RFA West Lancs Bdes
In Praise of Lancashire Gunners
The following article was published in October 1916 and the original was in John Spiby’s personal effects. (See here for details of the Spiby brothers' contribution to the War effort.) Given the importance Spiby attached to the article it is possible it is written about his RFA Brigade (D/165), or if not, his brother William’s 276 West Lancs Brigade who had been in France for one year by October 1916.
With the Lancashire Gunners in the Big Push
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Manchester Guardian, 13 October 1916.
Blackpool Gazette & Herald, 17 October 1916
Fleetwood Chronicle, 17 October 1916
We have to thank also the genial and gifted gentleman who wrote in such appreciative terms of “We, Us & Co.”
For a year I have lived with a brigade of artillery from Lancashire, and we have travelled widely up and down the land. Along the roads of Flanders, Artois and Picardy. Several French soldiers and officers are, like myself, attached as interpreters to units of British artillery, but I doubt if any of them have been as happy with their unit as I have been with mine.
From the first day I was welcomed as a friend, and through all our adventures since then I have been treated with the utmost courtesy and the greatest friendliness. By know I can claim to know my Lancashire gunners pretty well. They are a most cheerful crowd, and they seem to vent their native humour more freely when they are amidst the greatest hardships and dangers. When things are at their worst up comes the “mot pour rire” (laughter) so spontaneous and genuine that I have known even so stern a person as the Sergeant Major to roar with laughter. Their pointed jokes spare no one—not even the Padre, yet these same lads who make fun of church parade and leave no stone unturned to get out of it when the brigade is in rest billets, will sing hymns like early Christians when they are at work under heavy shell-fire.
The post assigned to us in this great offensive made us at once realise that our credit stood well in higher spheres, for only to reliable, fully tested gunners could such an important position be entrusted. Every man was ready – and a most important particular—every horse was wonderfully fit, thanks to our worthy veterinary officer. The brigade pulled into action under a murderous fire to take a forward position in some hastily dug gun-pits. In that first move we lost one gallant young officer and several men, but their comrades drove on calmly, as though they were on parade. Then through one long and weary month they lived by the side of their guns in that Valley of Death, firing day and night as many shells as the over-heated steel tubes could stand, being themselves subjected to a constant bombardment by the Boche.
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The Valley of Death indeed! Through the last month there had been ghastly hand-to-hand fights on these slopes, which were stormed and lost many times. But our infantry at last had succeeded in throwing the enemy back beyond the ridge, and our quick-firing field guns had at once taken their positions close in the rear, behind the shoulder of the hill. It seemed as though no living being could have existed on this deadly stretch of ground, all cut up with trenches and ploughed up by the infernal fire aimed at these defences by both armies in turn, so that the whole semi-circle of the valley looked like one gigantic sieve, the edge of each shell-hole overlapping on the brims of the neighbouring holes.
No words can give an adequate idea of the scene of desolation which our lads had before their eyes. Not one blade of grass left anywhere; the very mould of the surface buried, and the white, chalky subsoil covering the whole ground. Nothing green, nothing restful to the eye. A few leafless trees were still standing in an adjoining wood, their branches dangling down lamentably like broken limbs. Some large trees had been blown into kindling wood, and the undergrowth looked like a confused mass of wreckage. Over this shattered landscape the guns roared incessantly, the shells moaned and burst with deafening reports which re-echoed through the valley, while fragments of steel flew around with a wicked hiss.
In the sizzling heat of a day in August, amid the belching flames of the guns, in the stifling, stinking fumes of the enemy shells, I thought I got the nearest approach to the reality of hell. Under the shadow of imminent death, all suffered alike from the heat, from thirst, and a putrid smell, a sickening, appalling odour which floated over the wood, over the trenches, throughout the cool nights as well as under the midday sun.
Indeed, Lancashire may feel, proud of her sons. Sometimes from the French colonel’s dug-out on liaison duty I used to watch our Lancashire gunners at their work. The three batteries seemed to vie with each other in speed and efficiency. I saw the men, each at his post, passing the shells, loading, and firing as fast as they could open and close the breech. The Germans, knowing all the ranges over this part of the country, poured well-aimed shots at our guns. But, through the crash of the enemy’s “crumps” I could hear the firm clear voice of the British officer who stood back of the field pieces, in the open, giving his commands: “Load—Battery salvo! - Ready ?—Fire!” And at the word, four 18 pounders went off together with one single report. This calm disregard of death, this cool heroism, were duly admired by the French officers, who set great store by what they call belle tenue au feu (good fire resistance), and I was proud to say then “I belong to that lot”. The French colonel an old soldier of great experience, said to me once “I am really afraid for your officers. They are too brave.”
While the gunners thus behaved splendidly their glory was to a great extent shared by their comrades the drivers, who had to supply the batteries with ammunition. With the enormous consumption of shells in this battle, it is no small task to keep quick-firing guns well supplied through difficulties that might seem almost unsurpassable. At any time throughout the day and the night limbers and wagons had to go up with heavy loads, across open ground, under raking fire from the enemy’s heavy guns. Men and horses were worked to the very limit of human endurance. As the column reached the danger zone the officer in charge sent forward one team at a time, with sufficient interval between the wagons to minimise the risks. Then it was a race against death. I saw the teams coming up at a trot over a hill-crest lashed by a terrific fire with large shells landing right and left-of them, causing huge columns of black smoke and earth to rise high in the air, every second nearer and nearer the devious track which the drivers had to follow in order to avoid trenches and shell-holes. Then down came a “crump” right in the track, apparently just in front of a wagon. Yet here they are again, thank God, deftly steering round the new gaping crater, still making for their battery. Once I witnessed a fine instance of this great pluck under fire. Two shells landed close to a wagon drawn by six horses, killing four horses, the “leads” and the “wheelers.” The “centres” were safe and the drivers unhurt. They pulled out their knives, cut away the harness of the dead horses, hitched on the remaining pair, and drove on to the battery, which they reached safely. Less conspicuous, but heroic none the less, were some boys who steadily, valiantly did their bit day by day. Such a one was the man in charge of the watercart, who supplied the men at the guns with drinking water, and could be depended on to drive through any curtain fire. The signallers also were wonderful. All their telephone wires having been cut either by the traffic or shellfire they communicated by flags whenever there was an important message to transmit.
During the fiercest bombardments too, an officer could be seen walking from battery to battery, and from gun to gun, always calm, and cheerful, with a pleasant word for everyone more particularly for the wounded. This was our medical officer. Himself wounded one day by a shell splinter, he stuck to his post and attended to the sick and the wounded with the same old smile. All these fine qualities which I have been endeavouring to depict in my Lancashire gunners, and which I shall never cease to admire, this cheerfulness in the face of hardship, this calm courage under the very Shadow of Death, seemed to be personified in our chief, the Colonel, a gentleman and a soldier, and such an inspiring leader that one felt it a privilege to be serving “under him”.
I did not know Lancashire before the war. I may never have been there; nor is it likely that I shall be able to pay it a visit just yet. But after these strenuous months in Northern France I can claim I know it as one knows an old friend, because I have become acquainted with its soul.