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Updated: April 30, 2025
To the right of Kemmel was the ruined tower of Messines in the German lines; to the left of that the smoking chimneys of Armentieres now also somewhat battle scarred, and away beyond it and a little to the left the City of Lille.
But the German had followed our trench line too far down, for at this point our trenches ran forward nearly a quarter of a mile where a French cavalry brigade in a dismounted action the year before had made a last effort to retake Messines.
One of these was a dud, and the Bucks, determined to omit no precaution, sprinkled its resting place with chloride of lime! On the west side of the Messines road, just outside the wood, our Headquarters, with one reserve Company, inhabited the Piggeries, the enormous bricked and covered sties of which easily accommodated 200 men.
The Germans had closed in to some extent round Ypres during the two big battles, and the trenches now ran in a semicircle about the city at a distance of from two and one-half to three miles. The line turned south at St. Eloi, skirted the west of the Messines ridge, turned east again at Ploegstreet Wood, and south to the east of Armentières.
When there was no particular business for the monsters, pilots and crews sallied forth and joined in the fight. Military critics award the principal honors in the battle of Messines Ridge to the guns and the gunners who served them. For about a fortnight the gunners had worked incessantly with scarcely any sleep in the midst of nerve-racking noises and with death constantly hovering around them.
The soldier buries his head like the ostrich only he beats the ostrich by getting his shoulders in as well and then feels fairly secure. I show a little bit of a ghastly promenade near Messines, some six miles from Armentières. Relieving parties had to cover the whole of this distance exposed to the enemy's enfilading fire from two sides of the triangle right up to the apex.
Under cover of canvas screens, which in many places were blown away by shell-fire, and bending low to save our heads from the snipers' bullets, we gained the communication trenches. Again wading knee-deep in mud and water, we eventually reached the firing trench. The German front line was only sixty-five yards away, and the town of Messines could be seen in the distance.
Other British aviators were active in clearing out trenches of their German occupants, and when they ran out of ammunition for their Lewis guns hurled down on the enemy bombs, explosives, and anything that injures or destroys. By the British capture of Messines Ridge the Germans lost their last natural position that commanded the British lines.
Before half a dozen rounds had been fired an eight-inch gun back of Messines Hill started searching for the trench mortar man and his gun, and twenty-five high explosive shells plunged around us and shook our trench out of existence. It was very fascinating to watch these shells coming.
Though for a long time the doves had been in the clutches of the German hawks; though for a long time the lambs had been in the jaws of the German wolves; when all else failed death came and released the lovely girls from the clutch of German assassins. "Why Did You Leave Us in Hell for Two Years?" For British soldiers it had been a long trying day on Messines Ridge.
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