That’s how we got the 101 prisoners. Ordinarily the bag would not have been more than