Hill 60, Belgium

Hill 60, located around three miles south-east of Ypres, is not a natural feature, but was made from the spoil removed during the construction of the railway line nearby. Because it was a small area of elevated land in a flat landscape, it obviously had strategic importance in the battles in the Salient.

Following the end of the War, the land was left relatively undisturbed. Because of the large amount of tunneling and mining that went on here, and the fact that during fierce fighting the hill changed hands between the Germans and the Allies several times, the remains of many soldiers from both the Allied and German forces still lie here.

1st Australian Tunneling Company Memorial

At the front of the site there is a memorial to the 1st Australian Tunneling Company, and the plaque on this contains bullet holes These date from the Second World War, when this area was once again fought over, although much more briefly. The plaque explains that this permanent memorial replaces one erected in 1919 by comrades of those who fell here.

Queens Victorias Rifles Memorial

Also on top of the Hill, near the front of the site, is another memorial, this one to Queen Victorias Rifles, commemorating where the regiment fought their first open engagement, in which they lost 12 officers and 180 men in casualties. However, this is not the original memorial. That was erected in 1923, commemorating all ranks of the QVR who gave their lives for their country in the First World War. It was unveiled by General Sir Charles Fergusson, at a ceremony at which Captain G.H. Woolley VC was the clergyman. Woolley, then serving as a Second Lieutenant in the QVR had woin the Victoria Cross here at Hill 60 on the night of the 20th-21st of April, 1915.
However this original memorial was destroyed in 1940 by the Germans, and the plaque on the current memorial was placed by the Regiment on some of the stones of that original memorial.

German Pillbox

Towards the rear of the site on elevated ground is a pillbox which is still largely intact. This was originally German, but modified by the Australians in 1918. It's appearance is somehow macabre and the marks of bullets/shells can still be seen in the concrete

Closer inspection reveals just how massive was the construction of this pill-box. The walls are at least three feet thick, with metal reinforcing bars protruding. This can be seen in the picture below; the view through the pillbox in the centre of the picture shows the width of the walls. No wonder this pill-box withstood several assaults and is still there nearly 90 years later.

Of all the sites i have seen on the Western Front standing in front of this Pillbox was one of the most amazing and bone-chilling experiences. I am truly in awe of the men who through themselves at this type of defence trying to capture it.

It was a moment in time that i will never forget!

Pozieres as recalled by Phillip Gibbs, War Correspondent.

This except is from the book 'Now it Can be Told' by Phillip Gibbs.

Phillips Gibbs was a newspaper correspondent sent out from London to report the proceedings.

He was at the Somme in 1916 and he graphically describes the action involving the Australian Divisions.

"The struggle for the Pozieres ridge and High Wood lasted from the beginning of August until the middle of September--six weeks of fighting as desperate as any in the history of the world until that time. The Australians dealt with Pozieres itself, working round Moquet Farm, where the Germans refused to be routed from their tunnels, and up to the Windmill on the high ground of Pozieres, for which there was unceasing slaughter on both sides because the Germans counter-attacked again and again, and waves of men surged up and fell around that mound of forsaken brick, which I saw as a reddish cone through flame and smoke. Those Australians whom I had seen arrive in France had proved their quality. They had come believing that nothing could be worse than their ordeal in the Dardanelles. Now they knew that Pozieres was the last word in frightfulness.
The intensity of the shell-fire underwhich they lay shook them, if it did not kill them. Many of their wounded told me that it had broken their nerve. They would never fight again without a sense of horror.
"Our men are more highly strung than the English," said one Australian officer, and I was astonished to hear these words, because those Australians seemed to me without nerves, and as tough as gristle in their fiber.
They fought stubbornly, grimly, in ground so ravaged with fire that the earth was finely powdered. They stormed the Pozieres ridge yard by yard, and held its crest under sweeping barrages which tore up their trenches as soon as they were dug and buried and mangled their living flesh. In six weeks they suffered twenty thousand casualties, and Pozieres now is an Australian graveyard, and the memorial that stands there is to the ghosts of that splendid youth which fell in heaps about that plateau and the slopes below.
Many English boys of the Sussex, West Kents, Surrey, and Warwick regiments, in the 18th Division, died at their side, not less patient in sacrifice, not liking it better. Many Scots of the 15th and 9th Divisions, many New-Zealanders, many London men of the 47th and 56th Divisions, fell, killed or wounded, to the right of them, on the way to Martinpuich, and Eaucourt l'Abbaye and Flers, from High Wood and Longueval, and Bazentin.
The 3d Division of Yorkshires and Northumberland Fusiliers, Royal Scots and Gordons, were earning that name of the Iron Division, and not by any easy heroism. Every division in the British army took its turn in the blood-bath of the Somme and was duly blooded, at a cost of 25 per cent. and sometimes 50 per cent. of their fighting strength.
The Canadians took up the struggle at Courcelette and captured it in a fierce and bloody battle. The Australians worked upon the right of the Albert-Bapaume road to Thilloy and Ligny Thilloy. On the far left the fortress of Thiepval had fallen at last after repeated and frightful assaults, which I watched from ditches close enough to see our infantry--Wiltshires and Worcesters of the 25thDivision--trudging through infernal fire. And then at last, after five months of superhuman effort, enormous sacrifice, mass-heroism, desperate will-power, and the tenacity of each individual human ant inthis wild ant-heap, the German lines were smashed, the Australians surged into Bapaume, and the enemy, stricken by the prolonged fury of our attack, fell back in a far and wide retreat across a country whichhe laid waste, to the shelter of his Hindenburg line, from Bullecourt to St.-Quentin.

The goal of our desire seemed attained when at last we reached Bapaume after these terrific battles in which all our divisions, numbering nearly a million men, took part, with not much difference in courage, not much difference in average of loss. By the end of that year's fighting our casualties had mounted up to the frightful total of fourhundred thousand men. Those fields were strewn with our dead. Our graveyards were growing forests of little white crosses. The German dead lay in heaps. There were twelve hundred corpses littered over theearth below Loupart Wood, in one mass, and eight hundred of them were German. I could not walk without treading on them there. When I fellin the slime I clutched arms and legs. The stench of death was strongand awful. But our men who had escaped death and shell-shock kept their sanitythrough all this wilderness of slaughter, kept--oh, marvelous!--their spirit of humor, their faith in some kind of victory.
I was with theAustralians on that day when they swarmed into Bapaume, and they brought out trophies like men at a country fair . . . I remember an Australian colonel who came riding with a German beer-mug at his saddle . . . Next day, though shells were still bursting in the ruins, some Australian boys set up some painted scenery which they had found among the rubbish, and chalked up the name of the "Coo-ee Theater."
The enemy was in retreat to his Hindenburg line, over a wide stretchof country which he laid waste behind him, making a desert of French villages and orchards and parks, so that even the fruit-trees were cut down, and the churches blown up, and the graves ransacked for their lead. It was the enemy's first retreat on the western front, and that ferocious fighting of the British troops had smashed the strongest defenses ever built in war, and our raw recruits had broken the most famous regiments of the German army, so in spite of all tragedy and all agony our men were not downcast, but followed up their enemy with a sense of excitement because it seemed so much like victory and theend of war.
When the Germans retreated from Gommecourt, where so many boys of the 56th (London) Division had fallen on the 1st of July, I went through that evil place by way of Fonquevillers (which we called "FunkyVillas"), and, stumbling over the shell-craters and broken trenches and dead bodies between the dead masts of slashed and branchless trees, came into the open country to our outpost line. "

For details and Photos of Pozieres -
http://outofbattle.blogspot.com/2007/06/pozieres-france-today.html

Also see : Pozieres an account by C.E.W. Bean

Pozieres described by Lieutenant J.A. Raws.

Sanctuary Wood, Belgium.

Sanctuary Wood is said to have earned its name in October 1914 when it was used as a 'sanctuary' to stragglers waiting to rejoin their units. At this time Sanctuary Wood was a relatively quiet area.
This was to be short-lived and its name deemed most inappropriate from November 1914 onwards.
After the war the wood was turned into a private museum by the land's owners, the Schier family (in whose hands it remains to this day).

Sanctuary Wood is considered by many to offer the finest preserved trenches on the Western Front.

Aside from battlefield artefacts the interior of the museum offers 3D stereoscopic photographs of highly graphic scenes taken during the war.

Polygon Wood, Belgium

Polygon Wood, near Ypres in Belgium, before 1914 the Ypres Military Riding School – the Polygon- was situated here and also the Belgian Army’s old firing range which ceased to be used in 1870.

The wood was captured by the Australian 5th Division on September 26, 1917 during the Battle of Menin Road. The wood had changed hands several times during the early stages of the war and had been devastated by shell fire. In 1917 shelling had reduced the wood to a forest of shattered tree stumps and saplings “no more than waist high”, according to one soldier.

The 5th Division Memorial today.

Australian War Memorial Negative Number C04777

This Photograph from 1919 shows the 'Pimple' where the memorial now stands

Source - Australian War Museum

The attack on Polygon Wood was the 5th Division’s first major battle since it was savaged at the disastrous attack at Fromelles in July 1916 (although parts of the Division had been present at Bullecourt in April 1917). It would attack with the Australian 4th Division on its left and five British Divisions also taking part.

The troops advanced in the early hours of September 26, close behind a creeping artillery barrage. The barrage was, in the words of C. E. W. Bean, Australia’s Official War Historian, “the most perfect that ever protected Australian troops”. Under the protection of this barrage, the Australians advanced in several stages. The concrete pillboxes were manned by German machine gun teams who resisted fiercely and almost all had to be captured by acts of individual bravery. The Australians captured the pillboxes in what later became the classic style: a Lewis gun would fire on the pillbox, supported by fire from rifle grenades, while an assault team would manoeuvre around to the back of the pillbox, rather than attacking it head on. The technique worked effectively in most cases, but attacking pillboxes was never an easy task and casualties were seldom small.

By nightfall on September 26 the 5th Division occupied the wood. The final objective, beyond the wood, was secured by the afternoon of the 27th.

5th Division Memorial

After the war the 5th Division placed their memorial obelisk on the summit of the Buttes and many of the men who fell in the battle are buried in Buttes New British Cemetery.

Buttes New British Cemetry - View from the 5th Division Memorial.

Polygon Wood Cemetery

This is a battlefield cemetery and there is a sense of urgency about the burials, with the headstones laid out irregularly. The cemetery was begun during 1917 and used by the New Zealanders during their occupation of this sector until early 1918. It was briefly reused in September 1918.

Pozieres, France.

The Australian 1st Division attacked Pozieres early on July 23rd 1916 and captured the town after fierce fighting. The Germans who were not giving up launched several counter-attacks in a grave effort to wrest control from the Australians, but these were repulsed. The Germans eventually launched one of the heaviest artillery barrages of the war and shelled the Australians unremittingly - at the height of the bombardment the shells rained down at the rate of 20 a minute.
After three days the 1st Division had lost 5285 men and the rest were exhausted. The Division was withdrawn and replaced by the 2nd Division. German continued on relentless and after 10 days the 2nd Division had lost 6848 officers and men. It too was withdrawn and replaced by the 4th Division. This cycle continued until September 3rd - each Division fought until exhausted and was then replaced. When the replacement Division was itself exhausted, the original Division was rotated back into the line. The 1st, 2nd, and 4th Divisions were used as a battering ram against the German strong points at Pozieres until they were almost destroyed.
More than 50% of the Australians who fought at Pozieres were killed, wounded or captured. Five Victoria Crosses were won by Australians during the relentless fighting.

1st Division Memorial.

The 1st Division Memorial is on the site of K' Trench, one of the first trenches they captured at Pozieres. They chose this site because the Division lost more soldiers in the Pozieres fighting than any other action.

Battle honours for the 1st Division as noted on the memorial are Pozieres, Mouquet Farm, Le Barque, Tilloy, Boursies, Demicourt, Hermies, Lagnicourt, Bullecourt, 3rd Battle of Ypres, Menin Road, Broodseinde Ridge, Passchendale, Battle of the Lys, 2nd Battle of the Somme, Lihons, Chuignolles, Hindenburg Line.

The Windmill Memorial.

This rough mound is all that remains of the windmill that stood here for centuries until 1916, and marks the highest point of the entire Somme battlefield. The Germans converted the ruins of the windmill to a machine gun post. Two major German trench lines, crossed the field in front of the windmill site - thousands of Australians were killed and wounded in the surrounding fields whilst attempting to capture these formidable defensive positions. After the war the windmill site was acquired by the Australian government and now stands as a memorial to the 23,000 Australians who were killed or wounded in the Pozieres battle. The stone bench in front of the mound bears the following inscription:

THE RUIN OF POZIERES WINDMILL
WHICH LIES HERE WAS THE CENTRE
OF THE STRUGGLE IN THIS PART OF
THE SOMME BATTLEFIELD IN JULY
AND AUGUST 1916. IT WAS CAPTURED
ON AUGUST 4TH BY AUSTRALIAN
TROOPS WHO FELL MORE THICKLY ON
THIS RIDGE THAN ON ANY OTHER
BATTLEFIELD OF THE WAR.

Looking west towards Theipval Memorial (which can be seen on the far right) from the Windmill.

This area was called Mouquet Farm and was fought over in August 1916.

Pozieres Military Cemetry and the Memorial to the Missing of the 5th Army in 1918.

This cemetery bears the names of more than 14,000 British and Dominion troops of the British Fifth Army killed (and never found) in fighting that followed the German attack in March 1918. The cemetery contains 2733 graves including those of 690 Australians, almost all of whom were killed in the fighting at Pozieres. 250 of the Australians are unidentified.

To read Phillip Gibbs - Newspaper Correspondent Account - http://outofbattle.blogspot.com/2007/06/poziers-as-recalled-by-phillip-gibbs.html

Also see: Pozieres an account by C.E.W. Bean

Pozieres described by Lieutenant J.A. Raws.

Thomas Turrall, VC.

Tom Turrall was 30 years old, and a private in the 10th Battalion,Worcestershire Regiment, British Army during the First World War when the following deed took place for which he was awarded the VC

On the 2nd July 1916 the 58th Brigade attacked the strongly fortified village of La Boisselle and secured a position on the southern face. As the German machine guns were very active it was decided to continue the attack in the night. The troops formed up opposite the village and the order to advance was given at 3am with the 10th Bn, Worcestershire Regiment, crossing open ground and into the German defensive positions.

When it grew lighter a small group, including Turrall under the command of Lieutenant Jennings, was suddenly fired upon from a hidden German position where Jennings was severely wounded and had one of his legs shattered by bullets. Turrall took charge of the situation and dragged his officer into the safety of a nearby shell hole and began to dress Jennings' wounds, using part of an entrenching tool as a splint and one of his own puttees for a bandage. While he worked several bombs were thrown at him as the enemy had seen movement in the shell hole. The bombers were concealed behind a hedge and Turrall managed to kill at least one of them with rifle fire before the enemy withdrew.

However, Turrall could see that there was a mass of Germans attempting to re-take the village in a strong counter-attack. His officer had fainted and there was no point in shooting and so he feigned death, being prodded with bayonets but survived. The enemy counter-attack against the British defences failed. Turrall had to remain until dark in his shell hole and then hoisting up his wounded officer he dragged him back towards the British lines. Jennings was a very tall man and his arms were around Turrall's neck and his feet dragged along behind him. The two men were challenged by British sentries but Turrall's English voice was recognised and the two men were allowed back into their lines.

Jennings was able to give a full report on Turrall's bravery but unfortunately his wounds were to prove mortal and he died a few hours later at Denancourt field dressing station.

London Gazette, 9 September 1916, La Boisselle, France, 3 July 1916, Private Thomas George Turrall, 10th Bn, Worcestershire Regiment.

For most conspicuous bravery and devotion to duty ( La Boisselle, France ). During a bombing attack by a small party against the enemy the officer in charge was badly wounded, and the party having penetrated the position to a great depth was compelled eventually to retire. Private Turrall remained with the wounded officer for three hours, under continuous and vary heavy fire from machine guns and bombs, and, notwithstanding that both himself and the officer were at one time completely cut off from our troops, he held to his ground with determination, and finally carried the officer into our lines after our counter-attacks had made this possible.

Thomas Turrall was invested with his Victoria Cross by King George V at Buckingham Palace on the 31st December 1916.

Following his discharge from the Army, Thomas Turrall attended many regimental functions and was often the guest of honour. He also attended many of the VC and GC Reunions and became a well known and respected figure in Worcestershire and the Midlands. On the 19th February 1964 two days before Turrall died he received a visit from two Lieutenant Colonels from the Regiment who found him in 'very good cheer'. Turrall died in Selly Oak Hospital, Birmingham at the age of 78 and was given a full military funeral at the Robin Hood Cemetery, Solihull, Warwickshire.

Sarah Macnaughtan

Sarah Broom Macnaughtan, was born in Lanarkshire in 1864, she was the daughter of a JP and she inherited an income. Before the war she worked as a novelist and for the women’s sufferage. When the war started she worked as a volunteer nurse in Belgium. Her diaries of her war work were published posthumously as My War Experiences in Two Continents (1919), available online, full-text, open-access at Project Gutenberg.

Camera Portrait by E. O. Hoppé.

I first read some of her diary in Lyn Macdonald's book "The Roses of No Man's Land."

I was amazed at the courage and Strength of this lady and the book is a brillant read.

Here is a passage:

On Wednesday night, the 7th October, we heard that one more ship wasgoing to England, and a last chance was given to us all to leave. Only two did so; the rest stayed on. Mrs. Stobart went out to see what was tobe done. The ---- Consul said that we were under his protection, and that if the Germans entered the town he would see that we were treated properly. We had a deliberately cheerful supper, and afterwards a man called Smits came in and told us that the Germans had been driven back fifteen kilometres. I myself did not believe this, but we went to bed,and even took off our clothes.
At midnight the first shell came over us with a shriek, and I went downand woke the orderlies and nurses and doctors. We dressed and went overto help move the wounded at the hospital. The shells began to screamoverhead; it was a bright moonlight night, and we walked withouthaste--a small body of women--across the road to the hospital. Here we found the wounded all yelling like mad things, thinking they were goingto be left behind. The lung man has died. Nearly all the moving to the cellars had already been done--only threestretchers remained to be moved.
One wounded English sergeant helped us. Otherwise everything was done by women. We laid the men on mattresses which we fetched from the hospital overhead, and then Mrs. Stobart's mild, quiet voice said, "Everything is to go on as usual.
The nightnurses and orderlies will take their places. Breakfast will be at theusual hour." She and the other ladies whose night it was to sleep at the convent then returned to sleep in the basement with a Sister. We came in for some most severe shelling at first, either because we flew the Red Cross flag or because we were in the line of fire with a powder magazine which the Germans wished to destroy.
We sat in the cellars with one night-light burning in each, and with seventy wounded men to take care of. Two of them were dying. There was only one line of bricks between us and the shells. One shell fell into the garden, making a hole six feet deep; the next crashed through a house on the oppositeside of the road and set it on fire.
The danger was two-fold, for we knew our hospital, which was a cardboard sort of thing, would ignite like matchwood, and if it fell we should not be able to get out of the cellars. Some people on our staff were much against our making use of a cellar at all for this reason. I myself felt it was the safest place,and as long as we stayed with the wounded they minded nothing.
We sat there all night. The English sergeant said that at daybreak the firing would probably cease, as the German guns stopped when daylight came in order to conceal the guns. We just waited for daybreak. When it came the firing grew worse. The sergeant said, "It is always worse just before they stop," but the firing did not stop. Two hundred guns were turned on Antwerp, and the shells came over at the rate of four a minute. They have a horrid screaming sound as they come. We heard each one coming and wondered if it would hit us, and then we heard the crashing somewhereelse and knew another shell was coming.

Her story is truly amazing and i will post some more in the coming days.

The game of two-up

The Australian Oxford Dictionary defines two-up (or swy) as "a gambling game in which coins are spun in the air and bets placed on a showing of two heads or two tails".

M. G. Heuston, who served with 2/12th Commando Squadron during the Second World War, ran a two-up game during this time. In the following account, he explains how the game was played.

To stage a game required a quiet spot, with a flat area big enough for an 18- or 20-foot radius circle clearly etched in the dirt. This was done with twine, with two loops, one at each end, using bayonets to mark the circle.

The boxer or manager of the game sat with his coins, kips, string and money tray in the place where he could view the whole ring clearly.
The ringie, who was usually a friend who volunteered, ran the centre of the ring.
When the game was about to commence, there would be a number of people around and outside the circle. The boxer would call and ask for a spinner, who would have the right to select whether he wanted to play two-up or swy (also know as "sudden death").
The kip would then hold two or three pennies, depending on the game. (Some of the kips were smooth, with no ridges in the wood. It was illegal for anyone to use their fingers in the game I ran, so we had "lips" on the various kips for right or left handed spinners who were not adept at using the smooth kip. The plastic used on some of the kips I used was taken from crashed planes on the side of the airstrip at Morotai.)
The spinner would then select the coins that he wished to use (Queens, new or old, baldies, George V, etc.).

The head side on each penny was polished and the tail side was left dark, so that it was obvious to anyone around the ring whether the coin fell as head or tail.
It was the ringie's job to ensure that the coins were tossed at least 10 feet into the air, and that they spun well and were not "feathered" in any way. If the coins didn't't satisfy these specifications in his opinion, he would call " foul toss " and catch one of the coins.
The ringie would place the coins tail up on the kip. The call "come in spinner " was made from the box. The spinner then tossed the coins. All pennies (whether two or three) had to fall within the circle. If one fell outside or on the circle, it was declared void by the ringie. The spinner then had another turn.

While this was happening, side bets were allowed around the ring. There were two distinct types of betting:
betting that the spinner would toss heads or tails
other tail betters would bet 3/1 that heads would not be tossed twice.
In all cases, the bets were held in front of the tail better, who covered them in every instance before the boxer called "come in spinner".
The spinner had the right to continue spinning while ever he tossed heads. If he tossed three heads in a row, the boxer would take his commission out of the centre (the guts) and the spinner had the right to toss the kip (and take the money) or continue spinning. The change of spinner went clockwise around the ring.

If the spinner got to six heads in a row, the boxer took another commission, and the game continued until the spinner tossed tails or tossed the kip.
In some places, a multitude of currencies was used. It was the boxer's call which stated the exchange rate for any or all currency. In addition, he could exchange currencies.
At the end of the game, if the tail betters had had a good day, they would sling the boxer, to compensate him for the use of his facilities.
As the game was held more often than once a week, you found that some of your customers went broke. The boxer usually lent them enough for cigarettes and a beer until next pay.
A game would run for up to three or four hours.

Glossary of terms :

Boxer: the game owner.
Ringie: the supervisor in the ring.
Kip: the flat board used to throw the coins.
Spinner: the player who throws or tosses the pennies.
Queens, Baldies, George V or VI:
coins available for the spinner to choose. (The Queen is Queen Victoria; the Baldie is Edward VII.)
Toss the kip: to pull out of the game and take the stake.
Tail-betters: the name for those who bet only on tails. In most cases, they chose not to spin the coins.
Sling: a tip given to the boxer