Hesketh Vernon Hesketh-Prichard

“ In the Army there has always been in certain quarters a prejudice against very accurate shooting, a prejudice which is quite understandable when one considers the aims and ends of musketry. While sniping is the opportunism of the rifle, musketry is its routine. ”

“ I think these days as the guest of the various Corps Commanders of the First Army—for I was passed on from the nth Corps to the 3rd, and from the 3rd to the 1st—were the best days I had in France, for the extraordinary keenness in the First Army was very marked. It was here that I had to go through the ordeal of having to lecture to the Guards Divisional Staff and Snipers at nine o'clock in the morning. In lecturing, even on an interesting subject like sniping, it has always seemed to me much easier to be successful in a warm room at five o'clock rather than in a cold one at nine. ”

“ At first the greater part of our teaching dealt with sniping, but as time went on the curriculum was much extended. Map reading, intelligence work, the prismatic compass, the range-finder, instruction on crawling, ju-jitsu and physical drill were all added. In addition to these, we had continual demonstrations of the effect of all kinds of bullets, both British and German, on the armoured steel plates used by us and by the enemy. We formed a museum, which became quite famous, and in which were various exhibits of German and British sniping paraphernalia. ”

“ It is wonderful what can be done in a single week by sixteen accurate shots along the length of line held by a battalion. You must understand also that the success of the German sniping rested largely upon the deeds of certain crack snipers, who thoroughly understood their work, and who each one of them caused us heavy casualties. The first work to be done in the trenches was the organized annihilation of these skilled German snipers, and I think this was the easier in that they had it their own way for so long. ”

“ They liked sniping, and still more, observation, because they felt that here, at last, in the great impersonal war, was an opportunity for individual skill. The more imaginative of them realized also the enormous possibilities of the trained observer. ”

“ Not once in a hundred times does the German at whom one is shooting get his bullet through both loopholes.
The drainpipe loophole is also very good. If put in at an angle, it is very difficult for a German to put a bullet down it. In fact if the drainpipe is put in low in the parapet, the brave Hun has to come clean over the top of his own parapet to shoot down it at all. I am also keen on teaching our fellows to open loopholes sanely. I usually lie in front watching, and it is rarely that, if I shot straight, I should not be able to kill or wound nine of every ten men who open them. ”

“ If your trench is dominated by enemy snipers, life in it is really a very hard thing, and moral must inevitably suffer. In many parts of the line all through France and Belgium the enemy, who were organized at a much earlier period than we, certainly did dominate us. Each regiment and most soldiers who have been to France will remember some particular spot where they will say the German sniping was more deadly than elsewhere, but the truth of the matter is that in the middle of 1915 we were undergoing almost everywhere a severe gruelling, to say the least of it. ”

“ Many of our units took an actual pride in having an absolutely flat and even parapet, which gave the Germans every opportunity of spotting the smallest movement. The parapets were made of sandbags beaten down with spades, and it is not too much to say that along many of them a mouse could not move without being observed by the most moderate-sighted German sniper. It was curious how some few commanding officers stuck to these flat parapets in the face of all casualties and the dictates of common-sense, even after the High Command had issued orders upon the subject. ”

“ I have often regretted that I did not keep a Visitors' Book at the First Army Sniping School, for certainly enormous numbers of visitors came to us. Outside the officers of the B.E.F., of whom several hundred visited the school, we had attaches and missions of various allied and neutral powers—Japanese, Roumanian, Dutch, Spanish, American, Italian, Portuguese, Siamese and Polish officers, as well as large numbers of journalists, from whom, when they were not our own accredited correspondents, I used to conceal a good deal of the more secret parts of our work. ”

“ Above the village on a high plateau lies an old civilian range backed by a large rifle butt. The plateau on which the range is situated is of considerable extent, and upon its slopes (it was July) bloomed heather and gorse.
" Why," said Gray, " the place is trying hard to be "like Scotland !"
The plateau gave us a range of eight hundred yards and plenty of room for playing fields, which the Army always consider to be absolutely necessary to the well-being of a school—one reason, I think, that the health of our men was so good. ”

“ The use of snipers in attack is another point. If you have a man who can hit a model of a human head once in every 2 shots at 400 yards—and I will undertake to get most men up to this standard who can shoot decently—we shall kill some machine gunners in our next advance. Also when a German is shooting at our troops coming down a road through an aperture made by the removal of a brick from a wall, as they have often done, how useful to have a fellow who can put a bullet through the aperture. ”

“ The mark was often but a head or half a face, or a loophole behind which lurked a German sniper, and no sighting shot was possible because it " put down the target." The smallest of big game animals did not present so small a mark as the German head, so that sniping became the highest and most difficult of all forms of rifle shooting. At it, every good target shot, though always useful, was not necessarily successful, for speed was only less necessary than accuracy, and no sniper could be considered worthy of the name who could not get off his shot within two seconds of sighting his target. ”

“ There is no doubt that as a sniper, scout or intelligence officer, the Canadian shows the greatest initiative, and during the long period, well over a year, which they remained in the Army, our school was voluntarily visited by two Canadians for every one Britisher. ”

“ I, it is absolutely essential that the use of the telescope should be taught from the stalking or big-game point of view. If we had one Officer teaching it in every battalion of our Army in France, we should kill a lot of Germans, and not only this but the task of Intelligence Officers would be greatly facilitated. With four good telescopes on every battalion front, very little can happen in the enemy line without our knowing it. There are a good many telescopes in France. ”

“ I had at this time no assistant myself, and was dealing with a class of fifteen officers, as well as sometimes as many as fifty snipers, who came up from the line for a day's instruction. My N.C.O.'s, however, stepped nobly into the breach, and Armourer Staff-Sergeant Carr took over the explanation of telescopic sights—work which lay entirely outside his duties. At that time there were ten or fifteen patterns of these sights in the Army, and each officer on the course had to learn to manipulate every one of them. ”

“ In sniping, as the movement grew and sections were formed, one relied to an enormous extent upon the skill of the section to which the individual sniper belonged. A really first-rate man in a bad section was thrown away. First-rate men under a moderate officer were thrown away, and, worse than all, a good section under a good officer, who were relieved by the slack and poor section of another battalion, often suffered heavy casualties through no fault of their own. ”

“ Gray was attached to the School, where he soon left the impress of his personality and methods.
One of the difficulties that we had always found in the First Army was due to the fact that our trenches, as far at any rate as the Neuve Chapelle-Fauquissart area was concerned, were very shallow, and, indeed we lived rather behind breastworks than in trenches. To make loopholes in these breastworks was exceedingly difficult, but Gray invented a system which we christened " Gray's Boards " which fairly met the case. ”

“ If you are near a big town, it means dinners and sweet champagne, and other things which do not conduce to accurate shooting. Our school was rather more than four kilometres from Aire, and no one was allowed to go there without a pass. A pass could be had by any officer for the asking, but I found that, once the course got its grip, except on Sunday, Aire was very little visited.
My two visitors then ran through the curriculum of the school with me, and as the room was hot, removed their Burberrys. ”