The big push on the big screen of picture theatres across Great Britain in 1916
http://greatwarlondon.wordpress.com/2012/08/24/the-big-push-on-the-big-screen/
Posts Tagged ‘western front’
The most iconic image from the 1916 film of the Battle of the Somme
Posted: August 27, 2012 in 1916, France, Machine Gun Corps, Somme, Western FrontTags: artillery, documentary, film, horses, howitzer, limbers, machine gun, mules, plum pudding, prisoners, shells, somme, trenches, western front
0
All Quiet on the Western Front
Posted: June 17, 2012 in 1914, 1915, 1916, 1917, 1918, Durham Light Infantry, Royal Air Force, Royal Flying Corps, Western Front, YpresTags: doddles, fear boredom, First World War, lady denbigh, proximity to death, tommy, western front, ww1
This is the must read at the top of any list of TEN.
See the film produced in 1930 too.
Can anything beat it? Let’s see how Daniel Radcliffe performs in this role when the latest remake comes up for release in 2014 and some of the myths of the First World War are given another boast.
The reality?
Fear
boredom
Junior Officer’s who did their best and their utmost
Generals who could have done no differently and did look for different ways to end the war (innovations, new fronts)
Before you get swamped by the new titles that will inevitably feature over the next couple of years, what would you considered to be the must reads?
I’ve just started ‘Tommy’ by the late Richard Holmes and recently completed the diary of the lady nurse, Lady Dorothy (Doddles) Denbigh which, despite the proximity to death, was somewhat alleviated by frequent rides, and fine dining with royalty and generals.
Passchendaele: unseen panoramas of the Third Battle of Ypres
Posted: June 11, 2012 in 1917, Machine Gun Corps, Pill-box, YpresTags: Houthulst Forest, Machine Gun Corps, machine gunner, western front, Ypres
Jack Wilson, a Machine Gunner, served in Third Ypres going in against the French line north east of Ypres up to Houthulst Forrest. These panoramas and maps allow me, with his memoir, to track his movements. Stories he told me as a boy and visualised as a six or seven year old look very different on seeing the reality.
A 95 year old Machine Gunner veteran is introduced to the King of Belgium at the Menin Gate, Ypres
Posted: May 9, 2012 in UncategorizedTags: First World War, jack wilson, king of belgium, Machine Gun Corps, menin gate, paschandale, royaul flying corps, western front, Ypres
John Arthur Wilson MM (Jack) meeting the King of Belgium in 1992 at the Menin Gate, Ypres. Jack served as a machine gunner on the Western Front from April 1915 to 25th December 1917 at which point he transferred to the Royal Flying Corps where he trained as a fighter pilot only just missing a return to Northern France in the late autumn of 1918.
Henry Gartendfeld & Dick Piper R.I.P OCT 1917
Posted: July 12, 2011 in 1917, France, Machine Gun Corps, Western Front, YpresTags: First World War, gartenfeld, great war, Houthulst Forest, jack, jack wilson, lancashire fussiliers, Machine Gun Corps, MCG, paschendaele, piper, vickers machine gun, western front, world war 1, Ypres
Gartenfeld’s head was split right down the middle as if he’d been hit with an axe.
They’d dragged him out round the side.
(Henry Godliph Gartenfeld died on the 22nd October 1917)
Dick must have been standing with his head ducked down just outside the pill box.
A piece of shrapnel had dented his helmet, scraped his face and gone into his guts.
Blair had dragged him into one corner of this pill box and put him on his trench coat. When I found him he had a sandbag tucked up under his legs so that his knees were up over his elbow.
“What’s wrong with him?” I asked and took a look.
His guts were hanging out all over the place.
“How are things?” I asked Dick.
“Pull my legs up, Jack.” He said, “Pull my legs up.”
So I packed another sandbag under his legs to stop his guts falling out.
You had a bandage and a tube of iodine fixed into the tunic. Never much use.
He died some time in the afternoon.
I left him a bit ‘til he stiffened up; that’s what you did. They were easier to move like that. I got his pay book and credentials, dragged him out of the pill box and covered him up with some bits of rubble – whatever I could find. That’s all you could do. Imagine – having to bury your friends like that.
Terrible.
Dick Piper was 45 years old. He shouldn’t have been there.
He was from the Lancashire Fusiliers. Another one who died on the 22nd October 1917. His body was never found. I knew the spot though. It broke my heart to stand there 90 years on, dwelling on the lives they had missed, their families and how they had died like that all those years ago.
Such a waste.
Some Horrible Ways to go – October 1917
Posted: July 12, 2011 in 1917, France, Machine Gun Corps, Western Front, YpresTags: dog biscuits, First World War, jack, jack wilson, Machine Gun Corps, MCG, paschendaele, rations, vickers machine gun, western front, world war 1, ww1, Ypres
Two weeks before there’d been a lad stuck in one of these shell-holes; they couldn’t get to him. It was too exposed.
He must have drowned or died of his wounds.
A horrible way to go that. Not being able to help yourself and slipping into the mud. I wanted a clean end to it – a bullet through the head.
Your rations were mainly corned beef and a few dog biscuits.
When I say dog biscuits they were dog biscuits, they were like bricks. No bread. Your tea and sugar was tied into a corner of a sandbag. No milk. There might be two or three tins of beans and some jam. And you took your water in a two gallon petrol can.
Two days was the limit in there; I was in for a week.
You only went in with two day’s rations. It was so bad, the conditions, they couldn’t get anyone out … the shelling, the conditions …
We finished up there filtering shell-hole water through handkerchief.
They couldn’t send anyone in to relieve us.
The only thing that lived out there were rats and they had a feast of it – October 1917
Posted: July 12, 2011 in 1917, France, Machine Gun Corps, Passchendaele, Pill-box, Western Front, YpresTags: boesinghe, courage post, duckboards, egypt house, First World War, gas, great war, Houthulst Forest, jack, jack wilson, jerry, Machine Gun Corps, MCG, paschendaele, rats, shell-holes, steenbech, vickers machine gun, western front, world war 1, ww1, Ypres, yser
Mother! Mother!
On the way in I came across these guardsmen, eight or nine, lying in a shell-hole as though they were asleep.
(They were Gough’s XIV Corps. Guards. From the 38 Division commanded by General Lord of Cavan. They’d been held up on the west bank of the Steenbeck. Gas had been used by Jerry on as attacks had been made on Houthulst Forrest)
Get a dose of that and your lungs were ruined.
They were not like an ordinary shell.
Gas came over like a dud.
You could see down this path from Courage Post right into the forest. It was facing the wood where Jerry was. There was no barbed wire, just all shell-holes and mud.
It had been raining heavily since the beginning of October.
The ground was like porridge. Parts of the front and turned into a lake. Simply getting to a front position was exhausting as you had to wade through this ooze and negotiate the rims of shell-holes.
(The rainfall in August 1917 over Northern France and Belgium was twice the August average. In fact, there were only three days that entire month when there was no rain).
Streams pushed their way through the crumbling banks of the craters and linked into impassable lakes of liquid mud. On the surface of the water there’d be an iridescent smear of oil. or it was green from gas on a puddle.
If you saw a film of red streaking the surface it didn’t take much imagination to guess what else was down there.
And the smell. It made you wretch.
You’d vomit.
There was no getting used to the stink from all the mess, body parts, rotting away … a lads inside, heads, limbs, hands … you can’t imagine the horror of it.
Even if you buried them it didn’t take much to blow them out of the ground.
Jerries, Tommies, mules and horses. The only thing that lived out there were rats and they had a feast of it.
This was when I heard this kid in this dung heap by the stream shouting for his mother.
I don’t know if he’d been hit or fallen in but it stopped me in my tracks.
There was a bit of an embankment down to the stream. When it rained it was like a river, full of frogs and all this filth. On the other side there was this shell hole. All I could see was his head and shoulders sticking up above the mud.
Shell holes could be 30-50ft deep.
They quickly filled with water which formed a muddy sludge of body bits, broken equipment and what not. This was behind the pill-box they named Egypt House 200-300 yards short of Houthulst Forest.
I leant down to get this lad, mind you with all that mud I might have slipped in myself. The remnants of the Belgian army were nearby.
The line faced the Ypres Canal with Houthulst Forest on the other side
There’d been this attack to try to get around Houthulst forest which the French had taken on the 9th October. Doomed to failure from the start. That July the French had held a short piece of the line between Boesinghe and the Yser after which the remnants of the Belgians took over.
“Mother, mother.” He was saying.
So I grabbed this lad’s shoulder-belt and told him to help himself.
“Kick man, kick. You’ll have to get yourself out of this one.” I said.
He kicks about and I get him onto the duckboards.
“I can’t wait.” I tell him.
You couldn’t stand around out there with all the shooting going on.
And off I went.
You’ve got a Blighty One – October 1917
Posted: July 12, 2011 in 1917, France, Haig, Machine Gun Corps, Passchendaele, Western Front, YpresTags: blair, blighty, First World War, great war, haig, Houthulst Forest, jack, jack wilson, Machine Gun Corps, MCG, paschendaele, vickers machine gun, western front, williams, world war 1, XIV Corps
We had another casualty, a Birmingham lad who was in charge of that gun.
The engineers would rig up a bit of a dug out on a dry spot and make a bit of shelter with corrugated sheeting.
They’d been trench mortared.
This Birmingham lad had been hit in the shoulder with a trench mortar fragment. They brought him to my gun as the duckboard led back from it. Other than that you were walking through the mud.
There were meant to be four in a team, but it never got up to scratch, it was more like two. We were organised in four sections: A,B,C,D. The joke was they had us training in teams of Five at Grantham; that was never going to happen, not the need and not the man power.
I said to this Birmingham lad, “You’ve got a Blighty.”
I kept him there ‘til late. Blair had him taken away.
I saw Blair a few days later. He told me this lad had died.
Blair was the Section Officer; Williams was the C.O.
(The edge of Houthulst Forest was reached by XIV Corps and the French in an attack on the 9th October 1917.
On the 12th October the XIV Corps entered the forest. Haig wanted to force the enemy to evacuate the Forest; an objective he continued to push for throughout October 1917).
As machine-gunners we were sent in to hold the position.
This is what I learnt after the war, the whys and wherefores; what I was doing in that stink.
I was in the spot at least four times.
Using a compass in the morass of Passchendale – 1917
Posted: July 12, 2011 in 1917, Passchendaele, Western FrontTags: compass, First World War, great war, jack, jack walsh, jack wilson, Machine Gun Corps, MCG, paschendaele, vickers machine gun, western front, world war 1, ww1
Second Battle of Passchendale 26th October – 10th October 1917
Before the big push around Houthulst Forest during the Ypres Offensive, the Brigadier gave us a lecture. He told us that one machine gun could hold up an entire brigade.
One night we came out on a compass bearing, otherwise you could walk into Jerry’s line.
Various items weren’t standard issue. I got myself a compass because I didn’t fancy wondering into the Jerry Lines. I had a Liquid Luminous Compass that cost £2 19s 6d. It came from F Davidson, Great Portland Street. I couldn’t help me dodge a bullet, but at least it told me where I was.
We were out into the mud and Jack Walsh was carrying the gun and a leather case with the spare.
We’re hurrying along and Jack shouts.
“I’ve lost the case with the spares in the mud.”
I went back and here he is probing in the mud for the leather case.
“Come on, leave the darn thing.” I said.
Walsh was killed on the 16th November 1917. He was 22.
International Corner – Lice & Rats – November 1917
Posted: July 12, 2011 in 1917, France, Machine Gun CorpsTags: Canadians, First World War, great war, Houthulst Forest, international corner, jack, jack wilson, lice, Machine Gun Corps, MCG, mills bomb, paschendaele, pilkem Ridge, rats, salvation army, vickers machine gun, western front, world war 1
Our rest spot was International Corner, some seven or eight miles back from Passchendeale.
I played football once at right-back against the trench mortar battery. It was during the winter and the ground was all icy. I went down on one knee and gashed it badly on a lump of ice.
We were called in from rest at one time to give support to the Canadians who were attacking Pilkem Ridge.
We carried in ammunition, there were 250 rounds in a tin box.
When you were out of the line for a bit rest you could always bet your boots on a good Salvation Army tent.
They give you writing paper and all the rest of it. You couldn’t write letters without them being checked. I don’t know what we would have done without them, they were excellent. I always give them something when they come to the door.
There were rats on the Yser-Ypres canal bank at Boesinghe, that was real fun.
This was around November. There were all these holes; we’d bung them up with sods of earth and stick some cordite in the last one, slam some more turfs over it and wait for them to go off. You’d think the whole bank-side was ablaze and the rats. We’d try and hit them with bayonets and spades. They’d be down into the water and this little terrier which belonged to the cook would go in after them.
We tried to shoot fish with a gun.
We never got them. Someone would throw in a Mills Bomb, what we called a pineapple or just a ‘bomb.’ They’re called hand-grenades now.
Lice were a menace.
Get too close to the brazier in your dug out and you’d start itching. We used to do all sorts to try and get rid of them. If you took a candle and ran it along the seams you could burn them out. I remember once, it was in the middle of winter, I had a chance to give my shirt a clean – you only had the one. I hung it outside on a bit of line over night.
The next morning, you bugs, despite the frost the lice were still alive.
