France
19-6-17
Dear Everybody.
At last I have a few minutes to be able to give some account of our doings since last writing you on the 5-6-17. That date seems years ago, & what an eventful period it has been. On the evening of the 6th we moved out from the Divisional concentration area to the assembly trenches. It was a perfect night in every way, warm & a bit of a mist that hid all visible signs of exceptional movement that might otherwise have been seen by the enemy. The old Batt. moved out in great style, everyone very confident of success, but none of us except the Adj & Col. knowing Zero
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hour. The assembly was a wonderful piece of work in itself, as we toiled along over land & up the communication saps, I mentioned to the Col., what a wonderful thing it was to think that, there was a whole Army of some hundreds of thousands, massing for an attack, right under the very nose of the enemy, & he knew not a thing about it. Right along the whole 9 mile of front this enormous movement of troops was going on, & the whole Army had to form up for the attack between the hours of 9 P.M. & 2.30 A.M. no small item when one reflects the routes we had to move along.
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Our Batt., in fact the whole Division massed without suffering a casualty hardly, that is to say, we might easily have had 20, 30, or 100 in our Batt alone, & we did not have 50 in the Div. By 1.30 A.M. our Batt. was in position, & to a man practically, they just lay down in the trench & went to sleep. At 2.30 A.M. the Col. had all the Coy. Comm. down to Batt. H.Q. & it was not till then that I or they knew Zero hour. We were a little surprised to find it so early, namely 3.10. however it was the best possible hour as it turned out. It was a great little meeting, everybody was as happy as
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larks, & we had light refreshment consisting of dates, & a drink of water. All this time it was almost perfect calm, only now & again we would hear the occassional report of a gun, the incessant roar of the heavy artillery had gone a few hours before, & there was nothing to lead anyone to think there was anything special on foot. At 3 A.M. there was a perfect silence, by which all the Coy. commanders had returned to their respective commands. At 7 minutes past three a couple of machine guns spoke out of their turn, & we all thought the game was up, but the officer in charge seemed to realize there was
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something wrong & they stopped almost immediately. Just at this time Fritz had opened on our front line with one of his Whiz Bang guns, but this also ceased before Zero hour. At last the moment had come the first sign was a horrible rumbling under foot, then the huge explosions, & what a sight, simultaneously the guns & machine guns opened out, really it was beyond description. How any Huns were left alive at all I can hardly imagine, it was as if Hell had been let loose, & redoubled its fury at being disturbed at such an early hour.
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The artillery itself would have been enough to have cooled the blood of the best of Huns, it was great, but greatest of all were the mines, it is not in human nature to stand what those Huns had to put up with, & I am convinced that no army, no matter what condition it is in could stand up to such a fire as was concentrated on Messines Ridge that morning. The old Kaiser himself, in his wildest dreams never imagined that such a volumn of fire could ever have been concentrated & maintained for such a long period. When he signed the fatal bit
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of paper he little dreamed of the heaps of coals he was bringing down on his own head. Well! as the mines went off & the artillery opened, our boys were over the bags & at them. It was too late for Fritz to ask for mercy now, no quarter was being asked for, & little was being given, as a matter of fact we were a little surprised that there was so much. However, our men met with more Huns than we anticipated, & within 20 minutes after Zero the first prisoners began to come in, there were a great many who didn’t though.
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We were surprised indeed to see the class of man too, well dressed, clean shaven & very fair physique. This was explained later in the day however, & in the following way. The Huns had been expecting our attack, as they could not help but do, but had not expected it to develop until about the 10th. When Zero hour arrived they were just in the middle of a relief, so instead of catching the trenches lightly held they were nearly full, that is what was left of the trenches, they were as a matter of fact, using strong concrete dug-out & cellars of houses, & it was in these
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that all the prisoners were captured. It was a lucky hit for us, for it enabled us to inflict twice the number of casualties on them, & also to show his hand as to movements of his troops. Anyhow the attack went on just like clock work, just as the barrage lifted so the infantry dashed in, a few thrusts, a bomb or two, & perhaps a show now & again & each objective was ours. Hour after hour it went on throughout the morning, until about 10 A.M. when the fire eased off a bit, the N.Z. Div had gained their objective &
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immortal Messines was ours. Every man was digging for his life, & to guard against the counter attack that was bound to come during the course of the afternoon. Here again Fritz was caught, he evidently thought the show was over, & was just about right to launch his counter, when our guns flared up with a new energy, & the Australians moved through us, to a position some hundreds of yards further on. It caught old Fritz beautifully, & settled his counter attack, for that day at least.
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The Australians throughout the morning were held in reserve behind our lines, & it was not until 1 o’clock mid day. that they. started to move through. us, to the attack. Their show was timed to take 5 hours after our furtherest objective had been gained. These five hours just proved sufficient to enable the Huns to mass for their counter attacks, & it was in this massed formation the Aust. found them when they delivered their attack, there is no need to elaborate the result. They gained their objective, & in doing so practically settled once & for all, all serious counter attacks
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on the newly won position. The Hun did attack but it was not until 24 hours later, & by that time the positions had been too well consolidated for them to have any chance of success. We remained in possession for several days & were then relieved, coming back to rest billets for a few days. They were only a few though, & for some of us very busy ones. Our next stunt was in many ways a minor operation, but in itself pretty hot at times. My Coy. in particular had to bear the brunt of it, having to put up with a very heavy shelling, practically day & night. However we came
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through the ordeal all right & are now back in billets having a well earned rest indeed. We can look back & say now, that the battle of Messines is over, & that we are in a position to deny it to the enemy for ever. Altogether it was a glorious show, & apart from the inevitable fact that we lost some of our best officers & men it has been the most successful operation carried out by the British Army in France. In no instance was an objective not reached, but better still all objectives were maintained against all counter attacks. You will remember me saying that Norman Forsyth
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was in this Coy., well he was killed on the morning of the 7-6-17. He was a fine fellow too, & was in charge of the Coy when the unlucky shell struck him. I think I told you that I had to go in with Batt. H.Q. & that Capt Molloy the 2nd in command of the Coy. had to take it into action. Well he also was wounded & had to hand over to Norman. Poor old Norman he was such a cheery officer, & very capable, had just received his 1st Lieutenancy a day or two before going in. There was only one officer left in the Coy. out of the 4 that went in with it, & he was the junior sub. However, from that
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you must not think our casualties were heavy for they were not, amongst the officers certainly, but amongst the men they were very light. Quite a number of those that went away wounded are back already, so you see, despite the nature of the operations the price was not so bad as it might have been. I have written to Mr & Mrs Forsyth & I hope they will realize the true worth & reliance that everyone here, place in Norman. I managed to pick up quite a number of souvenirs & hope I will be able to get them home, it is rather
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difficult to get them out of the country, but I think I will manage it all right. I had a letter from Kate a couple of nights ago & you can imagine I was a little surprised to hear that she was coming out to France. In many way I am very pleased about it, but in other ways I would have preferred her to remain in England. However if she arrived out here within the next 7 days, & at the place I expect her to I think I will have a chance of seeing her. Latest letters from N.Z. are dated 23rd April. Some of them reached me the night we marched into the line for the 2nd stunt, & we
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were kept so busy I did not get time to read them for two days. Well now I guess this epistle has gone far enough & I had better dry up. However seeing that it can not go before the morning now, I will leave it open till then. My hat! I was nearly forgetting, we are to be inspected by General Godley in the morning, some polish today eh!, I.D.T. we are getting past that stage now. We are to be inspected by General Russell on Saturday also. Its great the liking these people have for us after a time such as we have had.
Your
Affect.
E.S. McI.
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The band has just started up & is playing some beautiful music. E.S.
