United States or Guernsey ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
It will be seen, by studying the map, that the whole of the eastern face of Hébuterne was protected by two lines of defences, outer and inner. The former were 200 to 300 yards beyond the edge of the houses, and were excellently sited along a hedge for almost the whole of their length. They were connected with the first line fire trench by communication trenches about every 100 yards.
Hébuterne, although close to the line and shelled daily and nightly for more than two years, was never the object of an attack in force, so that much of it remains. Many of its walls and parts of some of its roofs still stand, the church tower is in fair order, and no one walking in the streets can doubt that he is in a village.
Anyway a small party of their observers came to see how we held our posts. And they were taken to the battle O.P. and to the forward O.P. at Hébuterne. No offensive operations on a large scale were undertaken against the enemy on the IV Corps front, Bucquoy to Auchonvillers, before the middle of August 1918.
The rest of the battalion started after sunset on July 22nd, passing a battalion of Frenchmen returning by half platoons from the trenches, and marched into Hébuterne, a most interesting example of the ruined village organised for defence, situated 600 yards only behind the front line trenches.
Straight in front, whither we were bound, the girdle of trees round Hébuterne shut out these flashes from view, but by the noise that came from beyond those trees one knew that the German trenches were receiving exactly the same intensity of fire there.
The first day's firing was directed on the forward billets, Hébuterne, Sailly and Colincamps, with short fierce bursts from six or seven batteries firing simultaneously. Next day it was the turn of the Trenches. On the left of the battalion sector part of D Company held a little salient position which enclosed a thicket standing steeply some 12 feet above the Bucquoy road.
It was in June and July, 1915, that the Germans displayed their main efforts in the Argonne. The heroism of the French barred the way. At Arras in June, there was almost as much activity as at Ypres. During the last part of the campaign in the Artois, General d'Urbal began an advance between Hebuterne and Serre. The former had been held by the French and the latter by the Germans.
From Morand to Hoche the lie of the land was all in our favour; the trenches were sited just in front of the gentle rise which covered Hébuterne; 500 to 600 yards away, at the bottom of the dip lay the enemy, about 40 feet below us, and behind him the ground again rose leisurely and showed its slope towards us for 3,000 yards, with the hand of the Hun writ large in chalk, revealing his second and third line with the great covered communication trenches which connected them.
The observers sent up two parties of two men every day to an O.P. north-east of Hébuterne. The other men manned a battle O.P. on the Bayencourt Ridge during the morning. April 23, St. George's Day, provided a little excitement for three of us. We were told to try to find an O.P. near the Quarries at Hébuterne, not generally a very healthy spot.
Still more monstrous guns came crawling up, and in place of the old battery of 60-pounders, the orchard at the western outskirts of Sailly, in the angle of the Bayencourt road, harboured two 15-inch howitzers. Gun-pits and enormous new dugouts were constructed in Hébuterne.
Word Of The Day