Anonymous

“ The breaking of the German line on the 8th August marked the end of the old “sit down” trench warfare, and to no one did this represent a bigger change than to the sappers. Instead of settling down for a month or more at a time in a camp or bivouac, with a regular programme of work, a system for the supply of engineer stores, and no sign or hope of an end to the proceedings, the Company now commenced to experience conditions approximating to those of open warfare, with troubles and discomforts all compensated for by victory, and at least a hope of peace to come. ”

“ A narrative of the experiences of a small unit in the Great War most properly should include only those facts and aspects of the struggle, which the unit learnt in the field from its own observation and adventures. ”

“ It is quite possible that a proposal for an attack with limited objectives, and on a small scale, would not have been very popular with the troops, tired as they undoubtedly were after nearly five months’ strenuous warfare; but the plans for the proposed battle, as outlined in the first days of August, fired the imagination. This was to be a “stunt” worth doing. To follow the first attack at once with a second, and so to penetrate some five or six miles within the enemy lines; thus to capture most of his guns; and to play around in his back areas with light tanks and armoured cars and cavalry ”

“ It lays no claim to interest the outsider, but does hope to provide a framework on which the old member of the unit can build up memories of his days in the field with the A.I.F. Memories both grave and gay; mention of a dugout at so-and-so may recall that the job cost the life of a mate; the name of a village may raise a smile at the recollection of some good jest so likely to be conceived when high-spirited men are gathered together. ”

“ The railway cutting inhabited by the 11th Field Company was an international post in itself, as in addition to the company it was used by the headquarters of a French battery, and the cookhouse of the British 8in. hows. detachment already mentioned. What helped to endear the French soldier to the Australian was a fellow feeling arising from his noticeable readiness to appropriate to his own uses, in cheerful contravention of rules and regulations, such trifles as railway sleepers and rails, also anything which he could find to his liking in Villers Brettoneux. ”

“ The camp in the railway cutting was, as a matter of fact, soon made reasonably safe against shell fire by burrowing into the solid chalk. Gas was a more insidious danger; gas shelling was frequent, and sometimes extraordinarily heavy, as on the night of the 25-26th, when Villers Brettoneux, the Bois l’Abbé, and the valley between were literally drenched with mustard gas from many thousands of shells. Fortunately the immediate vicinity of the camp escaped the worst of it, and the vigilance of doubled gas guards prevented casualties in the camp itself. ”

“ There are three Field Companies to a Division, grouped under the command of the C.R.E. (Commanding Royal Engineers) , who accompanies Divisional Headquarters.
Each Field Company is normally commanded by a Major, with a Captain as Second in Command, and includes 5 Subalterns, 9 Warrant Officers and Sergeants, 14 Corporals and Second Corporals, 46 mounted rank and file (mostly drivers) , and 139 sappers. As this last total has to supply all unit details, such as cooks, etc., it will be seen that the “man power” of a Field Company is comparatively small even when at full strength. ”

“ Strange materials were used for road making; the dead body of a mule or two might be seen tumbled into a shell hole and covered with the smashed up remains of some vehicle. Piles of shells were known to be used in emergency to hurriedly fill a hole in some urgently required roadway. Causeways were built for mules and men across the bog which marked the original course of the Zonnebeke stream, and many concrete dugouts repaired and made habitable. On all these arduous tasks the company was engaged and suffered a steady drain of casualties. ”

“ Work naturally changed; bridges, water supply, roads and signboards became most important; trenches and wire were rarely thought of; dugouts were searched for booby traps, cleaned and repaired, instead of new ones being started. During the period of most rapid advance the Division gained little advantage from some of the Sappers’ labour, but such people as the heavy artillery and transport units following behind were not inappreciative, particularly of signboards and water supply arrangements. ”

“ A considerable quantity of explosives is carried by each section, also a lift and force pump and hose.
Company Headquarters has a G.S. wagon for technical stores (four horses) , a water cart (two horses) , a mess cart (one horse) , and three bridging wagons (six horses each) . Two of these carry a pontoon each, together with superstructure, and the third carries two Weldon trestles and superstructure. Altogether enough material is carried for five spans of 15 feet each of bridge to carry Field Artillery.
Sappers are armed with rifle and bayonets, drivers with rifle only. ”

“ The evening before Z day saw Company Headquarters and 1, 2, and 4 sections established at a dugout and bivouac near Hamelet, but during the night the various parties moved forward to a trench near Hamel. Just at “Zero hour” (4.20 a.m.) a thick mist arose, and it was through this natural screen that the attack Pg 38 pushed forward, and that the various parties of Sappers groped their way to their various tasks soon after.
The results of the day’s fighting are too well known to need mention, but the cheapness of the victory may be gauged by the losses of the Company—which were—none at all. ”

“ Enemy shelling was heavy, but the unit was fortunate enough to escape with very light casualties. During one heavy burst of shelling, two sections of the company sheltered in the same trench as a company of infantry; the infantry suffered 23 casualties, while the sappers escaped unhurt.
A special feature of the arrangements for the attack was the organisation of a divisional pack train for the transport of ammunition, food, water, and R.E. stores to the newly-captured areas. The company contributed a considerable number of drivers and mules under Lieut. ”

“ After the return to the division at Lark Hill, training in field works in conjunction with infantry was undertaken; the trench system at Bustard will always be remembered by the original members of the unit. A specially interesting exercise was a route march, under tactical conditions, lasting five days, from Lark Hill, through Chitterne, Westbury, Devizes, Pusey, and back to camp. ”

“ Work was also continued on water supply arrangements. The area had been too far behind the Boche line for him to make much use of it during the summer, and he had done nothing to improve and little to maintain the old wells sunk in 1916, which proved scarcely able to cope with the demands of the concentration of men and animals now living in the vicinity. Fortunately the 74th Division, which here overlapped the 3rd, had only recently come from Palestine, and being thus familiar with the problem, helped a great deal to improve the conditions. ”

“ Here the congestion of traffic was complicated by the insistent attentions of the enemy artillery, which periodically pitted the route with shell holes and left the roadside littered with dead horses and broken vehicles, and sometimes with more dreadful wreckage.
Besides the limbers taking ammunition to the nearer guns, ration limbers and wagons laden with Engineer stores, the forward road was thronged with pack animals, which in hundreds carried ammunition to the less accessible batteries. On the outward journey they were led by dogged men on foot ”

“ A new defensive system had to be established, and there were no R.E. dumps of tools and material, very few maps available, very little information of any kind. Reconnaissance for tools and material, of bridges and streams and water supply, was thus of the highest importance, and was put in hand early. Other work, more important than trench digging, soon developed for the sappers. The map will show how important in this sector were the river-crossings, and accommodation for various commands was urgently required. ”

“ The Company lived very comfortably in the familiar Weka Lines at Romarin, with the transport in the same camp. The wagons had a busy time on this sector and delivered large amounts of material to the dumps at Motor Car Corner and Le Gheer. The old German system of trenches west of the river, which had sheltered the enemy during the Company’s tenancy of this sector the previous spring, were now occupied by us and were very little damaged, having been quietly evacuated by the Boche after Messines. ”

“ The living conditions on these bridge jobs were quite good. The Corbie billets had a good billiard table, La Neuville possessed an excellent piano, and there were plenty of opportunities for swimming. Had the Boche attacked on this front, the position of the bridge guards would have been very unenviable, but fortunately he did not do so, and the company sustained no serious casualties on this work. ”

“ The technical stores of a Field Company are very extensive, but by ransacking Adelaide warehouses to fill the gaps in the available army supplies, Ordnance succeeded in almost completing the equipment. ”

“ A detachment of sappers lived in the cellars of Vaire to do this, and generally had the assistance of a party from a regiment of U.S. Engineers, who for the sake of the experience, marched every night from some place in the rear, helped build the bridge, departed in the morning, after persuading the 11th Corporal in charge to teach them a few knots and splices, and were replaced by a new party next night. The bridge was very largely used each night by both infantry transport and gun limbers. ”

“ These considerations enjoined a more than ordinary alertness on the defence, and a vigorous artillery programme of counter preparation.
The 11th Field Company had a direct interest in the artillery programme, because a fine pair of 8in. “hows.” lived just outside their railway cutting, and were very active. Such neighbours naturally “drew crabs” (as the saying was, i.e., attracted enemy fire) , but fortunately no great harm was done during the company’s tenancy. ”

“ Noteworthy dugout jobs of the company were the double Battalion Headquarters at the Monastery, in the Bois l’Abbé; extensions to the headquarters in the quarry on the western outskirts of Villers Bretonneux; a Company Headquarters near the gas works, and extension to Brigade Headquarters on the railway line. Two very large dugouts, begun by the 4th Division, were completed in the notorious Gas valley, between the Bois l’Abbé and the town; a dugout was completed near the main road in the wood for a Trench Mortar Battery, and a couple of jobs were started east of the town. ”

“ An interesting task was making an inventory of the various German dumps captured. There were several very large ones round Bray, containing enormous quantities of mining and other timber, steel girders, barbed wire and pickets, corrugated iron and malthoid, and all sorts of interesting odds and ends. One dump, for instance, in addition to much timber, had hundreds of sets of door hinges and fastenings and window fittings, which would seem to indicate that the Pg 41 German contemplated a big hutting programme in this area. ”

“ Under the conditions of modern warfare, reasonably secure accommodation for the Headquarters of Brigades and Battalions is of great importance, and in particular these centres required to be able to maintain their signal connections and carry on their work at night without exposed lights to attract enemy aircraft. ”

“ Under these conditions the possession of ample comforts funds, supplied chiefly by friends in Australia, contributed considerably to the comfort and efficiency of the unit, as it rendered possible the supply of hot drinks and food at all hours to the different parties, and of emergency chocolate rations to parties on exposed work. ”

“ From underneath these girders looked like, and had always been taken for, steel, but the shell, which broke three of them, disclosed the interesting fact that they were only of cast iron. While just strong enough to take 3-ton motor lorries, there was certainly not sufficient margin of safety for heavier loads. The damage was repaired and the bridge incidentally strengthened by a party of sappers from the company, who stripped the damaged portion and replaced the broken cast iron beams with steel girders. ”

“ The attack opened at dawn, but the company saw little of the actual progress of events until the 9th, when the unit moved into Bunhill Row, in Plœgsteert Wood, and relieved the 10th Field Company, A.E. The company bivouac was shelled and gassed heavily all the first night, casualties being three killed and four wounded. Work was started immediately in the battle area north of the River Douve, and every effort was made to improve the communications through the “Crater Fields” in order to facilitate the advance of the 11th A.I.Bde., which had relieved the 10th A.I.Bde. ”