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Updated: May 17, 2025
Vane nodded to the gas officer and got on board the little tractor which was to take him to the front trenches. Chugging along through screen after screen of brown camouflage which hid the little railway line from the watchful gaze of Kemmel, he seemed to be passing through some mysterious land. By day it was hideous enough; but in the dusk the flat dullness of it was transfigured.
The same night our battalion went back to Scottish Lines at Ouderdom, but we moved back to Canada Huts next day. On March 31 I rode over with various company officers to Kemmel, and we looked over the trenches H2-K1 below Wytschaete Ridge. We were to take over this part of the line from the Canadians in two days' time. It was once a quiet spot, and I think we were sent there for that reason.
In March of 1915 I saw the first fifteen-inch howitzer open fire. We called this monster "grandma," and there was a little group of generals on the Scherpenberg, near Kemmel, to see the effect of the first shell. Its target was on the lower slope of the Wytschaete Ridge, where some trenches were to be attacked for reasons only known by our generals and by God.
Our gunners, though from their Observation Posts, "O.P.'s," on Kemmel Hill they could see many excellent targets, were unable to fire more than a few rounds daily owing to lack of ammunition; what little they had was all of the "pip-squeak" variety, and not very formidable. Our snipers were quite incapable of dealing with the Bavarians, and except for Lieut.
On the 16th July the Battalion was relieved and moved from Kemmel at 7.30 p.m. proceeding via Dranoutre and Bailleul to Armentières, where it arrived at 1 a.m. the next morning and went into billets at the Blue factory. The following night it moved up to relieve Battalions of the Royal Scots and Monmouths. B Company under Lieut. R.V. Hare, took over "67" trench, C Company under Lieut.
The officer who planned the raid, however, was among the killed. On Monday, April 29, the German 4th army under General von Arnim, having gained possession of Mount Kemmel, a dominating position, began a general assault on the British hill positions on the Kemmel front, southwest of Ypres.
Another most interesting example is also quoted, dealing with the shelling preceding the attack on Kemmel on 25th April. "This is an interesting case, as non-persistent Blue Cross shell were used within the objective and Yellow Cross just behind it, indicating that on 25th April the enemy did not intend to go beyond the line they gained." Percentage of Chemical Shell.
We could now hear the great cannonade on the Somme going on to the south almost day and night. A large number of wooden ammunition huts were erected along the roads near Dranoutre, and heavy gun emplacements were being made about Kemmel. Perhaps it was intended that the Fifth Army should make a big push here, if the battle on the Somme had been more successful at the start.
The captain spoke too loudly." We went out to the guns which were to do a little shooting, and found them camouflaged from aerial eyes in the grim desolation of the battlefield, all white after a morning's snowstorm, except where the broken walls of distant farmhouses and the windmills on Kemmel Hill showed black as ink.
The effort began with an intense bombardment on the 25th, and a few hours later the Germans had captured the village and hill of Kemmel; our forces were driven back to a line running in front of Dickebusch lake, La Clytte, the Scherpenberg, and Locre. Mt. Kemmel had been regarded as the key to the position, and it looked as though the range would fall.
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