Diary Entry - 29th and 30th September, 1916

Walford: I was at the OP, having lunch about one, when of a sudden we started shooting hard. On looking at the front I discovered waves of our troops moving out of the valley in front of Thiepval in a northerly direction, sweeping up the ridge to the rear of the village and on to Schwaben Redoubt. At the same time our men were moving on Midway and Hessian trenches [a link to the trench map for this area can be found within this exchange on the Great War Forum], Stuff and Zollern redoubts. Suttie arrived up at the OP after the attack had been in progress an hour and we came to the conclusion that we had Midway and Hessian and part of the Schwaben and Stuff Redoubts. Shortly after this, an order came through that each battery must send an officer forward as a 700/7OO[?] and see if they could find a good O B. Well, I saw plenty of excitement looming on the horizon for me as I knew I was the man to go forward. Griffith of D59 had already sent out a subaltern with two telephonists to Schwaben and the poor chap was killed later with a bullet through the head. Well, my party was ready by four – it consisted of myself, two gunners and three signallers – Beach, Br Harrison and Hands, a very stout trio. The captain accompanied us to the old frontline – Constance Trench – where we tapped into an old OB wire and commenced to run a line out to Zollern trench, the trench the infantry had climbed over earlier in the afternoon. We got about halfway over to our objective when we were told by some men in Joseph that, if we did not get into the trench, we should be sniped. After a council of war, we made a small detour to our left and continued our journey with shrapnel and HE bursting in every direction and eventually reached our objective, to find a nice dugout full of infantry. This was a great haven of refuge and, after obtaining permission from a Colonel of the Suffolks, we got a wire down one entrance but could only get two men in, as the place was packed. The rest had to take the best cover they could in the trench. Things grew hotter and hotter towards six and, at six fifteen, there was a regular hail of shells coming over and someone reported that men could be seen running from the front line. We manned the parapet but the dugout was so full that it took the men some 10 minutes to get untangled. My wire had gone and so had the infantries to their brigade, so there was nothing for it but to try visual with a lamp, but the smoke from the shells washed that out, so there remained the rockets. It was a rotten, pitch black night and no one knew where the rockets were. However, after a 10-minute hunt, an infuriated Sergeant found them, but there were only three sticks. In trying to save the sticks and send the rockets up alone, two men burned their hands and the rockets just fell over the parapet and nearly smoked the dugout out. Well, all this time I was wondering about what could be done and what I should do if the Germans did come, as I had no firearms and would be caught like a rat in a trap. Meantime our artillery, hearing the enemy's shelling, had opened up and put up a splendid barrage, which thoroughly pleased our men – so much so that I was regarded as a tin God for the rest of my stay. Well, as quick as the show had begun, it died away, to the ceaseless steady shelling of our trenches and dugouts, which had been Bosch. It continued all night. You cannot imagine the mess in the dugout left by the German s-  rifles, clothes, stale food, pistols and ammunition, machine gun and numerous other articles such as gas helmets etc. We had hard work keeping the wires going and I sent Gunner Hand back with a message as to how things stood. He mended the wire but it kept going all night which was only to be expected when one listened to the torrent of shells coming over. I had very little sleep and at six thirty a.m. I set out to make a reconnaissance of the captured trenches and to look for an OP. The horrors of the battlefield can only be imagined by someone who has seen one, and the things I saw that day I shall never forget. We lost heavily, as did the Bosch, and it was cruel to see some of our poor wounded crawling about, some moaning, others chattering in an inane sort of fashion, and yet others asking for a drink. And, although these poor chaps were being carried away by stretcher bearers as fast as possible, there were many dying through exposure. It was raining now and one would have thought our troops would have been downhearted, especially some companies having only 14 men left and no sign of relief, but they were all happy as Larry and were only too pleased to give me all information possible and pass the time of day. From Stuff Redoubt, I went down towards Zollern and Mouquet Farm. This trench was simply levelled and full of our dead, wounded and dying. It is a picture I shall always remember and, as I passed one poor chap, he murmured "Officer, brandy, officer, please give me a drink," and I did my best for him but I think he had very few hours to live. The trenches were so bad here that I missed one I should have taken to the right and although I called in at many infantry HQs they all seemed to have very little knowledge of the trenches and so I had to go on and trust to luck. Eventually the trench ran into the open in front of Mouquet, where I saw two disabled tanks. The Gunner and I set out across the shell holes towards a trench running north and came under the searching fire of an enemy machine gun. We crept along over the shell holes, every now and again flattening out, and finally dashed for dead ground 200 yards away behind the crest. They could not possibly see us but were simply searching about and it was very unpleasant. We both arrived in a kind of quarry pit, breathless, where we sat for a while to recuperate. We wandered on and eventually got back to our starting point about ten thirty. Cruickshank relieved me about ten forty-five and I was very glad to be on my way home, especially when we got out of the Bosche's barrage, which he was keeping up at a slower rate of fire. On getting back to the dugout, I found that the Norfolks had taken over from the Suffolks and I had missed a souvenir – a Mauser pistol. That same evening, after coming down from the OP, having tried to get through to the 700 by lamp, I found that Corporal South had been wounded by a splinter.

Bee: Friday, a very depressing day, misty rain all day and everything got very wet. We had another small show for Stuff Redoubt and got into half of it. We had the same frantic messages from the brigade – shoot here and shoot there – which were quite impracticable. Saturday, Armytage and I were up at the OP – quite a decent day as far as weather was concerned but very [illegible] otherwise. About 20 yards behind where we observe from the infantry have to walk over the top of the crest and can be seen. The Hun, naturally, has a gun or two laid onto this point and he snipes. It is a 4.2 gun, which is very high velocity, and you hear nothing until the shell bursts. I suppose he wounded 20 men at this spot yesterday. We, of course, got badly laid round, and two came as close as anything could come. One seemed to burst in my mouth and the concussion knocked me down. It made us rather nervous as this happened at nine in the morning. Anyway, we got away in the evening without a scratch. The light was very good all day. We heard that we had lost our bit of Stuff Redoubt but got it back again. There was another bombardment to get the rest of it this afternoon. It completely changed its shape. The heavies fairly plunked them in. We heard late tonight that we had got the whole of it.