With Cavalry in 1915: The British Trooper in the Trench Line, Through the Second Battle of YpresColeman, Frederic
History
With Cavalry in 1915: The British Trooper in the Trench Line, Through the Second Battle of Ypres
Coleman, Frederic
World War, 1914-1918 -- Personal narratives
As we waited at Potijze the shells from the British guns behind us
seemed to fill the air. Gradually the fire of the German howitzers
concentrated on the trench-line in front of us, and the Boche gunners
burst shrapnel all about the fields, searching erratically for the
English batteries.
Budworth, of the artillery, was very much upset that morning by the
target selected by one of the British howitzers.
Our divisional batteries H, I, and the Warwickshire Territorial
Battery, were doing fine work and splendid execution.
Budworth's observers sent back word that some of our heavy guns were
shelling a farm that he had instructed should not be shelled by his
batteries.
Instantly he sent to the howitzer commander and asked him to "Please
get off that farm."
"What's wrong with it?" asked the howitzer man. "It's in German
hands, right enough."
"Of course it is," said Budworth. "But I've figured out that the Hun
Artillery Commander would have his headquarters about there; very
probably in that very farm. The old chap is peppering my batteries
with shrapnel, which don't bother us, for we just get in our
funk-holes and wait until it's all over, then run out and bang away.
For that matter we don't even go in for it, if we are busy. If the
old Boche chap who is running their guns should be killed by one of
your big shells, and another German beggar, who decided to use high
explosives on us, should take his place, we couldn't stay here long.
Whatever you do, don't bother the old German gunner-chap. He is quite
all right, from our standpoint, where he is at present."
Budworth's theory was proven sound by the fact that out of his three
batteries of field guns he only lost eleven men and ten horses in a
fortnight of fighting.
Standing in the Zonnebeke Road and looking toward Verlorenhoek, the
shell-swept front line was plainly visible, a little more than half
a mile away.
To reconstruct a fight on a two-and-a-half mile front such as the
battle of May 13th, with official regimental reports to which to
refer, would be sufficiently difficult. To piece it out while it was
actually in progress was increasingly so.
I ran back and forth from our headquarters west of Ypres to the town
of Potijze many times that day. By evening, when I left the Salient
for the night, I had met with scores who had terrible tales to tell.
The wounded made an unending stream westwards, and numbered many a
familiar face.
Officers and men all declared the shell-fire was the heaviest they
had seen. At no point in the line was the German shelling more fierce
than on either side the Zonnebeke Road, near Verlorenhoek. The
Queen's Bays were to the north of it, the 5th D.G.'s on their left.
On the south of the road were the 1st Life Guards, and on their right
the 2nd Life Guards, then the Leicestershire Yeomanry.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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