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Updated: June 24, 2025
"Everything, from trench mortars to 15-inch howitzers. We are going to literally raze it to the ground. It is one of the strongest German redoubts, and it's not going to be an easy job to occupy it; but we achieved the impossible at Gallipoli, and with God's help we will win here. There is a spot here in our firing trench called 'Jacob's Ladder," and pointing to the map, he showed it me.
And while the latter vessel was on the stocks, the reports published in the British press of the splendid results obtained by the 15-inch guns of the Queen Elizabeth moved the German Admiralty to substitute these for the 12-inch guns already adopted.
On occasions such as this, however, the vast Fleet came together; Light Cruiser met Destroyer with a sidelong jerk of the head and a "Hullo, Old Thing..." that spanned the years at a single leap; Submarine laughed across the room at Seaplane-carrier; Mine-sweeper and Mine-layer shared a plate of sandwiches with a couple of Sloops and discussed the boxing; but they were no more than a leavening amid the throng of "big-ship folk" who reckoned horse-power by the half hundred thousand and spoke of guns in terms of the 15-inch.
The horrible dinning continued, from the sharp rat-tat-tat-tat of the French 75mm., of which we had several batteries in close proximity, and from the bark of the 18-pounders to the crunching roar of the 15-inch howitzer. The air was literally humming with shells. It seemed like a race of shrieking devils, each trying to catch up with the one in front before it reached its objective.
Then we revisited Souastre after thirteen months, overlooking the ruins of Fonquevillers and the splintered remnants of Gommecourt Wood ravaged by 15-inch shells. Here again the liveliest activity was manifest. That successful finale to the year's fighting known as the Ancre Battle had been planned for October 14th, though owing to repeated postponements it was not launched until a month later.
The ships engaged were the Queen Elizabeth, with her main battery of 15-inch guns, the Inflexible, veteran of the fight off the Falkland Islands, the Agamemnon, Cornwallis, Triumph, and Vengeance. In addition to these British ships there were the French battleships Suffren, Gaulois, and Bouvet, and a fleet of destroyers.
The railway station was their principal target, but the 15-inch projectiles fell in a wide radius and caused great destruction to the houses and colleges still standing in the city. Yet to the Arras citizens now eager to return and claim their property shells seemed a small deterrent. Our stay up in the line was short, but we had casualties.
They accepted our 6 inchers with a very good grace. Often one of our H.E. hundred pounders seemed to burst just where a field gun had been spotted: and before our triumphant smiles had time to disentangle themselves from our faces, the beggars would open again. But the 15-inch shrapnel, with its 10,000 bullets, was a much more serious projectile.
Shells from the 9.2 howitzers crashed into strong points and gun emplacements and hurled them skywards. Petrol shells licked up the few remaining green-leaved trees in Gommecourt Wood, where observers watched and snipers nested: 15-inch naval guns, under the vigilant guidance of observation balloons, wrought deadly havoc in Bapaume and other villages and billets behind their lines.
A powerful tug-boat got hold of her, but the ship dragged the tug-boat astern with her, towards the Goodwins, until at last the tug-boat snapped her great 15-inch hawser, and then gave up the attempt and returned to land. The Ganges now burned flares and blue lights for help.
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