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Updated: May 23, 2025
The Bombing Officers of the 6th and 7th N.F. carried on the harassing fire with such effect that eventually the Germans took to sending showers of 'fishtails' whenever a rifle-grenade was loosed off. The 'fishtail' was a small trench-mortar bomb, which the Germans substituted for the rifle-grenade and used with great effect.
Then tea. Then bombing. Then dinner. Then letter-writing. Now bed! "Would you mind sending me a Lancashire Fusilier cap badge?
I think I am right in saying that the first German bombs were dropped on us unsuccessfully at Compiègne on August 29th, 1914. It was not, however, until the beginning of 1915 that special bombing raids were started by the Royal Flying Corps, one of the first places to be attacked being the Ghistelles aerodrome in West Flanders.
The Brigade had another alarm next day, but it was quickly cancelled; and after that we were not called out again. Every morning was given to bombing practice, and I offered a small prize each day for a competition in throwing. If it was wet the men stopped in the barn, and had a lecture on English or German grenades. One afternoon I walked over to Bailleul and had a bath at the Corps baths.
During 1915 railway junctions were the principal bombing objectives, and raids were carried out on an ever-increasing scale, formations of fourteen to twenty machines taking part. At the Battle of Neuve Chapelle for instance, the railway junctions at Menin, Courtrai and Douai were attacked.
In those villages Heuchin, Houdain, Lillers, and others on the edge of the Black Country the Scottish troops of the 15th Division were in training for the arena, practising attacks on trenches and villages, getting a fine edge of efficiency on to bayonet-work and bombing, and having their morale heightened by addresses from brigadiers and divisional commanders on the glorious privilege which was about to be theirs of leading the assault, and on the joys as well as the duty of killing Germans.
He was in charge of the first bombing party in the communication trench. When they were held up, he sprang on the parapet, and from that point of vantage directed the bomb throwers, escaping unhurt himself by singular good fortune.
Nothing more has been seen or heard of the two companies that reached Hook Sap. It is believed that they perished to the last man, overwhelmed by successive German counter-attacks. Second-Lieut. E.G. Lawson fell at Hook Sap, also 2nd-Lieut. R.H.F. Woods, both Bombing Officers of the 7th N.F.; also Bombing Sergts. J.R. Richardson and J. Piercy.
In addition to the normal duties of co-operation with the Army and the Fleet, and in spite of the difficulties of transport, supply and workshop arrangements, photographs were taken from the air of the greater part of the Peninsula, and the original inaccurate maps corrected therefrom; frequent bombing raids were carried out against objectives on the Peninsula, the Turkish lines of communications, and even Constantinople itself.
The gales and snowstorms are excelled in horror by avalanches. Quite lately the melting snow revealed the frozen bodies, looking horribly lifelike, of a whole platoon which had been swept away nearly a year ago. "While there have been heavy casualties on both sides from sniping, bombing, mountain and machine guns, and heavy artillery, there has been little sickness among the Italians.
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