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Archive for August, 2011
A whistlestop battlefield trip – Arras & the Somme in two days
Last week I spent an enjoyable two days on the battlefields with four clients. For all but one of them it was their first visit to the western front. We met bright and early on Monday morning at the Channel Tunnel terminal and travelled over in convoy down to Arras.
Arras
Our first stop was in the superb Carriere Wellington. Our guide, the irrepressible Pascal, was as keen as ever and coupled with my preliminary talk on the Battle of Arras and the ten minute ‘taster’ film shown prior to going underground my group got a good initial grasp of the battle in April & May 1917. Following our hour underground we visited the Arras Memorial to the Missing and Faubourg d’Amiens Cemetery. The sheer scale of men with no known grave from the Arras battlefields had the usual sobering effect.
Faubourg d’Amiens Cemetery with the Arras Memorial in the background
Being so close we popped into the Mur des Fusillés and paid our respects at the site where 218 French resistance and civilians were shot by the Germans in the Second World War. I have always found it an eerie place with a strange atmosphere all of its own.
We then headed out to the Great War battlefields around Arras with the first stop the Point du Jour for a visit to the military cemetery and the graves of the 10th Lincolns men (Grimsby Chums) found in 2001 and the impressive 9th (Scottish) Division memorial re-sited next to the cemetery. After a picnic lunch in the cemetery we headed back into Athies and along to Fampoux. The village marked the point of furthest advance into German lines on 9 April 1917. We stopped at the sunken lane to look at the attack of the 2nd Seaforth Highlanders and 1st Royal Irish Fusiliers (10th Brigade, 4th Division) against Greenland Hill and Roeux on 11 April 1917. Whilst at the Sunken Lane Cemetery overlooking the sloping fields down to Roeux I told my group of Donald MacKintosh and the actions that earned his Victoria Cross. We then drive through Roeux past the site of the Chemical Works (now a Carrefour mini-supermarket) and around to Brown’s Copse Cemetery to pay our respects at MacKintosh’s grave.
The grave of Donald MacKintosh VC in Brown's Copse Cemetery, Roeux
Back on the road we crossed the Scarpe and headed up to Monchy-le-Preux. I pointed out the positions of various trench lines and explained about the catastrophic failure of the 3 May attack, the Third Battle of the Scarpe. We then had a drive around Monchy, stopping at the stunning 37th Division memorial and the Newfoundland Caribou Memorial which is built on the top of a British artillery observation post constructed in August 1917 by 69 Field Company RE. Our day’s battlefielding was completed with a stop east of the village on Infantry Hill where I told of the disastrous 14 April attack by 1st Essex Regiment and the aforementioned Newfoundlanders. Both battalions were destroyed in carefully planned German counter-attacks – the first use of the new doctrine of ‘elastic’ defence. Monchy was at the mercy of the Germans and the situation was only saved by the quick thinking action of Lt-Colonel James Forbes-Robertson and a small group of men – all decorated for this action and known thereafter as the Heroes of Monchy.
The Men who saved Monchy - all decorated for their part in the action
We had a pleasant walk up Infantry Hill to the Mound and then headed back into Arras to pick up my car and then headed down to the Somme for a welcome meal and good night’s sleep.
The view of Infantry Hill from Green Lane. Bois du Vert sits on the horizon to the right of the picture.
The Somme
The next day was spent touring the 1916 Somme battlefield. Very much aware that one can only skim over the surface with one day around such a large and important battlefield we were up early to make full use of the daylight. After an explanation in the car park on the battle using various maps we set off north up to Serre, the most northerly point of continuous attack on 1 July 1916. En route we pulled the car in at the Ulster Tower for a view across the Ancre and an explanation of events in the northern part of the battlefield. The Gospel Copses at Serre were deserted and we had Sheffield Memorial Park all to ourselves as I explained about the failure of the attack and the losses incurred by the northern Pals battalions of the 31st Division.
The entrance to Sheffield Memorial Park with Railway Hollow Cemetery in the background.
After some time in Railway Hollow Cemetery we stopped at Serre Road Cemetery No.2 (the largest on the Somme battlefield) and the across the Redan Ridge to Beaumont Hamel, and the infamous sunken lane, the jumping off point for the 1st Lancashire Fusiliers that fateful morning. We then retraced our steps and stopped for a pleasantly quiet walk around the preserved trenches of Newfoundland Memorial Park with its Caribou and even more imposing memorial to the 51st (Highland) Division, conquerors of Beaumont Hamel in November 1916. Our next stop was to the magnificent Thiepval Memorial to the Missing, a must for any battlefield visitor to the western front. Heading via Pozières of Australian fame we reached the Old Blighty Tea Rooms at La Boisselle for a deserved late lunch.
The afternoon began with a detailed tour around the Glory Hole at La Boisselle and a good walk around the site looking at the craters and depressions marking the trenches followed by a stop at the unmissable Lochnagar Crater.
The Glory Hole at La Boisselle. Overlooking the site of the Granathof.
We then headed east through the battlefield, past Contalmaison, Longueval and Guillemont to the Cedric Dickens cross at Ginchy overlooking Leuze and Bouleaux Woods. This was a special stop for one of the group whose grandfather had served with the 1/8th Middlesex Regiment and who had probably been in these very fields in mid-September 1916.
Jack & John with Bouleaux Wood in the background. John's grandfather served here in September 1916 with the 1/8th Middlesex Regiment.
Our final stop of the day was to the site above Mametz of our successful archaeological dig for a Livens Large Gallery Flame Projector where I could stand my clients on the spot where the parts had been recovered in May 2010. Sadly we did not have time to all visit the Historial de la Grande Guerre at Peronne to see the temporary exhibition and salvaged projector parts as well as the full size replica but there is only so much we could do within the time constraints.
“I would just like to say a big thank you for making our battlefield tour such an interesting and amazing event. Your knowledge of the area and what went on and where, is just incredible. The tour was made that much better by the fact that you had researched my Grandfather’s service in the Middlesex Regiment and proceeded to show us exactly where he was and what he would have experienced almost to the day but 95 years ago. It made the hair stand up on the back of my neck!
The choice of locations that you picked were excellent, and whilst I know two days is not long enough to cover everything there is to see, we certainly got a very good understanding of what happened, by whom and where. This was made even more poignant by linking them to my ancestors who had fought there. I would have no hesitation in recommending your tours to any of my friends, in fact I have told them of my experience with you and we are already planning another tour for next year.” John Waterman, Kent
It was a terrific trip with delightful people who have clearly got the battlefielding bug. My thanks to John, Clare, Sally and Jack for their enthusiasm, understanding and for sending me a selection of photos. I am already looking forward to the next time…
Last month I managed to stop in at the Arras battlefields when on my way down to La Boisselle for more site work. I only had a couple of hours before a lunchtime meeting in Peronne but still managed a quick recce for a private battlefield tour I am taking in September.
Looking from the British lines to Highland Cemetery, Roclincourt
I have some clients coming from New Zealand who have a relative, Corporal Andrew McDonald MM, who was fatally wounded at the Battle of Arras. I have been compiling a detailed report on this soldier who served in the 6th (Morayshire) Battalion of the Seaforth Highlanders.
Derek Bird - "The Spirit of the Troops is Excellent." A first-class study of the battalion - highly recommended reading.
Andrew McDonald was in the battalion from its very formation and arrived in France in 1915. As part of 152 Brigade, 51st (Highland) Division he served throughout the Somme offensive including Bazintin-le-Grand, High Wood and the successful capture of Beaumont Hamel in November. He was awarded the Military Medal for his part in a raid on enemy positions in September 1916 on the Railway Salient near Armentieres. A most useful book on the battalion is Derek Bird’s ‘The Spirit of the Troops is Excellent’ which I can heartily recommend as a superb battalion study.
On the opening day of battle, Easter Monday, 9 April 1917 the battalion was to be involved from the off. Facing the German trenches northeast of the small village of Roclincourt they were tasked with capturing three lines of German trenches, the third of which was designed the Black Line. They would then consolidate these whilst the 1/5th Seaforths passed through them in the ‘leap-frog’ system to take the next two lines, the Brown and Blue Lines.
Trench map of Roclincourt-Neuville-Thelus sectors. The black lines are the boundaries for the 6th Seaforths attack on 9 April 1917. CLICK map to enlarge.
Andrew McDonald was serving in C Company – they had even more limited objectives, being tasked with taking and holding a section of the first two lines. D Company with a platoon of B Company would then push on to the Black Line – the final objective for the battalion.
As Andrew McDonald’s service record no longer survives it is very hard to know where he was fatally wounded and the war diary offers scant evidence. However, in September I will take his relatives, having travelled half way around the world, to the site of the jumping-off trenches occupied by C Company and let them stand where he stood on 9 April 1917. I am pretty confident that he was wounded in the fields in front of us, rising towards Farbus and Thélus on the southern shoulder of Vimy Ridge. The beautiful Highland Cemetery now stands close to the site of C Company’s advance. It is full of Highland Division men and is well worth a visit.
Highland Cemetery, Roclincourt
One casualty buried in the cemetery that particularly stood out for me whilst reading Derek Bird’s book was Sergeant Charles Mackenzie who was reportedly killed while engaged in a bayonet fight. One of his men was bayoneted and in a selfless act Mackenzie stood over his body to protect him from further wounding. Sadly he himself was then overcome and killed.
Sgt Charles Mackenzie, killed in a bayonet fight on 9 April
Fatally wounded on 9 April Andrew McDonald succumbed to his wounds on 13 April, having made it back to the huge hospitals near Etaples. He is buried in the vast and sobering Etaples Military Cemetery, another spot my clients will visit on their September pilgrimage.
Panorama overlooking Highland Cemetery. It is taken close to the site of the Battalion HQ during the opening stages of the Battle of Arras. The tree lined road on the left takes you to Thelus.
All of this took place just off the A26 motorway so please spare a thought and look to your right and the lonely Highland Cemetery just past Junction 7 next time you are heading south.
Total losses for the Battalion during the opening stages of the Battle of Arras were 9 Officers and 320 Other Ranks. Further trials awaited the battalion later in the month at Roeux and the Chemical Works during some of the most savage infantry fighting of the war. For those with an interest in the battalion Derek Bird has compiled a Roll of Honour to the fallen of the 6th Seaforths. It can be viewed here: http://www.scotlandnorthbranch.webspace.virginmedia.com/Roll-of-Honour/Index.htm