A Rifleman Went to War

less secure positions in order to see or fire over top of shelter or cover in the immediate foreground. In thinking it over, I cannot recall that I ever fired any shots from the sitting position — and a good one it is too.

In firing from the trenches, our usual method was to stand on the firing step and rest the elbows on top of the parapet, which gave one a very steady position. But the top of the parapet is the aiming point for which everyone in the enemy line generally fires — machine guns, whiz-bangs, riflemen, and such, and one may not last very long in such an exposed situation. So we soon learned to pick out some place where the parapet had been broken down, or we pulled a sandbag or two out of place and piled them up so as to afford some sort of protection from fire coming from the front. Then we would fire out to one of the flanks.

As to using the sling — well, I doubt if it could be done at all during an advance, or during offensive fighting on a battle-field. It ties down a man too much and hinders his movements and observation, also to be of real assistance it has to be adjusted so closely as to be of use in but one certain position, and you change position very often in a battle. But the sling is of great help to those in defensive positions, or to those who may get fixed in a good location and stay there. I have seen many old timers in my crowd who had much training on the rifle range, fix their slings for firing and leave them in that position. For the benefit of those who are not familiar with the sling on the Ross rifle, I might add that it was designed mainly for carrying the rifle and to be of any use for firing had to be removed from the butt swivel, have new holes punched, and then laced so as to form a loop from the upper swivel only. This made the sling useless for carrying the rifle, but our crowd always fixed and kept it in the shooting position. The sling is a most valuable aid in accurate aiming and troops should always be instructed in its use.

One fact was very apparent to me as the war went along, and it became more and more noticeable as the Somme fight progressed and our replacements became very numerous. Our older men — that is, those members of the original Battalion who had received long and thorough instruction in rifle firing over the ranges of Canada and England, remembered and profited by their range training. These old-timers would always endeavor to take up a good position before firing, and then they really looked about for a target to shoot at. But the replacements, who had had little or no range training, would drop into the nearest hole, poke the rifle muzzle over the edge, and let ’er go. These chaps were always the first to run out of ammunition too. This alone, is sufficient justification for our range instruction and rifle competitions, in my humble opinion.

During the offensive stages of an action the rifleman (sniper) does his best work alone. One man can slip through a lot of holes where a squad would be instantly detected, and it is the squads, the groups, that interest the enemy machine gunners. They want a target worthy of the expenditure of a hundred or more bullets, not a single man. And it is while they have their attention concentrated upon some likely target — that is, a group — that the “lone hunter” has his chance to steal a march on them. Of course the enemy has his “hunters” out too, and we must beware of them. In the German army I believe these particular riflemen were called “Jaegers.”

The neatest and handiest military rifle I have ever seen was one I took from one of these German Jaegers, and when I held it up beside my Ross for comparison, the cocky little rascal actually laughed in my face, and he had a bullet through his arm at that. It did look ridiculous, I admit — that is, the Ross did; a great big, long, heavy club, beside the trim little “sporter” which he had been using. His rifle had been made for something other than a handle for a bayonet. I wanted to keep that beauty, but lost it, as we nearly always lost our trophies — because we could not carry them around with us and had to entrust them to some non-combatant back at the base. They probably got back to Canada all right, but the fellow who did the actual taking seldom had the pleasure of ever seeing them again.

For effective use as a rifle in battle, the arm must be just as compact and “handy” as it is possible to make it and still retain accuracy and the punch. It is probably not possible to build a high power, bolt-action rifle that would be as handy as the little .30/30 carbine or “saddle gun,” but that is my idea of what a handy rifle should be. No, with the bolt action and box magazine, it would be impossible to get the “balance” just the same and that has a lot to do with the “handiness” of any rifle. Perhaps the Springfield Sporter could be worked down somewhat. It is not bad, just as it is, yet even it would have appeared “clumsy” beside that little Mauser I took that day.

Whether or not the sniper can get away with the job of handling a rifle equipped with a telescope sight in battle is a question for the future.

I have never heard that it had been successfully accomplished. The fact is that the rifleman has to squirm and crawl through every little hole he can find; often through deep mud and water, over rocks and through brush. It is a sure thing that he will have “one hell of a job” to keep that ’scope from being broken or so badly disarranged as to make it useless. Of course, there have been and will be battles fought over ground where the conditions would make it comparatively easy to “baby along” a telescope, but we cannot depend on that — it will be the exception and not the rule. The scope would certainly be a great help in picking out the obscure targets — if it could be taken along.

Since the war I have read a great deal about the new types of telescope sights and their improved mountings. Many of our leading sportsmen and big-game hunters are claiming they are just as substantial and dependable as the iron sights. I cannot by any means subscribe to this contention, because my personal experience, gained in the trenches and in battle, is all to the contrary.

The telescopic sight needs a lot of attention, care and babying, to keep it in proper condition and to make it “stay put.” I have told about having done so much sniping from our main position in Sniper’s Bam, and how often we fired from there when the chances were very good for the German artillery tumbling it down around our ears. One of the main reasons why I liked so well to shoot from Sniper’s Barn was that while in there you could take care of and handle the telescope right. For one thing, when through firing I would leave the rifle (and the big observation telescope) right there, hidden away under some old bales of tobacco, and there was no danger of its being dropped and the sight jarred out of alignment. I had several wide strips of old woolen blanket and used these to wrap around the entire telescope and action when I put the rifle away. In there I could keep the lens dry and clean. You cannot work a telescope in the rain with any degree of satisfaction, and even a light fog or mist will cloud up the lens continually. The rifle cannot be carried through wet or dew-covered underbrush without throwing water all over the lens. Even the taking of the rifle from a comparatively “warm” dugout out into the open air of a cool or damp day may fog up the lens so badly you cannot see through them. Often on a misty morning one is constantly wiping off the lens in order to see at all. And finally there is the dirt and the mud to be considered, and the wiping of a few specks of mud or grit from the lens of a telescope is a job to be gone about with much caution — and a clean soft rag, else you will soon ruin the glass from scratches.

NO. I kept my telescopic-sighted rifle in out of the mud and rain, where I would not be obliged to lay it down over night on the bare ground and then find the lens so fogged up with condensation of moisture as to be useless — and inside, where I could not get at it, too. Any sort of telescope — and binoculars also — may do this on very short order.

No, it just don’t always work out according to the book. I have looked into this matter of telescopic sights in warfare as much as I could — went clear back to their use by Berdan’s Sharpshooters in our own Civil War — and I find that everyone’s experience had been pretty much the same as mine. If you are settled down right, sighted in, and get that telescope going good — you’re good and you can go along like a house afire for the time being. But if anything throws you off — and some mighty little things can throw a telescope sight off — you are strictly S.O.L. until you can take the time off to again sight in.

Here again, let me repeat — that is why I liked to have the iron sights in position on my rifle, and fixed so either they or the telescope could be used. Then, when conditions prevented the use of the ’scope, or it got “out of whack,” I went right along from where I was at the time, and used those iron sights. Have issued a second rifle for iron sights only, do you say? Listen here, you, I left that rifle back in the dugout this morning, and we’re out here in this shell hole for the whole damn day and can’t get back until after dark. Besides, come to think of it now, I “lost” that second rifle, what the hell do they think I am going to do anyhow, clean rifles for the whole damn Battalion?

It never happened to be my personal experience to advance across a battlefield and act the part of a modern rifleman while armed with that Ross rifle and Warner & Swasey telescope. Hence I cannot give any actual experiences as to just how the telescope sight would work under such conditions. I do not think it would stand up under the necessary rough handling but would soon get out of alignment for real accurate shooting, the only sort of shooting that is worth anything, by the way. But, supplemented by the regular