A Diary Account of the Battle
Extract from the personal diary of the late Lieut. B. Meadows giving a wonderfully realistic picture of the July 1st Battle.
The narrative of the 1st of July Somme Battle as written in the diary of the late 2nd Lieut. B. Meadows, who, before taking his commission, served with the 17th H.L.I., gives such an impressive account of the battle that we include it here almost in entirety. The foregoing chapter gives a general idea of the intensity of the great battle from the impersonal and official viewpoint, with data checked and balanced. But the following account introduces the personal and human element with poignant effect. Some of the very minor facts are a little inaccurate, but that is inevitable when an individual soldier describes a general action from his own viewpoint. Nevertheless the editors consider that in no other Battalion source is there such a vivid record of experiences to be got which reflect the feelings of all those who took part in the action concerned.
“The last four days before zero,” he writes, “were known as ‘W,’ ‘X,’ ‘Y,’ and ‘Z’ days. By ‘W’ every enemy observation balloon had been destroyed and so dense a fleet of aircraft patrolled the battle area as to make it impossible for the enemy aircraft to approach the lines. Thus the enemy was made blind. On the night of ‘W’ we got orders to move forward. Before leaving the billet we made a large bonfire with boxes from the C.Q.M.’s stores. On this we burned all our letters, and round it we had the last sing-song the old ‘Seventeenth’ ever had. We then believed it ‘Y’ night, not ‘W’ night. The night before we had gone up to the trenches through Aveluy and Authuille with petrol tins full of water. These were stocked in dug-outs and along the trench and formed our reserve water supply. Many of our guns were firing ’gun fire,’ yet the enemy made little artillery reply. He retaliated chiefly on the front line defences with trench mortars. Of such a violent nature was this bombardment that the Lonsdales had to call on our ‘D’ Company for support to make up for their casualties in shell shock, etc. Curiously enough, during the days ‘D’ Company held the line they suffered no casualties, although the trench was battered out of all recognition. When it was dark on ‘W’ night we marched to Bouzincourt. Here we spent the night in huts. Before daybreak we were shelled and had one man killed. Day showed an extraordinary sight. Bouzincourt stands on the hill, the battle area stretched out like a map below. Near the Crucifix on the Aveluy road a long naval gun barked. Just behind us was a 15 inch howitzer. Its shells could easily be watched in their flight overhead. In front were an infinite number of guns all in action. A long line of observation balloons made a crescent round Albert. One could count over twenty, and not one German. The air was thick with our aeroplanes. The German lines looked like long ribbons of white fur. The air was full of shrapnel balls, especially over the woods, and the villages were burning. The heavy howitzers were causing dreadful eruptions on the German strong points. La Boisselle, believed impregnable, was a concentrated hell. The Germans were putting shrapnel into the woods that lie in the triangle between Hamel, Bouzincourt and Aveluy. Here our guns were massed. And now and then a mushroom of smoke would spring up in unexpected places. The noise was so terrific that it became monotonous. We were served out with cotton wool for our ears, but in spite of this the concussion on the 1st of July was so great that we all became stone deaf, and for days after almost without the use of our voices. We prepared for ’battle order.’ All our belongings we packed into our valises, and these were stored in an empty house in Bouzincourt. We wore steel helmets, at that time they were without sandbag coverings, and in strong sunlight reflected almost as brilliantly as polished steel. I noticed on the 1st July, looking back from the advanced line to the German original front line, how the helmets of our reserves holding that line shone up and made their wearers clear targets. We wore the haversack on our back containing mess tin, small kit, two days’ rations, ‘iron rations,’ pair of socks and waterproof sheet. We carried four sandbags just below. Then we had the usual equipment, pouches containing 120 rounds, bayonet, water bottle and entrenching tool. Another 100 rounds in bandoliers, and I had extra an apron containing 12 Mill’s bombs and butterfly wirecutters. The whole formed fairly heavy equipment. In the late afternoon when we were all lined up prepared to march off, orders came to cancel all orders. We stood by for two days. On ‘X’ night the 16th H.L.I. sent a platoon over to find out the condition of the enemy defences. Owing to an accident they were almost entirely wiped out. On the following morning while playing a football match the Sixteenth again suffered casualties from a 5.9 which burst between the goal posts. In the evening of ‘Z’ day, the 30th of June, we marched off by platoons. The thunder of the heavy guns as we passed through their belt was almost unbearable, and nearer the lines long lines of eighteen-pounders were giving ‘battery fire’ down long rows of twenty batteries, sometimes all speaking at once. We entered ‘Oban Avenue’ at the right end of the village of Authuille. It was the ‘up’ trench for the advance and ‘Campbell Avenue’ the ‘down.’ Both trenches had been deepened, in some places, to twelve feet, and were fairly safe from shrapnel. The line in which we were to spend the night had been blown almost completely out of existence and it was difficult to find sufficient cover for the men. I and the bomber who was next to me in the line found a corner and there slept for the night. We were once disturbed by the enemy destroying a trench mortar store situated close to where we slept. Daybreak came and still there was no word of ‘zero.’ We made some breakfast, and about half-past five word was passed along that zero was 7.30, and to move into battle positions. We moved to the right until we were in contact with the next Company. At 6.25 a.m. the final bombardment commenced. Every gun was firing ‘gunfire’ and the rush of metal overhead was extraordinary. The reply was feeble. At 7.25 we left the trench and walked over to within 60 yards of the barrage. At 7.30 the barrage lifted and we rushed the front line defences, destroying the garrison, in and out of dug-outs. I have few definite memories from the time we first saw the Germans to the time the machine gun swept us down outside the Liepzig Redoubt. It became evident that we, who were working up between two communication trenches, after two or three rushes, that further advancing was impossible without support. We waited for our own reserve waves and the Lonsdales who should have come on behind. But no reserves reached us and we saw our only hope lay in the fact that they had rushed one of the communication trenches and might manage to bomb out the machine gun. But the bombers were checked out of range of the gun. We began to work towards the communication trench, but owing to the lie of the ground we were badly exposed and I at length found myself the only living occupant of that corner. About twelve o’clock I managed to leap the parapet without being hit. I found my platoon officer, Lieut. MacBrayne, lying shot through the head. Of the others of my platoon I could get no news, except those I saw lying dead or wounded. Tom Train had completely disappeared. An order came up the trench, ‘17th H.L.I. move to the left and prepare to support the Dorsets.’ The communication trench was at this time chiefly manned by K.O.Y.L.I. (who should have supported the 16th H.L.I. who had been held up by the German wire and cut up before able to take the first line of defences. Those left were forced to retire to their own line). A few Lonsdales (the 11th Borderers had been cut up coming up through ‘Blighty Wood,’ Colonel and Adjutant killed and all officers casualties) were able to give us practically no support, and a Company of Manchesters, sent from Divisional Reserve. I moved to the left. An officer suddenly jumped the parapet and shouted ‘Come on, the 17th!’ I followed him along with about twenty others. But we found the barbed wire impossible to cut through and he gave us the order ‘Every man for himself.’
“Making my way back to the trench I rested in a shell hole occupied by a Sergeant wounded in the leg. Whilst talking to him we both fell asleep and slept until about 5 p.m., when the Germans counter-attacked. Their artillery became violent and they attempted to come over the open. We ran for the communication trench and found it disorganised. Orders got mixed and some seemed anxious to retire. Fortunately the 17th H.L.I. bombers, who were in the advanced position, held their ground, driving the enemy back with their own bombs, and the attack over the open was checked by our brigade machine guns which had been massed in the German front line. During the whole action we lost no ground that had previously been gained. By this time our Battalion had been badly hit. ‘B’ Company on our left had been caught in the wire and cut to pieces by machine gun fire. My own Company, ‘A,’ was down to low numbers. My Captain and my Platoon Officer were both killed, all the platoon’s N.C.O.s were killed or wounded, two Sergeants outright, and all the L.-Corpls. dead. We had 17 officers killed and were working the Battalion with two officers. The Colonel, who had been well forward all day, was without a scratch. It was a remarkably clear day, very hot. We were on the ridge that formed the defence on that side of Thiepval. From here we could see the whole battlefield. I saw the huge eruption at La Boisselle, when the six mines went up, and I remember watching long lines of Highlanders charging along the opposite slope of the valley. The aeroplanes followed every movement, flying low overhead and directing the artillery by dropping flares. The Germans counter-attacked in a half-hearted way through the night. We had casualties from our own artillery and mortar batteries, otherwise the night was quieter than we had expected. We managed to carry away a number of our wounded in waterproof sheets. The battalions on both flanks were unsuccessful in storming the enemy’s front line defences, thus our flanks were exposed and blockades had to be formed at the front line and all lines forward to our advanced positions, which developed into a series of bombing posts. Local fights went on at their posts all through the day and night, and it was while chasing each other round corners at the head of the communication trench in the afternoon that we lost Sergeant Turnbull, V.C., who had done wonderful work all day. The nature of the Leipzig defences, a maze of trenches and underground saps, made advancing into the salient extremely hard. One was continually attacked in the rear. What seemed dug-outs were bombed, and when passed numbers of the enemy rush from them, they being really underground communications with their rear defences. The whole fighting was of a cold, deliberate, merciless nature. No quarter was given or taken. One of the battalions opposing us was similar to our own, a students’ battalion from Bavaria. The enemy used explosive and dum-dum bullets, and sniped off any of our wounded lying exposed in the open. They were helped in their work by an arrangement we had come to regarding wounded. It was not permitted to stop to take back prisoners or to stop to dress a wounded chum; but it was permitted to stick the bayonet of the wounded man’s rifle in the ground and thus to mark the spot where he lay. The Germans observed this and watched for any movement in the heap beside the standing rifle. Men coolly fired at each other at point blank range, and sniping became the chief cause of casualties. It resembled a duel between two men who had had a deadly quarrel—so intensely deliberate. On the morning of the 2nd of July we handed over the front line of attack to Divisional Reserves and went into support. At sunset we were relieved by the Cheshires, and moved back to the dug-outs at Crucifix Corner. We had a number of casualties coming out of action. We were given tea, food and rum, and went off into a heavy sleep.”