Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
From Albert four roads lead to the battlefield of the Somme: 1. In a north-westerly direction to Auchonvillers and Hébuterne. In a northerly direction to Authuille and Hamel. In a north-easterly direction to Pozières. In an easterly direction to Fricourt and Maricourt.
Well to the back of the English line here, on the top of the plateau, level with Auchonvillers, some trees stand upon the skyline, with the tower of a church, battered, but not destroyed, like the banner of some dauntless one, a little to the west of the wood. The wood shows marks of shelling, but nothing like the marks on the woods attacked by our own men.
The road dips here, but soon rises again, and so, by a flat tableland, to the large village of Hébuterne. Most of this road, with the exception of one little stretch near Auchonvillers, is hidden by high ground from every part of the battlefield. Men moving upon it cannot see the field.
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.
A telephone connected 'Eve' O.P. with D.H.Q. and also with the forward O.P. The latter post was about four miles away in a small trench on the ridge north of Auchonvillers near some apple trees, which perhaps suggested the name 'Adam' O.P. In many ways it was an admirable place for an O.P. If care was taken it could be approached without being seen by the enemy.
A short spell of 48 hours in the trenches followed in front of Auchonvillers, facing the coveted spur of Beaumont-Hamel, which was to fall in November. Here we sustained our only casualties during the month, one killed and one wounded, a happy contrast to August, when 286 men were put out of action.
The day before I saw the map of the whole I had seen the map of a part at an Observation Post at Auchonvillers. The two were alike in a standardized system, only one dealt with corps and the other with battalions. A trip to Auchonvillers at any time during the previous year or up to the end of June, 1916, had not been fraught with any particular risk.
This river, which is a swift, clear, chalk stream, sometimes too deep and swift to ford, cuts the English sector of the battlefield into two nearly equal portions. Following the first of the four roads, one passes the wooded village of Martinsart, to the village of Auchonvillers, which lies among a clump of trees upon a ridge or plateau top.
Those who care may see it in the official cinematograph films of the Battle of the Somme. Right at the top of the hill there is a dark enclosure of wood, orchard, and plantation, with several fairly well preserved red-brick buildings in it. This is the plateau-village of Auchonvillers. On the slopes below it, a couple of hundred yards behind Jacob's Ladder, there is a little round clump of trees.
This was partly due to the excellent position for ground observation on the ridge between Colincamps and Auchonvillers, and partly to the improvement in means of communication with D.H.Q. and the artillery. Great credit is due to Capt. Kirsopp for his continual efforts to make the information obtained more rapid and effective.
Word Of The Day