Preparing for the assault on Messines Ridge - March 1917

I have not shown such dedication to duty as earned my grandfather a Military Medal. It has been two months since my last post, in that time (100 years ago) the New Zealand Artillery has again been rearranged, but I believe Sydney Williams is still with Z Battery, Trench Mortars. Preparations have been underway since late 1916 to attack the Messines-Wytschaete Ridge (see map)

By March 1917, concealment of these preparations was impossible, so they were being pushed on "with the utmost rapidity, and with all the resources at command."

Large scale infrastructure was necessary. According to New Zealand Artillery in the Field, 1914-18:

The railways which served the area had had to be extended, new roads constructed, and provision made for an adequate supply of water, which had to be brought forward by pipe lines from the Kemmel Hills or from sterilising barges on the River Lys. It was a huge constructive scheme, demanding much exhaustive and informed thought, and careful elaboration of multitudinous detail, and to its masterful handling throughout was due the complete success that attended it. .... The launching of the attack on the Messines-Wytschaete Ridge had been fixed for a date early in June, and fully two months before that date all the countryside behind the forward positions was alive with the countless activities which must always precede such an offensive.

On 15 March, the New Zealand Division relieved the 36th Divison in the sector from St Yves Avenue to Wulverghem-Wytschaete Rd, though the artillery relief happened in the two days after. 

Christmas 1916: 'a special programme of shooting'

I have been on holiday in Auckland for Christmas and New Years. Here is how my grandfather spent that 'cheery season' a hundred years ago at Fleurbaix, France, according to New Zealand Artillery in the Field, 1914-18:

On December 20th, and for a few days following, the guns on both sides of the line were fairly busy; but on Christmas Day, which was cold and bleak, the enemy gunners remained silent, though the New Zealand batteries carried out a special programme of shooting during the afternoon and evening. It was related that the enemy had sprung a surprise on the troops in line on the sector on the evening of Christmas, 1915, and possibly this activity was designed to provide against a similar occurrence. One day at the front is very much like another, and the only thing that outwardly marked this day as in any way different from the others was the provision of unlimited quantities of the traditional Christmas cheer. The material for these elaborate "spreads" was obtained almost entirely from farms in the back areas, where there was tremendous mortality among the cackling flocks, and from the Expeditionary Force canteens. It can hardly have been said to have been a "happy" Christmas; but at any rate everyone made the best of the untoward circumstances. The remainder of the month was uneventful enough, and batteries marked the passing of the year by a combined shoot on the enemy's roads and communications on the night of 31st December-1st January.

In our day, Pope Francis has marked the New Year, with a message for the World Day of Prayer for Peace preaching non-violence as a 'style of politics for peace':

While the last century knew the devastation of two deadly World Wars, the threat of nuclear war and a great number of other conflicts, today, sadly, we find ourselves engaged in a horrifying world war fought piecemeal. ... this “piecemeal” violence, of different kinds and levels, causes great suffering: wars in different countries and continents; terrorism, organized crime and unforeseen acts of violence; the abuses suffered by migrants and victims of human trafficking; and the devastation of the environment. ...
Violence is not the cure for our broken world. ... Jesus himself lived in violent times. Yet he taught that the true battlefield, where violence and peace meet, is the human heart: for “it is from within, from the human heart, that evil intentions come” (Mk 7:21).

Pope Francis goes on to say that to be true followers of Jesus today means embracing Jesus' teaching about nonviolence, then quotes from his predecessor Pope Benedict XVI:

“For Christians, nonviolence is not merely tactical behaviour but a person’s way of being, the attitude of one who is so convinced of God’s love and power that he or she is not afraid to tackle evil with the weapons of love and truth alone. Love of one’s enemy constitutes the nucleus of the ‘Christian revolution’”.

And in case you think this is all naive optimism and the world is a lost cause, I shall end with this positive video shared with me by Avaaz:
https://www.facebook.com/Avaaz/videos/10154488492703884/

With the guns through Longueval

Still with the New Zealand Field Artillery on 15 September 1916 - on the day of New Zealand's first big push on the Somme:

Of those still living who went with the guns through Longueval that day, and down the tortured road that led on to Flers, assuredly none will forget it while memory lives. From the battery positions they were just leaving, a rough track led up the slopes and joined the main road that led into Longueval. There was but little shelling there, and only an occasional big shell fell into the village itself, but from High Wood, right along the crest to Delville Wood and beyond, the German gunners had laid down a deep, heavy barrage from seemingly every known calibre of gun. And through it ran the road to the forward positions. It might have been thought an impassable barrier; but the infantry had gone through it, and were fighting away in advance of it; and the guns went through. Battery after battery wound through the tumbled ruins of the village, and down past the ragged remnants of Delville Wood, a ghastly place where the big high explosive shells were sending up great gouts of black earth and pieces of wood, and Heaven only knew what else.

 -- New Zealand Artillery in the Field, 1914-18

"A giant machine controlled by a single mind"

Though it is now a week since 100-year commemorations of New Zealanders' entry into the Battle of the Somme, I found these excerpts from the official history of the New Zealand Field Artillery compelling - not least for the matter of fact way it speaks about New Zealand soldiers using chemical weapons for the first time. These weapons are now banned by international law, not that that has stopped a few countries from using them.

A renewed push by Allied forces on German positions on 15 September was preceded by three heavy days of artillery bombardment, which the author likens to "a giant machine controlled by a single mind".

The bombardment opened on the morning of Tuesday, September 12th, all along the line from Thiepval to Ginchy, and continued steadily for three days. The 18-prs. were employed chiefly in cutting wire, searching communication trenches etc., while the 4.5in. howitzer batteries which were not engaged on counter-battery work directed their fire on enemy trenches, observation posts, and machine-gun emplacements. ... The whole enemy system of trenches for a great depth was battered with high explosive and sprayed with shrapnel, and any belts of wire entanglements that could be observed at all were methodically wiped out; roads and communications were shelled by day, and even more vigorously by night, when they carried most traffic, and groups of heavy guns concentrated their efforts on the destruction of enemy batteries; in short, the whole area behind the enemy lines was kept under a continuous and destructive fire, blocking the movement of troops and stopping the supply of water, rations, or ammunition. Gas shells, fired by the 4.5in howitzers, were here used for the first time by the New Zealand batteries. .... 

The morning of Friday, September 15th, dawned fine, but cool and: misty—a typical autumn morning. For three days now the bombardment had gone on with unwavering persistence, neither diminishing nor increasing in volume, suggesting nothing so much as a giant machine controlled by a single mind; but at six o'clock, twenty minutes before zero hour, it seemed to increase in intensity and violence. One thought that nothing could exist under this annihilating storm of shells; but when at 6.20 a.m. the infantry left their trenches and moved forward behind the barrage, the enemy was manning his machine guns, and his artillery put down a heavy and accurate barrage. That day the new armoured cars or tanks, as they became universally known, were used for the first time, lanes being left in the barrage for their advance. Despite the fact that some of them broke down before they reached their front line, and that, of the twenty odd which managed to cross the German line, about a third were almost immediately crippled through some cause or other, they did very good work in fighting machine gun nests and strong points, and in flattening out belts of German wire. As yet, however, they were only in the experimental stage; and, undoubtedly, their greatest success that day lay in their moral effect, as they lumbered up to the German trenches, looming huge and uncertain in the half light.

Before the Somme - "a pleasant interlude"

On 14 August, Sydney Williams was transferred to the Divisional Ammunition Column (DAC), attached to 'Z' Trench Mortar Battery (one of three TM batteries). On the 18th, they marched out of Armentieres heading towards the Somme, where the Allied offensive had already begun on 1 July, with the loss of 19,000 British soldiers in one day - "arguably the worst day in British military history". (NZ History - Battle of the Somme).

According to the official history of the New Zealand Field Artillery, before heading to the front line, the New Zealanders enjoyed good weather in a week's training in a "quiet and sheltered corner of the Somme Valley". Then, from the 29 August, they set out on a trek to the battlefield, which the history describes in idyllic tones:

For the artilleryman, who travels in greater ease than the heavily-burdened infantryman, a trek through new country in fine weather provides a pleasant interlude from the vicissitudes of life in the lines. Reveille sounds with the dawn, or earlier, and by the time breakfast is ready the horses have been watered and fed, and harnessed ready for an immediate start. Brigades move together, with a good interval between batteries, and every unit must be on the road at the appointed time. The early morning air is cool and invigorating; the horses are fresh, and swing steadily along with taut traces to the tune of jingling accoutrements and the rumble of the heavy vehicles of the long column half veiled in the morning mist. Every turn of the road brings something new to wonder at or to admire; and the driver sitting easily in his saddle exchanges sage observations with the gunner marching in rear of his gun. The ten-minute halts mark the passing of the hours; and then, if the journey be not a short one, comes the mid-day halt to water and feed the horses, and munch what the orders term "the unconsumed portion of the day's ration." A column on the march is always preceded by a billeting officer, who, riding hot-foot in advance, has the available billeting accommodation ready to apportion to units by the time they arrive at the night's resting-place. Trekking in heavy weather is disagreeable for the men and severe on the horses, which very frequently have to stand in the mud in some exposed horse lines after a hard journey on heavy roads.

PAGE 123

Yes, at times perhaps one could say, 'Oh what a lovely war!"

The reasons behind Sydney Williams Military Medal

The beginning of July marks the end of the time for which Sydney Williams carried out the actions that later earned him a Military Medal. He was granted the medal on 21 September 1916, and the citation says:

This Sergeant has been with the Artillery since the beginning of their campaign. He has been with the Trench Mortar since these Batteries were formed and has at all times shown great courage and bravery.

In the operations of June 3rd - July 1st when his late commanding Officer and 4 other ranks were wounded, he took command and had all the Mortars returned from the front line and assisted the rest of the night in the evacuation of the wounded from the trenches. He has always put duty first having refused leave of absence on two occasions so that he might be with his Battery during bombardments.

I cannot find any reference in the official history nor other writings to more specific details about the operations referred to above.

I only came across this citation last year, and cried when I read it - perhaps because I was coming to know my grandfather a little more; perhaps recognition of a bravery in him which I feel I lack; or perhaps a bravery I do have, but have not been yet been called upon so clearly to exercise.

A friend quoted to me years ago, from Mark Twain I believe: "Courage is acting despite the fear".

*

Coincidentally, I learn only today that on this day in Belgium (3 July 2016), the first official New Zealand remembrance ceremony will be held at the war cemetery at Armentières, "to commemorate the sacrifice of the New Zealand Soldiers in the start of the Battle of the Somme", already underway elsewhere on the Western Front at this time 100 years ago - and which the New Zealand Division would soon be joining.

The Armentières cemetery holds the biggest concentration of identified New Zealand graves from World War I in one single place.

My grandfather's commanding officer is killed in action

Today, reading New Zealand Artillery in the Field, 1914-18, I learn that my grandfather's commanding officer was the New Zealand battery commander to lose his life in the war. It happened within two months of the New Zealanders at Armentières. The 1st Battalion of the Otago Regiment staged a raid on 13 July but it failed due to"the totally unexpected and withering fire which the enemy brought to bear on the party". The New Zealanders' heavy guns were unable to neutralize it, despite all three groups of artillery being used. They were unable to do much damage to over twenty enemy batteries.

The guns of the 4th (Howitzer) Battery  of the 3rd Brigade (my grandfather's) "had been dragged from the pits into the open in order to obtain the necessary switch, and during the height of the firing the enemy sprayed the position with shrapnel." It was in this encounter that commanding officer Captain J. L. H. Turner, M.C. lost his life, and command passed to Captain D. E. Gardner.