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Updated: June 6, 2025
No preparation had been made for such an attack; and the only thing that the British could do was to get out of the way of the flame. Thus they lost their trenches in the crater and at the Château and village of Hooge.
From Balliol have gone the two Grenfell brothers, vehement, powerful souls, by the testimony of those who knew them best, not delightful to those who did not love them, not just, often, to those they did not love, but full of that rich stuff which life matures to all fine uses. The younger fell in the attack on Hooge, July 31st, last year; the elder, Julian, had fallen some months earlier.
'I beg your pardon, sir, but I've not been accustomed to be pulled up suddenly, and asked for my credentials. My name is Blaikie, Captain Robert Blaikie, of the Scots Fusiliers. I'm home on three weeks' leave, to get a little peace after Hooge. We were only hauled out five days ago. I hoped my old friend in the shell-shock hospital at Isham would pardon my borrowing his identity.
Hooge battle started with an intense artillery bombardment from every gun in the salient, and it was an inspiring sight to stand on the ridge behind "50" trench and watch, through the half-light, the line of flashes to the west, an occasional glare showing us the towers of Ypres over the trees.
On the 23rd there were two preliminary bombardments, one short but very heavy at Hooge, the other lasting most of the morning on "Hill 60" a bluff. During the night it rained and the arrival of our straw was consequently postponed until the following night, which proved to be little better.
I could hardly see his face in the darkness, except when he struck a match once, but his figure was black against the illumined sky, and I watched the motion of his arm as he pointed to the roads up which his comrades had gone to the support of another battalion at Hooge, who were hard pressed. "They went along under a lot of shrapnel and had many casualties."
While we were in these trenches the enemy fired the dry yellow grass in "No Man's Land" a few nights after their capture of our line at Sanctuary Wood, near Hooge, with the flame projectors or "flammenwerfers." A hurried "stand-to" was ordered, as we thought a similar attack was about to be made. But the fire died down and we saw no signs of the enemy coming over.
An attempt to capture the Château Hooge was made early in the evening, only to result in heaping the ground with German dead. The day closed with 150 yards of British trenches in the hands of the Germans; but they had been taken at a fearful cost to the kaiser's men. The Germans began the next day, May 10, 1915, by shelling the British north and south of the Ypres-Menin road.
At a few minutes before six our time had come, smoke bombs were thrown, and, though the wind was against us, Col. Jones, feeling that we must make the biggest possible display, ordered the straw to be lit. This promptly drew fire, and in five minutes there was not one single gun on our side of the Salient still firing at Hooge, they had all turned on us.
There is some reason to believe that they feed up their fighting men at the places like Verdun or Hooge, where they need all their energy, at the expense of the men who are on the defensive. If so, we may find it out when we attack. The French officers assured me that the prisoners and deserters made bitter complaints of their scale of rations.
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