Forgotten Voices of the Somme (19 page)

We had no roll-call, after we got back, because there was only about twentyfive left out of eight hundred. There was nothing to count. All the packs were

left in a great stack, with personal and army things in. We spent about a week, taking all these to pieces and sorting the army stuff from the civilian stuff, and putting the civilian stuff into parcels and sending it off to relations in England.

MAMETZ TO
MONTAUBAN

East of Fricourt, lay Mametz, a heavily fortified village.
XV Corps
managed to force the Germans from Mametz, although at a price: 159 men of the 9th Battalion, Devonshire Regiment were killed by a single machine gun, mounted in the base of a religious shrine in
Fricourt Wood
.

The far end of the British advance was on the village of Montauban. The 7th Battalion, Bedfordshire Regiment attacked to the west of Montauban, and broke through the German trench lines. The battalion overran the strongly defended
Pommiers Redoubt
, and then moved north to occupy
White Trench
.

The 8th Battalion, East Surrey Regiment pushed forward to the west of Montauban, reaching the west end of
Train Alley
. The 16th and 17th Battalions, Manchester Regiment entered Montauban village at five minutes past ten in the morning, to find it deserted and in ruins. The only visible occupant was a fox. The 17th Battalion moved on to
Triangle Point
, north of Montauban, where it consolidated its position.

The 17th Battalion, King's Liverpool Regiment – the right-hand British battalion on the Somme – moved forward against little German resistance. Joining with the French, who were advancing in parallel, the battalion captured
Glatz Redoubt
. As though demonstrating the strength of the entente, the commanding officer of the 17th Battalion,
Lieutenant Colonel Fairfax
, had marched over the top arm in arm with
Commandant le Petit
, the neighbouring French battalion commander.

Sergeant James Payne

16th Battalion, Manchester Regiment

The attack was about to start. I had a boy with me; he'd been out of school for six weeks. I said, 'What are you doing here?' He said, 'I've been sent out from England. I've arrived today.' I said, 'Hang on to me!' It was just stupid. The

boy couldn't hold a butty knife, never mind a bayonet. He was killed. Shot down next to me.

We were attacking the very last German trench. We were all knocked out. Their machine guns were waiting for us. We didn't get through. None of us. There was a big shell-hole full of dead and dying and blinded. Tall men got it through the jaw, shorter men through the eyes. I was five foot ten and shot through the cheek. I was walking along, and a bullet blew all my teeth out. I fell forward and spat all my teeth out. I collapsed and, hours later, I came round. My left eye was closed. I couldn't talk. I could breath, that was all. I got my field dressing out and wound it round my face and left eye. I could see through my right eye and I saw one of my corporals who'd been shot through the foot. I took his boot off, bandaged it up, put his boot on again and he used his rifle as a crutch and together we went back. There was nobody around. Just the dead.

We saw a man. A shell had come over and hit him and knocked off his left arm and his left leg. His left eye was hanging on his cheek, and he was calling out, 'Annie!' I shot him. I had to. Put him out of his misery. It hurt me. It hurt me.

Major Alfred Irwin

8th Battalion, East Surrey Regiment

I was commander of my battalion on the
first day of the Somme
– and it was a great difficulty to know what to do. One's instinct was to go over with the chaps, to see what was going on. On the other, we had been warned, again and again, that officers' lives must not be thrown away in doing something that they oughtn't. As a matter of fact, we had been told that commanding officers of battalions should lead from behind, and that when the attack had lost its impetus,
then
was the moment to go forward.

So when the impetus died down, in the mid-morning, I felt that was the moment I could be of some use, and I went over the parapet by myself, and stood out in the open, saying, 'Come on! Come on!' And they all came on quite smoothly. They didn't know what to do after they'd taken their first objective. I think I acted properly, but I really don't know. We reached the third German reserve line, to the left of Montauban. There were so few of us that there was very little we could do that night. But I posted the men as well as I could, and we were not attacked. We were heavily shelled – but not

attacked. We got away with it, and the next day we were relieved. We'd come down from about eight hundred to under two hundred. It seemed to me a dreadful waste of life.

Captain Neville
was commanding B Company, one of our assaulting companies. A few days before the battle, he came to me with a suggestion. He said that he and his men were all equally ignorant of what their conduct would be when they got into action. They had four hundred yards to go, covered by machine-gun fire, so he thought that it would be helpful if he could furnish each platoon with a football, and allow them to kick it forward and follow it. I sanctioned that, so long as he and his officers
really
kept command of the units, and didn't allow it to develop into a rush after the ball. If a man came across the football, he could kick it forward, but he mustn't chase after it. I think it did help them enormously. It took their minds off it. But they suffered terribly. Neville, his second captain, and his company sergeant major were all killed.

I recommended
Captain Gimsun
, of the
Royal Army Medical Corps
, for a Victoria Cross. It was his plain duty that he did, but he was completely unperturbed by the very heavy machine-gun fire, and he and his stretcher-bearers were at it the whole morning, bringing in chaps who were lying out in the open. I was so impressed by his calmness. He was taking no notice of the battle – he was just getting on with his job. I thought this was enough for a VC. General
Maxey, who was
commanding our division, came up the next day and found me writing up Gimsun's recommendation, and he told me that it wasn't sufficiently journalistic, and rewrote it for me, and I think that's why Jimmy didn't get it.

Private Jack Cousins

7th Battalion, Bedfordshire Regiment

It was a question of get stuck in, and kill or be killed. It wasn't a question of wandering around the countryside looking for mushrooms. We had to get going. We were told, 'Don't advance on your own! Go together at the same pace! If machine-gun fire takes place, drop down flat to the ground!' And our platoon officer said, 'You'll find the barbed wire in front of the German trench blown away.' Blown away? Nothing of the sort! It was as solid as anything. That was the whole trouble! We were disillusioned that it wasn't blown, and the Germans were firing at us from all angles. A lot of men were caught on the wire, and they were sitting ducks.

We got into the front-line German trench and my instructions were to follow the communication trench back to the German lines. Well, I had my Lewis gun, my head down below the trench, my gun crew following behind with spare ammunition. Suddenly I could hear voices in front: I knew that they were German. I stopped at the bend, and suddenly I saw, coming around the bend, Germans in single file. When they spotted me, they started to unsling their rifles, but I didn't give them a chance, and I drove my finger on the Lewis gun trigger, and with a burst from the gun, three or four of them dropped dead. The others threw down their rifles and came with their hands up. I signalled for them to get up and walk back to our people as prisoners.

My number two was carrying a revolver, and there was nothing accurate about the thing, but he started to take potshots at some of these Germans. I told him to shut up and be quiet. Then we came into a Jerry dugout. Their dugouts were very effective – they used to tunnel down yards and yards. I got hold of a Mills bomb, pulled the pin and threw it down the dugout. There was a bit of a bang after four seconds, then I heard somebody moaning. I took a chance. I went down into the dugout, and there was this Jerry laid with a great hole in his chest, blood pouring everywhere, pointing to his mouth. I knew what he wanted. He wanted a drink. I gave him my water bottle. The water went in his mouth, and came out of his holes. He was gone in a few seconds. It really upset me, I felt morally responsible for his death. It could have happened to me.

Private Albert Hurst

17th Battalion, Manchester Regiment

We were in the second wave to go over. When the first wave went, we could hear excessive rifle and machine-gun fire. We couldn't see what was happening, and there was a very short interval between their attack and ours. We were carrying our full pack, and rifle, but we all had some extra load. I was carrying two extra bandoliers of rifle ammunition, two Mills bombs, a water bucket full of Lewis gun ammunition, and a full-sized pickaxe. It all slowed me down, and made me less manoeuvrable. It would have been impossible to run. It was an effort just to walk at a normal pace. On the back of our packs, we had a yellow cloth to distinguish us as Manchesters, and a bright metal plate to reflect the light, so that the aeroplanes could see how far we'd advanced.

The attack started when the officer looked at his watch, and said, 'Now!'

There were a lot of ladders to get us over the top, and it was a struggle to get up with all the gear. By this time, the previous wave had occupied the German front line, but we still came under a lot of rifle and machine-gun fire as we went over. It must have been coming from the German second line, over the top of our first wave who – I later found out – had captured the first line of the German trenches. The whole battalion moved forward in block formation – ten men keeping close together in files of five. It was daft, it made us very vulnerable, but I didn't have an impression of people falling around me. The British wire had been cut for us, and we had no problem getting through. Then we endeavoured to recognise the points that we were making for.

The fire got heavier as we went across no-man's-land. I could hear the bullets whistling in the air. There was no cover. I was exposed, I was frightened, and I got a bullet through my water bottle. We
were
suffering casualties, but I didn't know it at the time. Of our platoon, perhaps about a dozen out of fifty men were casualties. When I got to the German front line, it was so blown up that I couldn't see very much, but there were six dead Germans lying in front of the trench. The
2nd Royal Scots Fusiliers
had captured it and were holding it, but we carried on past them, and there were no British troops ahead of us now. We went on to the village of Montauban, which seemed to be flattened. The only thing left intact was a figure of Christ on the Cross, at the corner of the Péronne Road. We didn't see any Germans in Montauban and we took up a position on the right hand side, facing
Bernafay Wood
.

By this time, we were too exhausted from carrying so much gear to start digging trenches. We lay down where we were and made use of the ground as we found it, on the outer edge of an orchard. There was no noticeable firing from the German side, and we were there for three days, expecting a big counterattack which never came. We were a sort of auxiliary reserve for the machine gun; we ourselves weren't on the gun, but we were suppliers of the ammunition. The machine-gun team was in advance of us, and there were two bombers, lying doggo, covering them. And we couldn't see any Germans, or any defences, ahead of us in Bernafay Wood. It looked open.

Private Pat Kennedy

18th Battalion, Manchester Regiment

As we progressed towards the German trenches, gaps appeared in our lines. But the men still went forward. I could see the French troops advancing on our right. It was a splendid sight to see them with their coloured uniforms and long bayonets. They advanced in short, sharp rushes, and they seemed to make good progress. Their artillery was giving them plenty of support, and as they vanished into the distance, I thought, 'They're doing very well! Very well indeed!'

After taking the village of Montauban, we advanced about four hundred yards, and dug in. The officer near us said, 'We've taken a position, but can we hold it?' The Germans made three counter-attacks. We beat every one off, except the last one. They got in, we drove them out, but no reinforcements came up and we had orders to stay where we were.

During one counter-attack, I couldn't get my ammunition out of my pouches quick enough. So this old sergeant with the South African War ribbon said to me, 'Eh lad, put your clips on the top of the parapet. It's easier!' That was a good tip – because I had to load very quick and fire. The Germans were coming with fixed bayonets. The old sergeant said, 'By God, if we get any in here, we'll have to go and meet them with the bayonet!' I had a round in my breech, to shoot in case I missed with the bayonet. They got very near on top of us – a few feet away – and they were coming full pelt, yelling at the top of their voices. It was a nasty feeling. But they were beaten off.

Private A. A. Bell

17th Battalion, Manchester Regiment

I thought, 'This is going to be easy!' Behind us was a battery. They were slinging it over, and the noise was terrible. 'They know what they're doing!' I thought. The whistle was the signal to go. We had our places allocated. I was a bomber, and I was to attack Triangle Point, beyond Montauban. Several of the bombers from the platoon had been detailed to go there, and we carried ten bombs and we were to receive two bombs each from other members of the platoon. Before I got to Triangle Point, I learned that
Sergeant Jackson
had been hit, and as I was looking for the place – on my own – I came across a number of Germans with their hands up. I could hardly believe it. I shouted to them, '
Par la! Par la!
' and they went
par la
. That was lucky for me.