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Updated: June 26, 2025
We had a dozen casualties in this attack, which was rewarded by half as many German prisoners and a machine-gun. Sergeant Ravenscroft, of B Company, for an able exploit during the advance, received the D.C.M. Already the Forest of Nieppe had become notorious for German gas.
The buses took us through Bailleul and Nieppe to Armentières, at that time a town infested with the most appalling stinks and very full of inhabitants, although the front line trenches ran through the eastern suburbs. Having "debussed," we marched to le Bizet, a little village a mile north of the town, and stayed there in billets for the night.
It was the Holy Shirt of Nieppe, which should be treasured as a memorial in our War Museum an object-lesson of what the great war meant to clean-living men.
July closed with a feeling of dissatisfaction at the cycle of moves which had rendered futile both rest and training. Consciousness that one was helping to win the war was more often imputed than felt. Early in August, 1918, the 61st relieved the 5th Division in front of the Nieppe Forest.
Just as I entered the town I met a friend riding out. He shouted something at me. I couldn't hear what he said. "What?" I yelled. "All leave's cancelled!" That was enough for me. I rode into Nieppe like an infuriated cowboy. I went straight for the divisional headquarters, flung away the horse and dashed up into the building. I knew one or two of the officers there. "What's this about leave?"
At a place called the Pont de Nieppe, beyond Armentieres a most "unhealthy" place in later years of war a bathing establishment was organized by officers who were as proud of their work as though they had brought a piece of paradise to Flanders. To be fair to them, they had done that. To any interested visitor, understanding the nobility of their work, they exhibited a curious relic.
As usually when the Germans genuinely retired, to use their own phrase, 'according to plan, early immunity from shells preluded days when the last spite of their artillery was flung as far as possible. Harassing fire against our exits from Nieppe Forest was cleverly manipulated by the enemy.
This delay was really most valuable, for it enabled me to appreciate the situation and issue detailed orders, which otherwise it would never have been possible to give. As the dawn of April 12, 1918, was breaking, we set foot to the long pavé road which runs through the Nieppe Forest to St.
He had hardly finished before I was outside and making for my horse. I got out of Nieppe as quickly as I could, and lit out for our battalion headquarters. About four miles to go, but I lost no time about it. "Leave cancelled!" I hissed through the triangular gap in my front tooth, as I galloped along the road; "leave cancelled!"
After breakfast I went to the station and arranged for my baggage to be sent on by an A.S.C. wagon, and then started out to walk to Nieppe, which I learnt was the place where my battalion billeted. As I plodded along the muddy road in the pouring rain, I became aware of a sound with which I was afterwards to become horribly familiar. "Boom!"
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