Alfred and James Merrick
2 brothers who went to war
but did not come home

Researched and written by Gill Willner and Chris Graddon

The first part of this biography,
the story of James’ older brother Alfred,
can be found here
Alfred Merrick 1893 - 1915

Part 2 - James’ Story

James Merrick was born on 19 October 1896. He was nearly three years younger than his elder brother Alfred and was the third child of James Merrick and Sarah Ann Johnson. James’ elder sister Mabel Ann Merrick was born on 2 April 1895; she married Charles Suffolk at Cannock Register Office in 1924 and died in Cannock, in 1977, at the age of 81.

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James enlisted for the Territorial Force at Hednesford in May 1915 and was initially given regimental number 764. However, in early 1917, James was assigned the regimental number 201298 as replacement six-digit numbers were issued to all the men serving with the Territorial units, including those who had been reported missing in action in 1916. The fact that James was awarded the British War Medal and Victory Medal but not the 1914-1915 Star means that he did not see service overseas until 1916. By 14 April 1916 he was Acting Corporal with a Trench Mortar Company, having already served in both C Company and D Company of the 1/5th Battalion South Staffordshire Regiment. On 10 September 1917 – for reasons that are not clear but were not the result of some breach of disciplinary regulations – James reverted to the rank of Private.

When war was declared, orders were issued for the Territorial Force to mobilise. Many of the men had just arrived to start their annual fortnight at training camp and were hurriedly recalled to their home bases. Some units of the Territorial Force were sent to garrison duties at various points around the Empire, replacing the regular army units that were required for immediate service.

On 15 August 1914, orders were issued to separate the men who had agreed to serve overseas from those who – for various reasons – could not make that commitment. The latter were formed into reserves, “Second Line” units known as the “Home Service”. The men who had volunteered to serve overseas became known as the “Foreign Service” or “First Line”. These terms are often seen on the service records of men from the Territorial Force. In 1915, the "First Line" and "Second Line" units were given new titles; for example, the 1/5th Battalion South Staffordshire Regiment and the 2/5th Battalion South Staffordshire Regiment were, respectively, the “First Line” and “Second Line” units formed from the original 5th Battalion.

On 24 November 1914 it was decided to replace the "Foreign Service" units that went to fight abroad with their reserve units. As a result, the “Second Line” became available for home defence purposes. Most Territorial Force units then created a “Third Line”, for example, the 3/5th Battalion South Staffordshire Regiment. This second reserve unit remained at home, providing drafts of men to fill gaps in the fighting units. From 1916, many of these “Third Line” units were merged or disbanded.}

Following the ineffective attack on the Hohenzollern Redoubt, the 1/5th Battalion South Staffordshire Regiment spent the remainder of October and the first few days of November 1915 in “rest billets” at Allouagne and Fouquières-lés-Béthune. On 5 November they marched to Paradis near Merville, where they spent 4 days before relieving the 1/1st Battalion Gurkha Rifles in the trenches at Neuve Chapelle. The days that followed in November and early December 1915 were generally quiet; even so 8 men were wounded, 4 only slightly, and 9308 Private Edward Stevens was killed on 12 November.  

The German Army occupied the French village of Neuville-Saint-Vaast in October 1914.  Its buildings were fortified, and the cellars were turned into shelters for the German troops. To the south of the village, the Germans created a formidable network of trenches, tunnels and dug-outs. This became known as the Labyrinth. It was organised in a maze, with frequent blank walls and routes that enabled those defending it to come up unnoticed behind assailants. It was linked by tunnels to Neuville St. Vaast and covered an area of 2 square miles.

In mid-March the 1/5th Battalion South Staffordshire Regiment took over trenches to the north of Arras and east of Neuville-Saint-Vaast. Although it was generally quiet in that sector, 56 Private Joseph Brettle was killed during heavy enemy shelling on 22 March. Three days later, the enemy launched a grenade attack at ten past seven in the morning. This was resisted vigorously and, at 3 o’clock that afternoon, the British responded by bombarding crater B6 with their 9.2-inch guns. However, some shells fell short and one struck a trench parapet wounding one man and burying two officers from the Battalion. 

During the evening of 28 March, a draft of 191 men arrived to fill the shortage in numbers in the 1/5th Battalion South Staffordshire Regiment. As there is no indication that James Merrick went to Egypt, it is likely that he was among this group of reinforcements. 

April 1916 began extremely quietly but, on 2 April, the enemy exploded a mine on the south side of crater B4 and they followed this immediately with a second explosion south-west of B4. One of the Battalion’s platoons pushed forward to the south-west entrance to the crater, but they found it had been blown up and that the bombing post there had been buried; a connecting trench to the west of the crater had also disappeared completely. Unable to enter the crater because of the fumes, the platoon came under grenade, trench mortar and machine gun fire. The Battalion did manage to establish a bombing post and a Lewis gun on the northern lip of the crater but the heavy fire from the enemy continued unchecked. A barrage from the British artillery eventually succeeded in reducing its intensity and by morning on 3 April that section of the line was quiet once more. However, the toll on the Battalion was severe, with 1 officer – Lieutenant Alfred Archibald Smith – and 5 men from the ranks – 95 Private James Dawes, 9004 Corporal John Thomas Knight, 886 Private James McNeil, 9871 Private Samuel Medlicott and 976 Private John Woolridge – killed in the action. In addition, 6 men were missing; one man, 9048 Private Albert John Belcher, was found, and did survive the war, but the other five – 8478 Private Henry Ball, 1180 Private Joseph Henry Bird, 9006 Lance Corporal Bartholomew Hopley, 9702 Private Leonard Smith and 9013 Private William Henry Turner – are all presumed to have died that day. One officer and fifteen men from the Battalion were wounded in the fighting. 

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After 3 days of route marches, the 1/5th Battalion South Staffordshire Regiment reached Foncquevillers on 5 May where they took over the trenches in the left sector from the 1/6th Battalion Royal Warwickshire Regiment. They remained there until the evening of 19 May when they were relieved by the 1/5th Battalion Sherwood Foresters. That period at the front was generally quiet, but on 16 May the enemy bombarded the Battalion’s left flank with 300 shells – of all types – prompting the British field guns to respond with 150 shells aimed at Gommecourt Park. Fortunately, the Battalion positions sustained no direct hits; however, three men were wounded and, sadly, 957 Private James Bird – on attachment to the 182nd Tunnelling Company of the Royal Engineers – was found drowned on 12 May. Towards the end of this period, the Germans targeted the Battalion’s positions with cannister bombs, 42 on 18 May and 6 more the day after.  

The 1/5th spent the remainder of May and the first five days of June 1916 in Battalion Training at Lucheux, about 12 miles to the west of the Gommecourt Salient. On 6 June, they marched to the Divisional Reserve at Souastre where, for 11 days, they supplied working parties. They then returned to Foncquevillers where, during the night of 21/22 June, they relieved the 1/5th Battalion Leicestershire Regiment in the right sector. The first day of this tour was generally quiet, the Germans initially bombarding the area 300 yards to the west of the 1/5th; then, between 11.00 a.m. and noon, they shelled one of the Battalion trenches, wounding 5 men from the ranks and killing 264 Private Ellis Davies and 8818 Private Sidney Thomas Worthington. The day after, the Germans targeted every part of the sector the Battalion was holding, sweeping the trench parapets with machine gun fire and killing 212 Private Charles Cherrington. During the night of 23/24 June, 7 detachments – 5 from C Company and 2 from A Company – were sent out to provide cover for a working party digging a new front-line trench in the centre sector, to the left of the 1/5th; just after midnight the enemy targeted the area where they were working with shell and machine gun fire, wounding 13 men from the covering party and killing 89 Private Thomas Fereday, 9081 Private John Thomas Gill and 824 Private Benjamin Smith.  

In the Battalion’s own sector, the next two days were fairly quiet. However, on 26 June the Germans responded to the British bombardment the day before by heavily shelling the front line and support trenches occupied by the 1/5th, wounding two officers and 19 men from the ranks, and killing 2nd Lieutenant Humphrey William Devereux and eight men from the ranks – 9861 Corporal Morris Baker, 814 Private Arthur Bradley, 9399 Corporal Robert Ford, 444 Lance Corporal Thomas Grundy, 8817 Private Richard William Hempsall, 730 Private Joseph Hopson, 8840 Private John Francis Price and 8621 Private John Parkes Somerfield. That evening – with the exception of C Company who remained behind to provide working parties – the remaining men of the 1/5th were relieved by the 1/4th Battalion Leicestershire Regiment and left for rest billets at Humbercamps; C Company followed 24 hours later. However, the night of 30 June saw them return to the front in readiness for the major operation by the 46th and 56th Infantry Divisions against the German positions in the Gommecourt Salient.

The 1/5th Battalion South Staffordshire Regiment was in position in the assembly trenches at 4.30 a.m. on 1 July 1916. Instead of the customary tot of rum, the men were issued with pea soup, which came in large cans reeking of petrol. While they waited, they munched on the large bacon sandwiches they had been given on their way to the trenches. Zero hour was set for 7.30 a.m. 

The final British artillery bombardment began at 6.25 a.m. and, over the next 65 minutes, the field guns fired 11,660 rounds of shrapnel and high explosive while the heavy guns and howitzers unleashed 7,000 shells. At about 7.00 a.m. the German guns started to reply, concentrating their firepower on the assembly trenches and causing casualties across both the 46th Division and 56th Division. Then, at 7.20 a.m. a huge mine was set off under Hawthorn Ridge, near Beaumont Hamel, leaving nobody in any doubt that the “Big Push” by the Allies was about to start. 

At 7.25 a.m. the mortars began firing smoke bombs into the German lines while men in the forward trenches lobbed smoke bombs into No Man’s Land to create smoke screens. Unfortunately, two problems occurred in the section of the front held by the 46th Division. Firstly, the wind direction was unfavourable and blew the smoke along No Man’s Land, rather than across No Man’s Land and into the German trenches as it did in the sector occupied by the 56th Division. Secondly, the smoke screen shrouding the British trenches and the British barbed wire was much thicker than normal and it obscured everything. By contrast, the smoke faded more quickly in and around the enemy trenches so, once the British assault waves were through the thick smoke and out into the open they were easy targets for the German machine guns. 

At 7.30 a.m. the Allies lifted the bombardment of the German front line trenches in readiness for the advance by the British infantry. On the right flank, officers from the 56th Division waved their men forward; at Gommecourt they did not use the customary whistles. On the left flank, the first wave – the 1/6th South Staffords, 1/6th  North Staffords, 1/5th Sherwood Foresters and 1/7th Sherwood Foresters – began to scramble their way out of the muddy trenches. The first and second waves of the 1/6th South Staffords attacked from the old front-line trench, which was very congested; weighed down with a minimum of 66 lbs of equipment, the men found it difficult to clamber out of the trench. They then found that the gaps in the British barbed wire were too narrow and the men's uniforms and equipment caught on the barbs slowing them down still further. Because of these delays, the 1/6th South Staffords fell behind the left flank of the 1/6th North Staffords, and this resulted in a staggered formation as the 137th Infantry Brigade advanced. The men were immediately caught by machine guns firing from Gommecourt village and Gommecourt Park. Some small groups of men did manage to reach the German barbed wire, however only a few made it into the German lines where most were either killed or forced to retreat. To all intents and purposes, the attack by the 1/6th South Staffords was over in the first thirty minutes.

The right flank of the 1/6th North Staffords began their attack from the old trench, the left flank starting from the new trench; the delays on the right – caused by the problems the 1/6th South Staffs experienced getting out of the trenches and through the British barbed wire – meant the men on the left emerged through the smoke with their right flank exposed. They were caught by German machine guns firing from Gommecourt Wood and from other positions to their left; the 1/6th North Staffs – plus some bombers from the 1/5th North Staffords – were quickly cut down. Small parties did get through the German wire and into the enemy trenches but – with supporting waves of the British advance cut off by German artillery and machine gun fire – they were swiftly driven out, many men taking refuge in shells holes just outside the German barbed wire. Like the attack on their right, the advance by the 1/6th North Staffords came to a halt soon after 8:00 a.m. 

In their turn, the waves of the 1/5th South Staffords all moved forward as ordered. In the second wave, A, B and F bombing parties managed to reach the German front line; they had suffered very few casualties and immediately began to throw their Mills bombs at the enemy. In the third wave, only G bombing party managed to get into the enemy front line, while from C bombing party – which did not get beyond the German barbed wire – only two men were left, the others were all struck down by shrapnel. D and E bombing parties, in the fourth wave, were also held up at the German barbed wire and retreated to a hollow 50 yards from it. In the fifth wave, the detachment from the 1/5th South Staffs were unable to move further forward when they became blocked – in the old front line – by the Lewis guns of the 1/6th South Staffords; their commanding officer decided to bypass this obstruction and took his men forward to the new front line where he found 1 officer and about 20 men from the 1/6th South Staffs; they’d been in the second wave and had been forced to retreat. The officer sent this party forward again and then advanced with his own men, plus some men from the 6th wave, until they were forced to stop – in front of the German barbed wire – because of the number of casualties there. 

About 5 minutes after zero hour, the communication trenches were bombarded with 105 mm high explosive shells; the trenches were damaged and the 6th and 7th waves sustained several casualties which hampered their advance. The left platoon of the 6th wave was prevented from advancing any further - blocked by men from the 3rd and 4th waves of the 1/6th South Staffs still in the new front line – and there they stayed for the remainder of the operation. Led by Captain Ferdinand Eglington, the seventh wave detachment from the 1/5th South Staffords advanced beyond the new front line until Captain Eglington was killed 20 yards from the German barbed wire; his men were unable to make any further progress. The eighth wave, in their turn, were unable to advance beyond the old British front line. 

By 8.00 a.m. the attack by the 137th Brigade was at a standstill and desperate messages were being sent up and down the mud-filled, casualty-strewn communication trenches as officers desperately tried to reorganise the survivors in the hope of making a new advance. By 8.30 a.m. the men who had been able to crawl back from the German barbed wire had sought refuge in the shell holes and long grass of No Man’s Land or were now huddled in the muddy advanced trench. By then the attack by the 46th Division was all but over. 

By 9.30 a.m. the Germans of the 91st Regiment and 55th Reserve Infantry Regiment were reporting that their trenches had been cleared of those few men that had made it into the enemy lines. Accordingly, the German artillery switched their attention to the assault by the 56th Division. 46th Division Headquarters announced that the 46th would renew its attack at 12.15 p.m. but, realistically, the chaos in their ranks meant there was never any prospect of that happening. Times for that resumption were declared and then postponed throughout the early afternoon but, eventually, 46th Division Headquarters issued orders that the attack would recommence at 3.30 p.m. Their plan was for a group of men – drawn from the 1/5th North Staffords, 1/5th South Staffords, 1/5th Leicesters and 1/6th Sherwood Foresters – to advance under a new smoke screen and join up with men from the 139th Brigade who were thought to be still in the German lines and continuing to fight there; in fact, these men had all been killed, captured or driven back a lot earlier in the day. The Brigadier commanding the 1/6th Sherwood Foresters told his men not to attack unless there was a smoke screen and, when that failed to materialise, most of his men stayed in the trenches; however, a group of about 20 did advance and, almost to a man, were cut down by machine gun fire.  

When Lieutenant Colonel Robert Richmond Rayner – the officer commanding the 1/5th South Staffords – was wounded, that left no one to issue the order to resume the attack; the two young subalterns present were both aged 18 and had never seen the trenches or been in action before that day. Generally, there was chaos within the 137th Infantry Brigade; it was clear to most of the officers that any resumption of the attack would be a shambles. In the event, not a man of the 137th Brigade moved; their part in the attack on Gommecourt was effectively over. 

The abortive assault that day was a costly one for the 1/5th Battalion South Staffordshire Regiment. Aside from the death of Captain Ferdinand Eglington, Lieutenant Gavin Tennison Royle Knowles was reported missing, believed killed in action; his death was subsequently confirmed, as were the deaths of five other officers, all reported missing on that day: 2nd Lieutenant Herbert Allen, 2nd Lieutenant Stanley John Ellison, 2nd Lieutenant Frank Aldridge Fawcett, 2nd Lieutenant Thomas Rudolf Sanger and Lieutenant John Parry Thorne. Nine more officers were wounded, two of them suffering from shell shock. In addition, 12 men from the ranks were reported to have been killed and 13 more were missing; 1 was wounded and missing, 105 were wounded and 20 more were suffering from shell shock. Records show that the following men from the ranks were all killed in action on 1 July 1916 during the attack on Gommecourt:

James Merrick had only been on the Western Front since the end of March and this was his first major battle; it is remarkable that he was fortunate enough to survive the awful events that took place that day during the assault on Gommecourt.

The day after the attack, 2 July 1916, the 1/5th Battalion South Staffordshire Regiment left the assembly trenches at half past three in the morning, and just after noon began the march that took them first to Souastre and then to Berles-au-Bois where, at four o’clock the following afternoon, they took over trenches from the 10th Battalion Royal Fusiliers in the right sub-sector. 9585 Edward Fenn Girling died from his wounds on 4 July, a quiet day for the Battalion. The following day, the enemy scored 4 direct hits as they fired fifty 105 mm shells at Battalion positions. 8878 Herbert Edward Brown died that day from the wounds he sustained during the attack on Gommecourt. The enemy continued their bombardment on 6 July, firing fifty 77 mm and twenty 105 mm shells in the morning, more in the afternoon. The day after was another quiet one as the Battalion went into Brigade Reserve following their relief by the 1/6th South Staffords. 9677 Frank Leach and 9735 Joseph Selvey died of their wounds on 7 July and 12 July respectively.  

A week later the 1/5th South Staffs were back in the front line, A Company and D Company relieving the 1/6th South Staffs, B Company and C Company taking over from the 1/6th North Staffs. On 15 July, in the hour before midnight, the British artillery bombarded the German barbed wire, front line and support line. The enemy responded, sending shells bursting over D Company two minutes before midnight, followed by machine gun fire until 1.30 a.m. the next morning. The rest of 16 July was quiet, a day that saw 1324 George Edwards die from his wounds. 17 July was very quiet until 10 p.m. when a British artillery and gas attack provoked a German response, five of their 77 mm shells scoring direct hits on the Battalion positions but causing only slight damage; no gas gongs or sound alarms were heard from the German lines so the effect of the gas on the enemy could not be ascertained. The next few days remained generally quiet, the Germans occasionally shelling the lines occupied by the 1/5th South Staffords. 1219 Thomas Collins was killed in action on 20 July and three other men from the ranks were wounded. The period from 21st to 27th July was spent in the Brigade Reserve at Berles-au-Bois, though two platoons were sent each day to support the 1/6th South Staffs and 1/5th North Staffs. The last few days of July saw the Battalion back in the trenches, but the enemy shelling caused little damage. 

Following relief by the 1/6th South Staffordshire Regiment, the Battalion went into the Divisional Reserve at Bailleulmont on 3 August. Two days later, just before midnight, the 1/5th and 1/6th attempted a combined raid on the enemy trenches. However, the enemy had made substantial repairs to the barbed wire at the point where the raiders expected to get through and searchers could not find an alternative. 8268 Private Harry Stephens was killed in the raid and 2 other men from the 1/5th were wounded; the whereabouts of 9743 Private Samuel Thomas Bird could not be ascertained and it was later confirmed that he too had died that night. On 6 August 1915, Private Albert Allen was killed in action while he was attached to the 10th Battalion Lincolnshire Regiment.

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The 1/5th South Staffs spent 7-15 August in the trenches of “N” sub-sector near Berles-au-Bois; for days the German minenwerfer (short range mortars) targeted the Battalion until the British artillery identified their location and silenced them.  

11 August 1916 witnessed the cruelty of warfare when 9541 Lance Corporal Frederick Hawthorne was shot at dawn by order of the Field General Courts Martial.   

Frederick Hawthorne was the son of Moses Hawthorne, a coal miner, and his wife, Selina Edwards; the family lived in Aldridge and before the war Frederick worked at Aldridge Colliery. At that time, Aldridge was a small Staffordshire village with a population of less than 3,000. It lost sixty men during the Great War, seven from Station Road, the small terraced street where Frederick’s family lived. In such a small community, Frederick would have known most, if not all of the Aldridge miners that died in the war. Mining was a reserved occupation, so Frederick could have avoided military service; instead he enlisted on 12 September 1914 and served on the Western Front from March 1915 where, in July 1916, he was promoted to the rank of Lance Corporal. Frederick’s cousin was killed in 1915 as they served alongside one another at Hohenzollern. In 1916, four weeks before the abortive assault on Gommecourt, Frederick’s brother-in law was killed, making his sister a widow; at the time, she was 5 months pregnant. Two more of Frederick’s cousins also lost their lives in the Great War.  

On the night of 14 July, the 1/5th Battalion South Staffordshire Regiment was detailed to carry out a raid against the German trenches. A group of men had been selected and had trained for the assault over the previous 3 days; these included Lance Corporal Hawthorne, the N.C.O. in charge of No.1 Sap party. The raiding party was assembled just before midnight, but the night was a bright one and Hawthorne complained to the officer leading the raid that it would be unwise to attempt the mission whilst visibility was so clear. Others in the raiding party agreed with his view; when the raid took place, none of Hawthorne’s men moved forward into No Man’s Land and the raid had to be cancelled.  

The 1/5th Battalion South Staffordshire Regiment spent the second half of August and all of September and October in the “N” sub-sector trenches near Berles-au-Bois; these tours were interspersed with rotations in Brigade Reserve. Casualties were light in September but in October they lost 3 men killed (8708 Sergeant William John Selby and 651 Private Isaac Woodall on 8 October, 9499 Sergeant William Davis two days later); they also had 13 men wounded, 3 only slightly injured and able to remain at their posts. One man was reported missing, 1100/201483 Private Joseph Darby who left a covering party on the night of 22/23 October and disappeared. 

There were no further casualties as the Battalion spent November and the first few days of December training and resting in the area around Yvrench and Le Souich. On 6 December they relieved the 4th Battalion Kings Own Yorkshire Light Infantry in the “Z” sector trenches at Pommier, 2 miles from Berles-au-Bois and 12 miles south-west of Arras. The days there were generally quiet but 787 Private Herbert Bulley was killed when Pommier was shelled on 13 December; 10 others were wounded in thAT attack, two of whom died 2 days later from their wounds, 6843 Private Edward Henry Clemmens and 8032 Private Archibald Holland. Rotations with the 1/6th Battalion South Staffordshire Regiment saw out the remainder of 1916, the 1/5th losing only one man wounded, when they moved into the trenches at Bienvillers-au-Bois.

The first two months of 1917 brought little change for the Battalion, with just 2 men injured in January. On 3 February, 20055 Private Henry Smith was killed as the enemy dropped heavy trench mortar bombs while the 1/5th were relieving battalions in the front line from the Duke of Wellington’s (West Riding) Regiment. Two days later, the enemy fired about one hundred and twenty 4.2-inch shells between 2 p.m. and 5 p.m. One – a direct hit on the shelter beside the D Company cookhouse – caused some casualties. From 4 o’clock to 5 o’clock that afternoon they dropped 15 medium and heavy trench mortar bombs on the trench occupied by A Company. 9608 Lance Corporal Harry Bagley was killed and two other men were wounded.    

The 3-day rotations generally followed the same routine, relatively quiet days interspersed with bursts of sometimes heavy enemy shelling, and this pattern continued throughout the remainder of February. After a very brief period in the Divisional Reserve at Pommier, the Battalion was back in the front-line trenches on 9 February, with the 2/7th Battalion of The London Regiment attached for training; 4 men were wounded in this tour. The men returned to the front on 15 February, this time instructing the 2/9th Battalion Queen Victoria Rifles. On 18 February, 9664 Private William Bradney was killed in action; that day the Battalion went into the Divisional Reserve at Pommier. 1 man was injured, and 4 men were gassed, in the next tour but the worst casualties came on the last day of the month when Captain Samuel Percy Smith and 8151 Sergeant Alfred Wallace Morrall were killed in action; 1 officer and 3 men were also wounded.

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At 6 p.m. on 13 March the Battalion marched from Souastre to take up a position in Biez Wood; from there they were to attack the enemy trenches in front of Bucquoy, the 1/5th North Staffs on their left, the 7th Division on their right.  

The village of Foncquevillers had been gas shelled earlier in the day and the Battalion was blocked for nearly an hour by troops and transport held up on its outskirts. The poor state of the roads made progress very slow as transport got stuck in the mud. The Battalion halted briefly at Rossignol Wood at 10 p.m. – though not long enough for the men to have a mug of tea – and reached the south-east corner of Biez Wood about midnight. Once there, the men began to form up in waves. Meanwhile the German front-line trench was being shelled by the British artillery. The order to advance was given at 1 a.m. on 14 March but Radfehrer Graben – which ran directly west to east from the centre of Gommecourt to the western point of Biez Wood and beyond – would prove to be a thorny and difficult obstacle.

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The British artillery barrage was effective, no shells falling short, and – with very few casualties – the front lines of the attack all reached the German barbed wire. In certain places the first, and sometimes the second belt of barbed wire had been broken but at no point was it possible to penetrate the wire to the German positions without further cutting by hand. Behind Radfehrer Graben, the barbed wire was swept by crossfire from the German machine guns and a large number of the British casualties resulted from officers and NCOs trying to find gaps in the wire. One of the Battalion Lewis guns did manage to cut the third belt in the wire leading to the German parapet; a second Lewis gun team then made it onto the parapet itself where they engaged two German machine guns in Radfehrer Graben, silencing one completely and, temporarily, forcing the other to cease firing. 

No-Man’s Land was heavy and broken up by shell holes but small parties of men did succeed in gaining a foothold in the German trench, however they lacked support and were forced back by the advancing Germans. One Company lost 4 officers and 10 NCOs early on; the remaining men of that company were unable to get through the German wire and eventually withdrew at daylight.

The enemy trenches were in fair condition generally and the Company Commander pushed forward from there towards the German 2nd line. 2nd Lieutenant William Arthur Frost and about 30 men gained a foothold in the German trench about 100 yards north of the big sap. He sent a party of men to try to regain contact with A Company on the right flank then reconnoitred the area and opened fire on German troops in the region of their 2nd line. One of Frost’s Lewis guns silenced a German machine gun that was firing from the enemy communication trench behind the long sap. 8133/200176 Corporal Thomas Hallum forced a way through about 30 yards to the north of 2nd Lieutenant Frost. However, both these groups ran short of bombs so were unable to hold on to the ground gained. Frost re-organised his company in a sunken road 60 yards from the German barbed wire and they remained there until daybreak when they were recalled. 

The Company on the left of the Battalion line advanced on its objective and, though they became mixed with the 1/5th North Staffs, most of the men got into the German trench. As ordered, two reserve platoons then advanced through the first wave, seizing and blocking the enemy trenches, and bombing a German machine gun on the way. This company – which succeeded in everything that was asked of them – then consolidated their position in the face of a German counter-attack from the direction of the enemy’s 2nd line. 

The men in the advanced posts came under attack by a small party of enemy troops coming from the direction of Bucquoy. Having used all their bombs on enemy dugouts, and seeing that the troops to their left had not been able to penetrate the German wire, these men fell back in good order. They occupied about 100 yards of the German trench, but with no support to their right or left, and with no means of getting additional bombs, they then retired into Rettemoy Graben, from where they were recalled at daybreak. Their losses, however, were far less than the companies on their right whose advances were unsuccessful.  

Lieutenant Colonel John Malet Llewwellyn, commanding the 1/5th South Staffs, gathered the remnants of the Battalion in Stafford Trench between Biez Wood and Square Wood at about 6.30 a.m. After meeting with Colonel Frederick Joseph Trump, the commander of the 1/6th South Staffs, he decided – as it was now daylight – not to renew the attack without further planning and preparation.  

There were heavy casualties in this attack. 8 officers were killed

and 3 more were wounded. 36 men from the ranks also lost their lives

with many more wounded.  There were further casualties – 2425/202287 Private Albert Harry Bishop was killed and 11 men were wounded – as the Battalion was relieved that night by the 1/6th South Staffs and made their way to Souastre. One of the wounded, 9436/200695 Lance Corporal George Chell, died of his wounds the following day. The Battalion spent that day, 15 March 1917, resting and refitting. Two days later, the 1/5th South Staffs and the 1/5th North Staffs paraded in the afternoon and were congratulated for their part in the attack on 13/14 March; according to the Official History, “the assault was gallantly pressed”.  

On 18 March, the Battalion marched to Foncquevillers where they spent the next 4 days providing working parties for road repair, salvage and the Royal Engineers. The remains of the 8 officers that had been killed during the recent attack were buried at the Foncquevillers cemetery at 6 p.m. on 19 March. The 1/5th South Staffs left Foncquevillers at half past seven in the morning of 23 March and over the next 3 days proceeded 20 miles south west to Coisy, 5 miles north of Amiens. Buses and another march took them to Pont-de-Metz where they spent 2 days cleaning and refitting. The men were then taken by train to Berguette, 10 miles north west of Béthune, from where they marched to rest billets at Saint-Hilaire-Cottes, which they reached on 29 March. The last two days of the month allowed the men to rest, bathe, clean up and be inspected by their Commanding Officer. 

The month of March had certainly taken its toll on the 1/5th Battalion South Staffordshire Regiment. They had lost 8 officers killed, 3 wounded and 1 suffering from shell shock. 37 men from the ranks had been killed; 22 were missing and 13 of these were known to be wounded; 103 men had been wounded and, of these, 3 were also suffering from shell shock, 1 had also been gassed and 1 was believed to be a prisoner of war. 12 others had been wounded but were able to remain at their posts. 

The 1/5th South Staffs spent the first two weeks of April 1917 training at Saint-Hilaire-Cottes. Sadly, 9963/200934 Private Harry William Brown, who had been taken prisoner on 14 March, died of his wounds on 5 April.  

A week later, the Battalion marched to Béthune; en route, at Bourecq, six men were presented with the Military Medal: 9115/200569 Acting Sergeant John Samuel Halling, 200176 Corporal Thomas Hallum, 8822/200420 Acting Sergeant John Kelly, 84/200991 Lance Corporal William Millward, 9128/200577 Corporal Ernest Pitcock and 7615/200060 Sergeant John Whittaker. At Divisional Headquarters, 8078/200156 Corporal Harold Hughes was also decorated with the Military Medal.  

Since the attack on 13/14 March, the 1/5th South Staffs had received a number of drafts of additional men; in all, by 6 April 1917, the Battalion’s strength had been bolstered by the arrival of 183 men, the largest influx of 110 men arriving on 21 March. This brought their numbers on 13 April to 19 officers and 937 men from the ranks; 8 officers and 11 men from the ranks had also been attached to the Battalion from other units. Sadly, 14 April saw the death, from his wounds, of 9862/200886 Private John Britton. 

On 15 April, Major-General William Thwaites, the General Officer Commanding the 46th Division, awarded the Military Cross to the Medical Officer, Captain Stanley Sextus Barrymore Harrison of the Royal Army Medical Corps, who was attached to the 1/5th South Staffs. Major-General Thwaites also awarded the Military Cross to 2nd Lieutenant Gordon Ernest Cronk of the 1/5th South Staffs. The same day, 2nd Lieutenant Ernest Bertram Brown (who was ill in hospital) and 2nd Lieutenant Samuel Rubery (who was wounded and in hospital) were also awarded the Military Cross. Below are the citations printed in the London Gazette edition dated 11 May 1917 detailing the heroism shown by these four officers.

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On 20 April the Battalion marched to the support trenches at Liévin in the coal-mining sector around Lens. On 21 April, one officer and three men from the 1/5th South Staffs were wounded in the intermittent enemy shelling. In the evening of 23 April, the Battalion relieved the 1/6th South Staffs in the picket line west of Lens; the Battalion’s front line stretched from the Liévin-Lens railway on the left to the Liévin-Lens main road on the right. A Company and B Company were in outposts, with C Company and D Company in support. In the early afternoon of the next day, 3788/203324 Private Victor Henry Ellement, 30444/202737 Private David Hopkins, 8110/200167 Private Albert Mills and 9742/200828 Private Sidney Price – all the members of a Lewis gun team from B Company – were killed when a shell hit the cellar where they were stationed. 5437/235019 Private George Clarke, 9047/200533 Acting Corporal Sidney Thomas Dance and 20069/203362 Private John Draper were also killed in action that day, and a further 3 men were wounded. Late that night the Battalion was relieved and the next day they marched 5 miles to the west, to billets at Marqueffles Farm, with Battalion Headquarters billeted at Bouvigny-Boyeffles.

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The Battalion returned to the village of Liévin in the afternoon of 30 April; earlier in the day, the enemy’s long-range guns had shelled Bouvigny-Boyeffles, damaging several houses and causing some civilian casualties.

The 1/5th South Staffs spent the first three weeks of May 1917 in the trenches round Lens and Liévin; enemy shelling varied in its intensity, 7 May seeing the heaviest bombardment when about 1000 enemy gas shells targeted the Battalion’s trenches. The men worked hard to repair those trenches that were in a poor state and to reinforce the defensive barbed wire where it had been damaged. Three men were killed on 4 May: 1948/201978 Private Frederick William Coates, 44/200973 Lance Corporal David Round, and 8822/200420 Acting Sergeant John Kelly who had been awarded the Military Medal less than a month before; 2 men were also wounded on that day but otherwise casualties were slight during this period.

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The men from the 1/5th South Staffs No. 8 Night Post had orders to avoid observation in daylight so, just after 3 a.m. on 22 May, they were withdrawing from Combat Trench, to cellars in a nearby house, when the NCO in charge spotted 3 Germans on the ground floor. He returned to Combat Trench and warned his men. Three men then went forward to search the house and cellar more thoroughly, but they found it all clear. As the search party left the cellar the enemy launched an intense bomb attack, from the house next door, targeting the men in Combat Trench. The men from No. 9 Night Post made it out of Combat Trench and took shelter behind a nearby house where they began firing through holes in the wall in the direction of the enemy. The remaining men from No. 8 Night Post withdrew down Combat Trench and reported the situation, as they understood it, to Captain Thomas Devall Walthall. He immediately sent out a patrol to clear enemy troops from the nearby houses and to re-occupy the two posts in Combat Trench. They found the enemy had departed but when they searched one of the houses they discovered a German store with a considerable number of bombs. There was no evidence that the enemy had suffered casualties, but the Battalion reported 1 man killed, 1 missing and 3 wounded (2 only slightly). The statements of those involved gave hope that the missing man had survived, and was lying up in the cellar of one of the houses, but this optimism proved to be unfounded as both 634/201218 Private Charles Thomas Edkins and 20062/203355 Private Edward Wain died in that skirmish.

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The following day – which saw the death in action of 32954 Private Frank Plackett – the enemy artillery and machine gunners were more active and there was further shelling as the 1/5th South Staffs moved to the support trenches in the south-western edge of Cité St Pierre. 24 May was a quiet day for the Battalion but that evening the 1/6th North Staffs took 28 prisoners and killed several Germans when they launched a successful attack on the enemy trench Nash Alley north of Cité St Laurent and west of Cité St Auguste. At about 10.30 a.m. the next morning, 25 May, the enemy began shelling the newly-gained positions, and the intensity of the bombardment gradually increased until midday when the Germans attacked, driving back the 1/6th North Staffs. Two companies from the 1/5th South Staffs went to replace the 1/6th South Staffs who had been sent to support the 1/6th North Staffs. For the remainder of the Battalion in Cité St Pierre it was a quiet day with only slight shelling.

James Merrick had now been on the Western Front for over a year. Somehow, he had managed to survive; from the details in the Battalion War Diary, it appears that he had done so without being wounded.  

The first six days of June 1917 saw the 1/5th South Staffs in the Loos sector, enduring the usual shelling and alternating between the support trenches and the front line. The enemy’s “pineapples” {trench mortar bombs} were particularly active during this period, which saw the deaths in action of 2nd Lieutenant Arthur Sydney Speed on 4 June 1917 and 200639 Private Edward Maley the day after; in addition, 22 men were wounded in the first 5 days of June. During the night of 6 June, the bulk of the Battalion was relieved by the 1/6th North Staffs but C Company and D Company went to Bully Grenay to train for the Battalion raid on Nash Alley that they were to spearhead. The next two days were quiet, though 8144/200181 Lance Corporal John Talbot Donnelly was killed in action on 8 June. That evening, C Company and D Company took up their positions in the assembly trenches at 7 p.m. and an hour and a half later went over the top. 4 men were reported killed in that action: 9632/200778 Private Walter Griffiths and 9598/200758 Lance Corporal Frederick John Knill, both from A Company, 8805/200411 Private David Rogers and 1031/201448 Private William Henry Thompson, both from B Company. In addition, from C Company, 3327/203214 Private Frank Passmore and 3367/203254 Private John Matthews were both missing, believed killed – their deaths were confirmed later. Six men were reported wounded and missing: 5 from D Company and 200877 Sergeant Samuel Wood from C Company, who was later confirmed among the dead. Four more men were missing (3 from C Company – 23494 Private Robert Brundell who died of his wounds on 8 June, 8397/200265 Company Sergeant Major Joseph Vernon Barber who died of his wounds the next day, and 665 Joseph Stafford who was taken prisoner – and 205013 Private Hubert Collins from D Company, who was also taken prisoner but managed to escape and re-joined the Battalion on 14 June 1917). There was a substantial number of casualties that day: 3 officers were wounded and taken to hospital along with 6 men from A Company, 5 from B Company, 23 from C Company and 25 from D Company, one of whom – 25223 Private Alfred Henry Cartwright – died of his wounds the same day. Four more men, 1 from each company, were wounded and taken to hospital the day after.  

The enemy were somewhat subdued on 9 June and there was markedly less shelling than normal; the Battalion received congratulations from the Divisional Commander for its part in the raid. The next few days were also quiet, with only 5 men wounded, 2 of whom were able to remain at their posts. Then, on 16 June, the Battalion went into rest billets at the end of an uninterrupted period of 28 days in the front line and support trenches. This allowed the men the opportunity to bathe and be issued with fresh clothing, to clean their equipment and make good any shortages. The next day they were re-organised into 8 platoons, 2 per Company. Training continued until 21 June when the 137th Infantry Brigade was informed that it was to take part in yet another attack on Hill 65; the 1/5th South Staffs would be in support, acting as moppers up and providing carrying parties.  

On 22 June, the Battalion relieved the 1/4th Battalion Lincolnshire Regiment in the support positions of the Liévin sector. B Company and C Company relieved the 1/8th Battalion Sherwood Foresters in the trenches the next day, while A Company and D Company formed carrying parties. On 24 June, five men were wounded, and one man was badly gassed, as the Battalion moved in support of the 1/6th South Staffs as they attacked Hill 65; the 1/5th South Staffs withdrew on 25 June to billets in Noulette Wood, the day 2522/242654 Private Cecil Barnes was killed. The men then completed two days preparation for the Brigade attack before moving back to Liévin.

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On 28 June, the 1/5th South Staffs attacked enemy trenches East of Cité de Riaumont. The Battalion occupied their assembly positions at 5.40 p.m. and launched their attack an hour and a half later, the men moving forward under the British artillery barrage. They maintained their formation until they reached the North-West slope of Hill 65 where the shell-ravaged ground and the debris from the destroyed houses inevitably led to some bunching. The Battalion continued until they reached their objective, all the while maintaining contact with the 1/6th North Staffs on their left flank and the 1/4th Battalion Leicestershire Regiment on their right. The German artillery’s counter-barrage was largely ineffective and caused few casualties as the men advanced. Four enemy machine gun posts did open up from Cité du Moulin shortly before the Battalion reached its target; however, these were brought under control by the Battalion’s Lewis guns and produced few casualties though their gunfire was heavy. The left flank met with little or no opposition but several isolated enemy groups offered resistance on the right of the advance. The enemy kept up its normal bombardment during the night of 28/29 June, German machine gunfire preventing a Battalion patrol entering and searching the remains of the houses West of Cité du Moulin. Aside from the German snipers, who were very active, the enemy was quiet from dawn on 29 June. An enemy aeroplane flying low over the Battalion’s sector at six o’clock in the morning was fired on by both the Lewis guns and the machine gun on Hill 65. At 10 p.m. the British bombardment brought a retaliatory barrage across Hill 65; the allied shelling of Cité du Moulin also produced two huge explosions, the debris almost reaching Ague Trench. 

As the Battalion’s objectives had been largely obliterated by shell fire, the leading wave of the attack pressed on into Ague Trench and Adroit Trench. They then set up a line of 10 posts in shell holes and that part of Ague Trench that still remained. Apart from occasional shell and machine gun fire, the enemy was quiet as these advances were consolidated. Covered by parties about 50 yards out in front, the men worked all night and ensured these forward posts were in good condition by dawn on 30 June. 

It was not possible to establish telephone links so runners were the only way of maintaining communication; however, the parlous state of the ground meant they frequently lost their way. Enemy snipers also inflicted casualties, restricting daylight communication to urgent messages only. 

It was estimated that 20 German soldiers were killed during the attack; one stretcher bearer was taken prisoner and two enemy machine guns were captured. Battalion casualties were significant: 2nd Lieutenant Neville Miller was killed and another officer was wounded. Four men from the ranks died in the action, two from B Company – 9987/200942 Lance Sergeant Samuel Lowe and 624/201212 Lance Corporal Harry Stretch – one from C Company – 9716/200819 Private William Cresswell – and one from D Company – 143/201012 Private Edward Oakley. Three men from B Company and 4 from C Company were reported missing: one did survive but 203240 Private John Arthur Hinton, 203333 Private Ernest Huxley, 203255 Private Frederick Bertram Mellor, 203268 Private Samuel George Richards, 201951 Private Albert Robins and 203269 Private William Adam Simpson were all subsequently confirmed to have been killed in the action on 28/29 June 1917. Forty-six men were reported to have been wounded in the attack – 4 from A Company, 14 from B Company, 17 from C Company and 11 from D Company. Five of them died later died from their wounds: 200465 Private Wilfred Arthur Thorneywork on 29 June, 201300 Private Henry Hopson on 1 July, 203203 Private Percy Blunt on 2 July, 203326 Private George Faulkner on 4 July, and 32941 Private John Brown who lived until 18 July 1917. 

The Battalion remained in the positions they’d captured until they were relieved during the night of 30 June/1 July. On 29 June, 201159 Private Joseph Thomas Littleford and 200560 Sergeant William Henry Tomkins were killed, they were both from A Company. The next day, the Battalion fought with the 1/6th North Staffs as they took a block of houses to the north of Adroit Trench, then Ague Trench as far north as the Liévin-Lens Road. This part of Ague Trench could not be attacked across open ground because of the enemy machine guns and barbed wire, but the objective was achieved eventually by men working round the flanks. However, 32154 Private Ambrose Roberts was killed and 2 other men from the ranks were wounded in the action that day; additionally, the deaths of 202223 Private Wilfred James Saunders and 203380 Private David Beards were confirmed subsequently, both men having been reported missing at the time.  

Officers had been informed on 29 June that the 46th Division was to be relieved by the 2nd Canadian Division on 2 July. Before then, there was to be one last attempt to take the outskirts of Lens from the enemy. This would take place on 1 July. During the night of 30 June/1 July, the 1/5th South Staffs moved into the trenches East of Liévin in readiness for that attack.

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At about 3 o’clock in the afternoon of 1 July, the 1/5th Battalion South Staffordshire Regiment received telephone orders to proceed to the trenches in support of the 1/5th North Staffs. The Battalion moved up via Absolem Trench, the leading half reaching the designated position in Abode Trench. However, the troops at the rear were held up by a heavy enemy barrage targeted at the Absolem and Agnes communication trenches; they could not move up until 10.30 p.m. and then only by half-platoons at intervals of 50 paces. When Lieutenant Colonel James Lamond – the Officer Commanding the 1/5th South Staffs – took charge of the sector at 5.30 p.m. he was told that two companies of the 1/5th North Staffs were surrounded in Aconite Trench and the remainder of the 1/5th North Staffs and 1/6th North Staffs were back in Ague Trench. The 138th and 139th Infantry Brigades had also been unable to make forward progress on the Battalion’s flanks. 

When he had verified the situation – to the extent that was possible – Lieutenant Colonel Lamond issued fresh orders for an attack. The intention was for the first two waves to reach the 1/5th North Staffs in Aconite Trench and secure that objective; the troops in the third wave were to act as moppers up, clearing the houses in the sector, with the 9th Hussars and 18th Lancers – in reserve – occupying Ague Trench. In the meantime, the 137th Infantry Brigade had also issued orders instructing the Battalion to launch an attack at 10 p.m. but these directives were not received until 6 minutes before that time, so the Brigadier – by telephone – delayed the assault by an hour; he also agreed Lamond’s plans for the attack. Lamond’s orders were issued at 10.05 p.m., and were sent out officer to officer, but – in the confusion – they took some time to reach the men at the front of the attack, 11.10 p.m. for the right flank, 11.25 p.m. for those on the left. 

The leading half platoon of the Company on the right flank reached Ague Trench shortly after Lamond’s orders had been received; they then tried to make contact with the 138th Infantry Brigade on the Battalion’s right flank some 200 yards to the south. As they arrived, the remainder of that Company extended their line to the left, the last group reaching Ague Trench at about 11.50 p.m. Realising, through reconnoitring, that they were 200 yards from their target, the Company Commander began moving his men into the correct position and this took until 12.15 a.m. on 2 July. Meanwhile, the Company on the left – which was supposed to be making its way up Adroit Trench to Ague Trench – was misled by their guide into the wrong trench; they were finally led to the correct position at 12.05 a.m. by their Company Commander and it was not until after 12.15 a.m. that the junction between the two companies was established. However, neither company was able to establish contact with the units on their flanks, the 138th Infantry Brigade on the right, the 139th Infantry Brigade on the left. The Company Commander on the right flank sent out a patrol at about 12.10 a.m. to locate the 4th Dragoon Guards, who were supposed to be moving up roads that had been allocated to them, but nothing was seen of them all night. 

Having been in position since 2 p.m., the 3rd wave – men from the 1/6th North Staffs – began to move forward, as ordered, at zero hour (midnight). Shortly afterwards, the Company Commanders at the front – hearing no bombing, rifle or machine gun fire, and seeing no signs that other men were advancing, the 138th and 139th Infantry Brigades in particular – decided in consultation at 12.20 a.m. not to attack. 

After he’d debriefed the Company Commanders, Lieutenant Colonel Lamond – in his report of 4 July to the 137th Infantry Brigade – gave reasons why his operational orders had not been carried out. He accepted that there had been considerable difficulty in getting the men to their designated positions prior to the attack and that the inexperience of junior officers had played a part in this. Lamond explained that the attack he had planned was not dependent on the support of the 138th and 139th Infantry Brigades, but the Company Officers had not appreciated this. In the debrief he had told the Company Officers that they should have informed headquarters – at once – that they felt the attack was inadvisable. They should have also made a special effort to locate the 4th Dragoon Guards and guide them into position; had they done so then the attack could have gone ahead as planned. Lamond acknowledged that the Company Officers had endeavoured to report to the senior officer in the trenches, Major Evans of the 1/6th South Staffs, but he had been withdrawn so they were not able to advise him of their opinion that the attack should not go ahead. Later, at 1.00 a.m. on 2 July they had been informed – by a cavalry officer in the headquarters previously occupied by Major Evans – that the 4th Dragoon Guards had withdrawn. By way of mitigation for the Company Officers’ decision, Lamond said that at zero hour (midnight) he had been outside his Headquarters listening for sounds to indicate that the attack had begun, but he too had heard nothing to suggest that it was taking place across the whole of the Battalion front. Lamond maintained that the delay in transmitting his orders was unavoidable, that signallers had been out constantly that night trying to repair the telephone wires. He had been forced to rely on runners who frequently lost their way on the shell torn ground and, on average, took an hour to deliver his orders. Lamond had sent 12 trained bombers from the 1/6th North Staffs to the 4th Dragoon Guards but these had also lost their way and had not arrived until 2.30 a.m. on 2 July. He said the 4th Dragoon Guards had failed to supply him with a report indicating whether they had been in the correct position at the designated time. Lamond acknowledged that his men were exhausted after all they had been through in the days leading up to this assault; however, he was confident they would have given their best if the attack had been carried out as planned.  

This attack may have been abandoned but it was not without its casualties. 32903 Private Henry Beardall and 841/201341 Lance Corporal Thomas Ryan, both of D Company, were killed in the action on 1 July; 977/201413 Private Frank Henry, who was reported missing at the time, was also killed in action that day. One officer and eleven men from the ranks were wounded. 766/201300 Private Henry Hopson – who had been wounded on 28 June – also died of his wounds on 1 July. A further six men were wounded on 2 July as the Battalion was relieved by the 22nd Battalion (French Canadian) Canadian Expeditionary Force; three men were also reported missing but they all survived. The following day, the 1/5th South Staffs moved into Divisional rest billets at Burbure, 20 miles north west of Liévin, where they spent the next three weeks training. On 14 July, 9649/200786 Private Benjamin Perry, 200335 Corporal Ernest Picken and 9855/200883 Private Adam Priest were decorated with the Military Medal by the Third Army Commander, General Sir Julian Byng. On 25 July the Battalion moved into the Divisional Reserve at Fouquières-lés-Béthune, north-west of Lens, where their training continued until 2 August. They then relieved the 1/5th Battalion Lincolnshire Regiment in the 137th Infantry Brigade Reserve at Mazingarbe, 7 miles north west of Lens, where their training continued until 7 August; every night they supplied parties to carry ammunition up to the 137th Infantry Brigade Trench Mortar Battery. 

On 8 August, the 1/5th South Staffs went back into the line, relieving the 1/6th South Staffs in the trenches south of Hulluch. Early impressions suggested the enemy was nervous and on the defensive, and the enemy artillery was generally quiet except when it responded to Canadian bombardment. German soldiers reduced their visibility in the front line after Battalion snipers scored some initial successes and, on 10 August, 2nd Lieutenant Frank Grove Fernyhough led a patrol which got into one of the enemy trenches where they killed six German soldiers before returning without suffering casualties. After a brief spell in Brigade Support, the 1/5th returned to the front line on 14 August in preparation for the Canadian attack on Hill 70 that was to take place the next day. Battalion casualties for the first two weeks of August were 8 men wounded.  

{Things were not going well for the Allies as the war dragged on into the summer of 1917. Widespread mutinies had undermined the efforts of the French army and the revolution in Russia had fundamentally changed the dynamics on the Eastern Front. The major Allied offensive at Passchendaele was bogged down in the mud of Belgium and, at sea, the German u-boat campaign was strangling the flow of the vital supplies Britain needed to continue fighting. The United States had recently entered the war, but it would be some time before its troops were ready to join the battle. Meanwhile, men had come to Britain’s aid from all over the Empire, not least from the province of Canada. 

In April 1917, Canadian troops had scored a significant victory for the Allies at Vimy Ridge. Shortly after, the British commander of the Canadian Corps, Lieutenant-General Sir Julian Byng, was promoted to General Officer Commanding the Third Army and Lieutenant-General Arthur Currie (who had played an important role in the planning and direction of the battle at Vimy Ridge) was named commander of the Canadian Corps, the first time a Canadian had been given that honour. His first major action was the Canadian attack at Hill 70, the high ground north west of Lens; it was hoped that this would force the German command to pull troops away from the heavy fighting around Passchendaele, weakening their position there.

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The Allied Commander, Field Marshal Douglas Haig, wanted Lieutenant-General Currie to attack the coal mining town of Lens, a few miles to the north of Vimy Ridge. The war had reduced large parts of Lens to a maze of ruined buildings and these provided the enemy with well-camouflaged defensive positions. The Germans also had full control of the high ground surrounding half the city. Currie surveyed the area extensively and concluded that it would be difficult for his artillery to destroy the German defences in Lens. Because the Canadians would be in the open, and the Germans would have them in their sites, a direct troop assault on the town would therefore result in a huge number of Allied casualties, and would make taking the city very difficult, let alone holding it. 

Currie persuaded Haig that the nearby high ground – to the north of and overlooking the city – would need to be taken before Lens itself could be attacked. The area, Hill 70, was so named because it rose 70 metres above sea level. Currie’s plan was to take its slopes with a surprise assault and then to quickly set up Canadian defences on the high ground; these would hold back the enemy counterattacks the Germans were bound to launch as they would not want the strategically-located Hill 70 to remain for long in Allied hands. 

Allied artillery softened up the German positions in the area and trench raids were launched south of Lens to mislead the enemy regarding the focus of the main attack. The offensive was launched on 15 August 1917 and the Canadians rapidly seized most of their objectives on the slopes of Hill 70. Taken by surprise, the Germans reacted as expected, making 21 counterattacks over the days that followed. The result was carnage as the Germans advanced again and again into the hail of bullets from around 250 Canadian machine guns. The fighting at Hill 70 was remarkably brutal even for the most battle-hardened soldiers. Poison gas was used extensively, forcing the men to gasp for air inside their respirators while they struggled to see enemy attacks through their fogged-up goggles. There was desperate hand-to-hand fighting to repel those German assaults that did get through to the Canadian defences, but Hill 70 remained stubbornly in Canadian hands despite the ferocity of the German counterattacks. 

However, the Germans still held Lens itself and the Allies began to sweep the town with fire from the heights they now commanded to the north. The Canadians went on the offensive on 21 August, and again on 23 August, launching attacks on the town itself. As Currie had anticipated, the exposed Canadian troops suffered significant casualties from the heavy fire of the German defenders. They did manage to capture the western portion of Lens, but the Canadian attacks then petered out in the face of stiff enemy resistance. The Battles for Hill 70 and Lens came to an end on 25 August; although the Canadians had not achieved all of their goals, they had brought the Allies another remarkable success. The Canadian soldiers displayed enormous courage and six of their number were awarded the Victoria Cross, 3 posthumously. However, the fighting took a devastating toll: the 100,000-strong Canadian Corps suffered 9,200 casualties in the period 15–25 August and it is thought that the enemy was hit even harder, as many as 25,000 Germans soldiers being killed, wounded or taken prisoner during this period.}

With the 46th (North Midland) Division on their left, the Canadians launched their attack on Hill 70 at 4.25 a.m. on 15 August and the first enemy counterattack came six hours later. By 11.30 a.m. a dozen waves of the German 4th Guards Infantry Division were moving diagonally in front of the British 137th Infantry Brigade, heading towards Hill 70. They maintained admirable order and were directed by a German officer riding a grey horse. The Allied artillery seemed to have little impact on the enemy advance, the enemy troops not faltering despite the losses they sustained. At 1700 yards, the machine guns of the 137th Infantry Brigade came into play and – at closer range – the Battalion’s rifles and Lewis guns were also able to target the German advance, though to little effect. As the Germans approached the Canadian lines, they came under heavy rifle and machine gun fire from the higher ground on Hill 70 and the trenches that had been captured in the early hours. Having reached them, the closest trenches now became the front line for what remained of the 4th Guards Infantry Division. 

At 12.30 p.m., C Company was withdrawn from the Battalion’s right front trenches to enable the British artillery to shell the German trenches that were close by. When C Company went to return in the afternoon, reports suggested that 2 or 3 German stragglers were in their trench. 2nd Lieutenant Reginald Briars and a couple of orderlies moved along the trench to see if this was true; in a dugout, they came upon – and shot – two soldiers from the German 5th Guard Regiment of Foot, a private and a Sergeant Major. Although the Battalion was not directly involved in the fighting for Hill 70, 4 officers and 11 men from the 1/5th South Staffs were wounded on 15 August. Two men from the ranks and one officer were also killed in that day’s action – 16/200957 Corporal William Butler, 242149 Private Walter Elliott Skevington and 2nd Lieutenant Harold Swindells, who had received his commission on 28 March 1917; he had landed in France on 19 June and had joined up with the Battalion on 2 July, just six weeks before the assault on Hill 70.  

The weather was fine all day on 16 August and the Battalion trenches came under shellfire as the Germans again counterattacked the Canadian positions on Hill 70. The German walking wounded could be seen limping away from the fighting and, although they had been working throughout the night, enemy ambulances continued moving backwards and forwards during the daylight hours, carrying away the wounded. The Allied artillery did not interfere with this gruesome task. Apart from some aeroplane activity, 17 August passed quietly. The Battalion was relieved that evening by the 1/6th South Staffs. At 11.45 p.m., just as the relief had been completed, the Canadians sent up an S.O.S. and the artillery on both sides began firing once more. Again, the fighting was concentrated on the Canadian defences on Hill 70, though it was thought – at first – that the front line of the 137th Infantry Brigade was also involved. The artillery fire gradually quietened down, and the Battalion was informed that another German counterattack had been repulsed. Two men from the Battalion were wounded on 17 August, three more had been injured the day before.  

The next three days were spent in the Brigade Reserve at Marzingarbe, 7 miles north west of Lens. At night, working parties carried poison gas cylinders from Vendin Dump up to the front line, a distance of more than a mile, along trenches made muddy by the rain. Each cylinder contained 60 pounds of gas and required two men to carry it; the men did two journeys each night. These working parties left camp at 9 p.m. each night and were not able to return until 6 a.m. the next morning. 

On 21 August, the Battalion again relieved the 1/6th South Staffs in the Hulluch Sector. During this relief, nine men from A Company were gassed as they moved up to the front. This tour lasted until the evening of 25 August and, every night, small Battalion patrols tried to enter the German front line trenches, but the nervous enemy sentries were alert to this threat. Buoyed by the Canadian successes on Hill 70, the officers, NCOs and men of the 1/5th South Staffs were keen to raid the enemy trenches. To this end, the British artillery tried to break the German barbed wire at the point where the Battalion intended to penetrate the enemy defences, but their efforts were not successful. Several men were gassed during this tour and nine men were wounded. 8887/200451 Corporal Frederick Arthur Baldwin was killed in action on 23 August and, two days later, five more men lost their lives: 9126/200576 Private Oliver Davies, 9698/200810 Acting Corporal Joseph Hughes, 33054 Private John William Kirk, 1312/201601 Private Arthur Rogers and 8024/20135/235028 Sergeant Harold Skinner.  

The Battalion spent 26 August in Brigade Reserve finalising the details for a double raid. The 1/6th South Staffs were to raid first, then – using the same penetration point – Captain Harold Alfred Ivatt, M.C. was to lead the Battalion’s raiding party, which was to be drawn from A Company and B Company. However, it rained intermittently all the next day, the intended day for the raid, and patrols from both the 1/5th and 1/6th South Staffs reported that the barbed wire had not been cut sufficiently so the raid was postponed for 24 hours. On 28 August, the heavy artillery was given the task of severing the barbed wire. At 6 o’clock that evening, reports were received saying the wire had now been cut sufficiently and 137th Infantry Brigade Headquarters gave the order for the raid to go ahead.  

At 8 p.m. – when there was still some daylight – five officers and one hundred other men from the ranks of the 1/6th South Staffs rushed the German trenches. By 9 p.m. they had withdrawn, having reached their objective with ease and having sustained only a few casualties; they returned with 5 prisoners from the 3rd Battalion 393rd German Infantry Regiment. Somewhat surprisingly, the prisoners seemed pleased to have been captured and one provided the location of the dugout occupied by their company commander; this was shelled during the second raid which began at 1 a.m. on 29 August. Captain Ivatt’s raiders – 7 officers and 104 from the ranks, plus 4 men from the 137th Infantry Brigade Trench Mortar Battery – had been divided into six groups. These moved forward as the Allied artillery barrage of the German lines lifted from trench to trench to create a horse-shoe shape that provided a measure of protection for the raiders. The 1/6th South Staffs had done such a good job in the first raid that Captain Ivatt’s men met with little opposition. A few enemy soldiers were encountered by one group but these were driven back up the German front-line trench using bombs and a Lewis gun. A second group came up against dogged and determined resistance from a solitary German soldier. The raiders withdrew by 2.10 a.m., having ensured that the enemy had abandoned their trenches and dugouts. Two officers and sixteen men from the ranks were wounded, mainly by enemy machine gun fire as it traversed the Battalion parapet. Two men were killed: 9115/200569 Sergeant John Samuel Halling and 8392/200262 Acting Corporal Charles Thomas Warman; on 12 April 1917, Sergeant Halling had been awarded the Military Medal for the bravery he had shown in a previous action. One man – 9001/200513 Private John Cunningham – was reported missing at the time and it was later confirmed that he also died that day.  

Two men were killed in action on 30 August: 4033/202975 Private Alfred Walters and 200184 Corporal John Ward. A third man was wounded the same day. In readiness for the winter, adjustments were made to the section of the front occupied by the 137th Infantry Brigade, and the Battalion received campaign orders to relieve the 1/6th North Staffs in the Hulluch sector. The relief was completed by 11.15 p.m. the next day. 

On its first full day in the sub-sector, 1 September, the Battalion was informed about possible enemy mining in that area. To investigate this rumour, 2nd Lieutenant William Norman Clifton Clark and an NCO slipped out in daylight to examine the crater system between the two front lines, with a view to patrolling them after dark. They found footprints but no enemy troops and no evidence of mining in either of the two southern craters. After dark, 2nd Lieutenant Clark led a patrol to investigate further, in particular to check the northern crater. This time the southern craters were occupied, and the enemy sentries were on alert, so the patrol was forced to withdraw. At 11 p.m. the Battalion operator of the listening apparatus reported that the enemy had been taking great care to check their telephones; later, they had also synchronised their watches. The information that an attack was coming was relayed at once to Brigade Headquarters. Next morning, 2 September, when the Germans attacked the Brigade to the north of the 1/5th South Staffs, they found the men alert and ready, with the result that the British took one prisoner and sustained no casualties in the encounter. Following up 2nd Lieutenant Clark’s hunch that the Germans might be occupying them after dark, a small patrol got into the craters during daylight and lay in wait for German troops to arrive, but by 10.30 p.m. none had appeared. After two fine days in the trenches, and having suffered no further casualties, the Battalion was relieved that night and went into Brigade Reserve at Verquin. They stayed there until 9 September and, in the glorious weather, the programme of platoon, company and Battalion training was supplemented with football matches, boxing bouts and even a cricket match between the officers and the sergeants, which the latter won by 24 runs. Early on the morning of 5 September, the enemy released a large cloud of gas along the 46th Division front, but this had little effect on the Battalion’s positive mood at Verquin.

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On 10 September, the Battalion moved to Brigade Support in Mazingarbe where the training and physical exercise continued. On 12 September, A Company and B Company practised “trench to trench attack”: as the men going into battle always expected the artillery to have achieved more than was realistic by way of creating breaks in the barbed wire, this exercise included negotiating uncut wire. C Company and D Company went through the same practice the following day.  

{The hand-carried explosive device used to destroy enemy barbed wire entanglements was known to the soldiers as an “ammonal tube” or “Bangalore Torpedo”. They measured about two and a half inches in diameter and varied in length depending on the depth of the barbed wire that had to be severed. A pointed wooden end was inserted in the front of the tube and the ammonal – a mixture of ammonium nitrate and aluminium powder – was then added. A flat plug was inserted in the rear end and a fuse was pushed through its pre-drilled hole; the fuse was then ignited, causing the ammonal to explode.} 

This period in Brigade Reserve – which ended during the evening of 14 September when the Battalion moved back into the front line at Hulluch – was notable for a freak accident to 20043/203337 Private Horace Hirst of C Company who was injured in the arm by a bullet that fell from the sky during an exchange of machine gunfire in an aerial dogfight between an allied aircraft and two enemy aeroplanes; at the time, the unfortunate Private Hirst had been diligently cleaning his mess tin by the canteen. Sadly, Private Hirst died later in the war, killed in action on 29 April 1918. 

The Battalion spent the remainder of the month rotating between the front-line trenches at Hulluch, Brigade Support at Mazingarbe and Brigade Reserve at Verquin. During the whole of September there were only 3 casualties, and these were slight. The Battalion did a good deal of work putting the trenches into a better state of repair in preparation for the coming winter but the attempts of patrols to capture German soldiers were frustrated by uncut wire, the alertness of the German sentries, and the reluctance of the enemy to venture beyond their own barbed wire. On 29 September, 33 other ranks joined the Battalion and were distributed between the companies; the majority of these were 19-year old lads experiencing the Western Front for the first time. Even with these additions, the Battalion was still short of numbers.  

The pattern of rotations continued on into October. During the night of 2/3 October, the Battalion sent out three patrols to find and penetrate the numerous gaps in the barbed wire that the 1/5th North Staffs had made with 14 ammonal tubes; however, they were unable to find any, so efficient was German organisation when it came to repair of their own wire.  During the evening of 4 October, the Germans made a determined attack on Cité St Auguste and the left side of Hill 70 but the 6th Infantry Division managed to resist this assault. That night the British sent up a huge poison gas cloud along the fronts of the 46th and 2nd Infantry Divisions. Apart from the Lewis gunners, all the infantry was withdrawn from the front line during this operation. For a short time, the men in the Reserve line stood on the fire steps in the trenches admiring the high gas cloud which could be seen clearly in the bright moonlight, then the Germans exploded white star shells over the scene and traversed the British trenches with machine gun fire. On 6 October, Australian tunnellers reported that they could hear work going on in the southern crater; a patrol led by 2nd Lieutenant George Webb dashed forward under a barrage of 2-inch trench and Stokes mortar shells. They did not find the enemy, or any sign of work in the crater, but they did discover the body of a Cameron Highlander near the surface of the crater; it was decomposed beyond recognition and was incapable of being removed, so they covered it reverently, as best they could, until such time as his final resting place could be marked in safety.  

During the evening of 11 October, after a brief spell in Brigade Support, the Battalion moved to the front line in the right Hulluch subsector, occupying the trenches from Chalk Pit Alley to Vendin Alley. The trenches were very wet and slippery and, next day, the men worked hard in the heavy rain to prevent things getting worse. As the 1/5th South Staffs War Diary pointed out, being on a quiet front provided opportunities for training – especially for the inexperienced young officers who had just joined the Battalion – and for preparing the new recruits for the more intensive warfare they would face in the future.  

A night patrol on 14/15 October discovered the body of a soldier from the 393rd German Infantry Regiment; his body should have been recovered weeks before as he was carrying letters dated 28 July that had never been posted home. The following night, when the Battalion returned to Brigade Reserve in Verquin, special precautions were taken to protect the men’s feet from the cold rain and the poor state of the trenches. There were no casualties during this brief tour, however twelve men did report sick on 16 October, though none needed hospital treatment. That day, which was primarily spent cleaning and bathing, saw the Battalion’s first game in the football league organised amongst the units of the 46th Division; the match against the Royal Engineers 466th Field Company ended in a 2 – 2 draw. The following evening, with the permission of the Town Mayor, the Battalion held boxing contests in Whizz Bang Hall; these were well contested and were followed by a short concert. 

At 5 p.m. on 18 October, the Battalion took over the tunnels in the Hulluch left subsector; having not suffered from the recent rain, these trenches were in good condition. Four patrols went out that night and managed to get beyond the German barbed wire, but they did not take any prisoners, a frustration that was to recur throughout this tour. 

On 20 October, Captain Simpson, of the American 34th Regiment, arrived at Battalion Headquarters. {The first U.S. infantry troops had landed in France on 26 June 1917. However, the “Doughboys” – as the British referred to them – were untrained and ill-equipped, far from ready to take part in the fighting on the Western Front. The commander of the U.S. Expeditionary Force, General John J. Pershing, set up training camps in France and established communication and supply networks. The first American troops went into combat on 21 October – 18 weeks after they had landed in France – deployed alongside French soldiers in the trenches of the Lunéville sector near Nancy in France.} Captain Simpson was an aide-de-camp to Major General George Bell, the Commander of the American 33rd Division. Two months earlier he had been on the US border, fighting with the American army against the Mexican revolutionary forces led by Pancho Villa. Captain Simpson spent the day observing a very different form of warfare, learning first-hand about life in the trenches. The Battalion found their visitor extremely informative, especially regarding America’s conscription of a new army corps to bolster the Allied forces on the Western Front. 

That night of 20/21 October, a patrol of 2 officers and 15 men from the ranks got into the enemy’s front-line trench but they were unable to take advantage of their position. Further south, 224/201038 Sergeant Richard Hartshorne was killed when a second patrol could not find a gap in the German wire. The Battalion spent the next 4 days in Brigade Support at Mazingarbe, those men who needed it being vaccinated against enteric (typhoid) fever. During the afternoon of 24 October, the 1/5th South Staffs played their second football league match, this time drawing 1 – 1 against the 1st Monmouths; they considered this a good result as the 1st Monmouths had already played 5 times, winning four times and drawing once.  

The following evening, the Battalion returned to the Hulluch left subsector. Once again regular patrols went out across No Man’s Land but – apart from discovering that the Germans had set up a row of dummies in their front line – only one group encountered a German patrol; there was a brief exchange of bombs and gunfire, and 2nd Lieutenant John Henry Hoare was wounded in the foot, the Germans then retired quickly to their own lines. Out of the blue, the enemy shelled the Quarry during the afternoon of 29 October; one of the six shells landed as a group of men were going to fetch their dinner; two men were killed –  202226 Private Joseph Norman Butler and 30120 Private Charles Henry Wilkes – and 4 others were wounded, though not seriously. This tour ended on 30 October and during it a lot of work went into improving the state of the trenches in readiness for a planned raid by the 1/6th North Staffs. The men of the Battalion were given tea at Mazingarbe on their way back to Brigade Reserve, and porridge and rum when they reached Verquin. 

On 1 November, the 1/5th Battalion South Staffordshire Regiment formed up in a hollow square and the Divisional Commander, Major General William Thwaites, presented the Military Cross to 2 soldiers from the 46th Division; 14 men received the Military Medal. Among the recipients was 8562/141468/200317 Lance Corporal Frank S Bailey from the 1/5th South Staffs; his citation read “During operations south-west of Lens on 28 June 1917, the NCO in charge of his Lewis Gun team was killed and Lance Corporal Bailey (then a Private) took command at once and led the team forward to the final objective. He established a post and, when attacked by a large party of the enemy, drove them off with the Lewis Gun and consolidated the post.” 

After the presentations, Major General Thwaites described the 1/6th North Staffs raid that had taken place the previous afternoon. Four minutes before zero hour, a dummy raid was made 100 yards to the north of the main attack and this drew the whole of the German artillery; those trenches had been filled with dummies and “only 20 of these inanimate heroes were left alive”. At 4.30 p.m. the 1/6th North Staffs went over the top on a 350-yard front 4 companies deep; they occupied the enemy’s first, second and third trenches and met no retaliation or machine gunfire. They estimated that they killed over 100 German troops; these had been occupying dugouts in the front line covered over with iron sheeting or sacking; they also took 48 prisoners. The raiders from the 1/6th North Staffs remained there for 40 minutes then returned with their prisoners. They were all back by 5.30 p.m. and, although 11 men were injured, their wounds were not serious. Major General Thwaites described it as “a devilish good raid, well planned and well carried out”. 

After the parade, the 1/5th South Staffs beat the 1/4th Battalion Lincolnshire Regiment 4 – 0 in their third football match in the 46th Division league. The following evening, the men were entertained to boxing bouts and a concert, but 24 hours later the Battalion found itself back in the trenches of the Hulluch left subsector. On 4 November, 2nd Lieutenant Lester of the American Infantry joined D Company on a 3-day attachment. He was eager to gain experience and was interested to learn that the machine-gun bullets flying over his head were at least 50 yards above him; when they came down to body level, he learned his first lesson in practical warfare: how to jump into the nearest trench. That evening, a patrol led by 2nd Lieutenant George Lancelot Lamb got into the enemy front line; no Germans were found but a store of hand grenades was discovered and detonated. 

On 5 November, listening apparatus picked up coded German conversations that suggested the enemy was planning a trench mortar bombardment; forewarned, the British artillery prepared to respond should the enemy begin shelling. At five minutes past ten that night, the British fired one hundred and fifty 30-lb poison gas shells at enemy positions in Hulluch and Cité St. Elie. The Gas Officer estimated that the barrage would kill 30 enemy troops and inflict about 200 casualties. At the same time, to the left of the Battalion, 3 officers and 80 men from the 1/4th Battalion Lincolnshire Regiment left their assembly positions in No Man’s Land and rushed the enemy front line, killing a few German troops and capturing 2 others. However, the officers in command of the German line had just been carried away, wounded in the opening barrage. The enemy was now fully aware of the raid, and was ready to retaliate, so the 1/4th Lincolnshire abandoned their original intention to press forward into the 2nd and 3rd German lines.

Good news began to filter through from a number of fronts: French success on the Aisne, British success in Gaza, and most especially the Allied capture of Passchendaele. However, suggestions at home that the war could be over by Christmas were tempered with news of a significant setback, the Germans and Austrians taking over 180,000 prisoners and pushing the Italians back to their own border. Meanwhile, with German connivance, Lenin had seized power in Russia; his government’s decision to sue for peace allowed German troops to be withdrawn from the East to bolster the enemy’s hard-pressed forces on the Western Front, and this prolonged the war. 

After another spell in Brigade Support at Mazingarbe, the 1/5th South Staffs returned to the Hulluch right subsector during the evening of 11 November. That night, three patrols went out; the first patrol was uneventful but the second made an unsuccessful attack on a German outpost and had 6 men wounded, one seriously. The third patrol, led by 2nd Lieutenant Leslie Frederick Burton, located another German outpost, and the following night he and 2nd Lieutenant Charles Lindop assembled in No Man’s Land with 28 other ranks; at 8.45 p.m. Lindop and 2 Lewis guns seized a crater and opened fire on the enemy’s front and second line. At the same time, Burton and 10 men made for the German outpost; they had some difficulty getting through the barbed wire but, once through, Burton fired at and wounded 2 German soldiers who quickly ran off; Burton and his men then jumped down into the outpost where they found and killed a third German. The party collected his papers: he was 35 years old, had a poor physique and was from the 215th Prussian Infantry Regiment which had previously seen service on the Eastern Front. The patrol – which had suffered no casualties – then withdrew to their own lines. 

202758 Private Robert Leighton of A Company was killed in action on 12 November. Both sides shelled the opposition front lines over the next two days, then, at 10.40 p.m. on 14 November, the Allies projected another 700 gas cylinders at enemy positions in Hulluch and Cité St. Elie. 8956/200481 Private Frank Coleman was killed in action that day. The Battalion was relieved the following evening and went into Brigade Reserve at Verquin, where they were joined by a draft of 48 reinforcements. The day after, the Battalion drew 2 – 2 in their next football match, their opponents, the 1/6th South Staffs, coming back from 2 – 1 down at half time to snatch a draw in the last 10 minutes. Bathing and equipment inspections occupied the next two days, but training was limited as the range was being rebuilt. On 17 November, an evening of boxing matches was followed by a concert, during which 8201/200198 Drummer George Getley recited the poem “Gommecourt Wood” that he had written about the action of the Staffords on 1 July 1916. {Drummer Getley was born in 1896 and lived in Bridgtown, Cannock. He joined up in March 1913 and went to France in March 1915. He served with the 1/5th South Staffords throughout the war, which he survived.} 

The following day, the Battalion beat the Army Service Corps 2 – 1 in their next match in the 46th Division football league. On 19 November, the 1/5th South Staffs moved up once more to the front-line trenches in the Hulluch left subsector. The commander of the 46th Division, Major General William Thwaites, visited Battalion Headquarters on 20 November and commended the good bearing of the men. Night patrols went out again, but they found little of any significance to report, other than that they had entered the enemy front line and found it abandoned.

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In the early morning of 21 November, 20514/2577/203417 Lance Corporal Charley Gully was killed at Number 3 post. That night, A Company was excused work detail as most of its men, and many from C Company, were suffering from gastric infections. At midnight, 2 officers and 28 men from the ranks attacked a German post but found no Germans occupying that section of the enemy trench; after a brief wait the men withdrew and were back – without casualties – in their own trench by 12.20 a.m., the Germans having fired not a single shot to deter the raid, possibly because they had anticipated the raid and withdrawn.  

Next day, news filtered through that the 3rd Army under Lieutenant-General Sir Julian Byng had attacked on an 8-mile front and had taken 8000 prisoners as it pushed the Germans back 3 or 4 miles towards Cambrai, three miles from the Battalion’s position.  

{The Battle of Cambrai (20 November – 30 December 1917) saw tanks used en masse for the first time. They were deployed alongside heavy artillery, the cavalry and the infantry even though they had not yet demonstrated their value and reliability in battle. Mobility – which had been notably lacking for most of the war – contributed to early British successes but, once again, these proved to be short lived.  

The town of Cambrai had fallen to the Germans in 1914 and, by 1917, had become one of the most important railheads and headquarters towns behind the German lines. Cambrai was on the supply routes that came in from Germany and the northern and eastern industrial areas of occupied France. It lay on the Scheldt River, known locally as the Escaut River, and was located at the junction of the Saint-Quentin Canal and the Canal de l'Escaut, which meant Cambrai could also be supplied via these waterways. In front of it lay the Siegfriedstellung, the Hindenburg Line. Cambrai’s defences consisted of two trench systems, with deep barbed wire defences in front of each. The trenches were dotted with concrete blockhouses containing machine gun posts, signals stations and infantry shelters. There were also underground works, and a third trench system was under construction. Even if those defensive positions could have been breached, it would have been extremely difficult for the Allies to fight their way through the industrial town in order to secure it. The British therefore planned for a direct attack on the Hindenburg Line during which three cavalry divisions would simultaneously encircle and cut off Cambrai. 

The attack began at 6.20 a.m. on 20 November 1917 with the artillery bombarding the Hindenburg Line and key points to its rear. The onslaught’s intensity caught the Germans by surprise and was followed by the curtain of a creeping barrage which shielded the 350 British tanks and infantry as they advanced across the ground. On the first day, and with few casualties, the British attack broke rapidly through apparently impregnable German defences. The initial attack went well and in some places 5 miles was gained, an astonishing distance by comparison with the paltry gains made on the Somme.  

However, not everything went according to plan. After a hard fight, the 20th (Light) Division captured the village of La Vacquerie on the Hindenburg Line; they then advanced to Masnières and the main bridge crossing the vital St. Quentin Canal (at that point known as Canal de l’Escaut). Securing the bridge was vital if the 2nd Cavalry Division was to move on to the east of Cambrai as planned. However, the bridge’s back was broken by the weight of “Flying Fox II”, the first tank to cross it, and that brought to a halt the planned cavalry advance to Cambrai; however, infantry could still cross the canal – albeit slowly – using a lock gate a couple of hundred yards further along the canal. Inexplicably, the lightly defended canal crossings at Crèvecoeur-sur-l’Escaut – 2 miles to the east – were not used until too late in the day.

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The speed and extent of the advance led to a number of British army units becoming isolated and this undermined the command structure. British units also got bogged down at other points in the attack. Once through the Hindenburg Line, the 6th Division moved forward and captured Ribécourt before fighting their way through Marcoing. The 5th Cavalry Division pushed through and beyond them but they were repulsed in front of Noyelles-lès-Vermelles. The 51st (Highland) Division fought hard but were unable to capture Flesquières; because they couldn’t keep up with the pace of the advance, that left a salient which exposed the flanks of the neighbouring Divisions to German counterfire. On the left of Flesquières, the 62nd (2nd West Riding) Division fought hard through the ruins of Havrincourt and up through Graincourt; by nightfall they were within sight of the commanding heights of Bourlon Wood. This division had covered almost five miles from their starting point; not surprisingly, they were exhausted. Meanwhile, the 36th (Ulster) Division had moved up the dry excavations of the Canal du Nord, and by day’s end lay alongside the Bapaume-Cambrai road.  

The gain on that first day was little short of miraculous, three to four miles – against strong defences – in a little over four hours, and at a cost of just over 4000 casualties. News of the spectacular advance reached home and prompted victory bells to be rung in Britain on 23 November, far too prematurely. Despite the successes, it was on that first day that things began to go wrong for the Third Army: the cavalry was unable to push on and encircle Cambrai as planned; the key Bourlon Ridge, which dominated the northern half of the battlefield, remained stubbornly in German hands; and 179 of the 350 tanks had either broken down or had been disabled or destroyed. With few fresh troops, Byng ordered a halt late on 21 November and consolidation of the gains began; however, Haig ordered Byng to continue with the attack on Bourlon Ridge; this proved to be a serious mistake and became a bitter fight for every yard. The attack began to lose its early impetus by the afternoon of that first day, and, as the days passed, it became more and more clear that the Third Army would not achieve its objectives.

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By November 30th, the Germans had regrouped and were ready to mount a counter-attack to defend Cambrai. When it came, their response was extremely effective and by the end of the operation the Germans had recaptured much of the ground that had been lost in the early days of the battle, so much so that, on 3 December, Haig ordered the withdrawal of those British units that were still near Cambrai.  

The Third Army reported losses of dead, wounded and missing of 44,207 between 20 November and 8 December. Of these, about 6,000 were taken prisoner in the enemy counter-attack on 30 November. Enemy casualties were estimated at approximately 45,000. However, by the end of the operation the tank had demonstrated its potential and the Allies had shown that the Hindenburg Line was not impregnable.} 

The Battalion was relieved on 23 November and spent a brief spell in Brigade Support at Noyelles-lès-Vermelles where four officers joined as reinforcements. It was bitterly cold and there was a shortage of fuel. What with the rain, wind and cold – and the doctor giving inoculations against enteric (typhoid) – training was limited.  On 27 November, the predicted rain failed to materialise as the men made their way back up to the trenches in the Hulluch right subsector, where the unoccupied sections were targeted early the following morning by the enemy’s “flying pigs” (heavy trench mortars). At 10.30 p.m. that night, the Royal Engineers – on the left – fired 830 gas bombs at Hulluch and Cité St. Elie, while the 11th Division discharged 500 more on the right; this provoked some artillery, trench mortar and machine gun fire from the enemy. At the same time, a patrol led by 2nd Lieutenant Leslie Frederick Burton tried to get through the enemy barbed wire, but it was too thick at that point; they had hoped the Royal Artillery bombardment would cut the wire sufficiently to allow them to proceed beyond it. Nevertheless, the patrol was able to establish that the enemy front line was unoccupied. A second patrol, led by 2nd Lieutenant George Lancelot Lamb, delayed their approach to a second section of the wire and were spotted as they clambered out of the front line; 6202/200015 Sergeant Alfred Edge was shot in the shoulder and, as he helped the sergeant back to the Battalion’s lines, 2nd Lieutenant Lamb was wounded in the thigh, though not seriously; 3139/240658 Private Joseph Edward Cox and 1211/201546 Private James Yates were also wounded and all four men were sent for hospital treatment; these setbacks put an end to that patrol’s work for the night. Sadly, Private Yates died of his wounds the next day; the War Diary describes him as “a most brave and good soldier, one of the keenest patrollers the Battalion had, the first to volunteer in any weather or conditions”; news of his death was received with great regret by his officers. 

On the final day of November 1917, a night patrol of 25 men and 2 officers attacked an enemy post near Posen Crater. 2nd Lieutenant Reginald Frank Compton Dare and 6 men managed to get into the post, but they were driven back by heavy enemy bombing. 2nd Lieutenant Dare and three men were wounded; the death of 10582 Private Samuel Wilkinson – who was reported wounded and missing – was confirmed the following day; 18684 Private Alfred William Bayliss, who was also reported missing at the time, was killed in action a few days later, on 11 December. 

After a stormy night, a patrol of 2 officers and 29 men returned in the early hours of 1 December to an enemy post they had reconnoitred the night before. They launched an attack under cover of 3-inch Stokes mortars, but the post was fully manned and the men were forced to withdraw in the face of heavy rifle fire. When the patrol returned they were sent back out to try again to take the post, but the enemy maintained their resolute defence and halted the patrol’s second assault; 2nd Lieutenant Bernard Ryland Joseph Gilbert was killed by machine gun fire in the fighting and his men were forced to withdraw once more. The rest of the day passed quietly. In the evening the Battalion was relieved by the 1/6th South Staffs and marched to Brigade Reserve at Noeux-les-Mines where they spent the next 3 days training, cleaning and refitting. 

At 8 o’clock the following morning, an enemy aeroplane dropped a bomb on Brigade Support killing Lieutenant Colonel Frederick Joseph Trump, the popular and respected Commanding Officer of the 1/6th South Staffs, and one other man. During the afternoon of 4 December, the Battalion played their next football match in the 46th Division football league. The game against the Division Signal Company, which ended in a 0 – 0 draw, was played as the village was being shelled; indeed a 10-inch shell fell on the centre of the pitch 5 minutes before full time; fortunately, it failed to explode and the football continued without any break in play. That evening the Battalion was treated to an excellent concert by the 160th Labour Company Pierrot Troupe. The following afternoon – as news came through of the major reverses inflicted on the Allied line by the German counter-attack in the Battle of Cambrai – the men began the march back to the trenches in the Hulluch left subsector. The Battalion officers were told that night patrols did not need to be conducted so diligently. They were told instead to focus their attention on strengthening the barbed wire, starting with the front line and working back from there. When they were out wiring in the cold weather, the men were given hot porridge, hot rice or hot soup at 12.30 a.m. and hot tea or hot cocoa at 3 a.m. They got a tot of rum when they began their shift and had breakfast at 7 a.m. when they stood down. 

At half past ten in the morning of 7 December, a single-seater enemy aeroplane came in range of the Battalion’s anti-aircraft Lewis guns, and was shot down by 8862/200439 Corporal Walter Crutchley; however the Lewis gunners were so buoyed up by this success, and were so busy telling their comrades about it, that they failed to report it immediately, which allowed the Brigade Machine Gun Company to claim the hit.  

That afternoon, the enemy began heavy shelling of Hill 70; the Battalion’s right sector was also targeted and two men from A Company – 203575 Private Thomas Allsop and 17084 Private Walter Lloyd – were killed by a trench mortar shell. At the request of A Company, the Allied Artillery provided appropriate retaliation. 47 reinforcements arrived at the trenches at half past six that evening and were distributed between the four companies; 11 more were kept back for baths, de-lousing and, in one case, treatment for scabies. At 7 o’clock, the enemy sent up numerous lights – red, green, orange and white – and did so again later in the evening, but nothing came of these colourful displays. Two days later, the Battalion was relieved and went into Brigade Support at Noyelles-lès-Vermelles for bathing, equipment cleaning and company inspections. 

In the afternoon of 11 December, on the left flank of the 46th Division front, the 138th Infantry Brigade raided the enemy trenches north of Hulluch Road and penetrated, through the German front and second lines, to the third line. The enemy sustained heavy casualties and their trenches and dugouts were severely damaged. The 138th Infantry Brigade captured 5 prisoners in the attack, and a machine gun, for the loss of 4 men killed and 21 wounded. 

The following afternoon, the 1/5th South Staffs beat Divisional Headquarters 3 – 0 in their latest match in the 46th Division football league. By then, news had reached the Battalion that Lieutenant General Sir Edmund Allenby’s Egyptian Expeditionary Force had surrounded and captured Jerusalem on 9 December, bringing to an end four centuries of rule by the Ottoman Empire. It also freed the city from Muslim control for the first time since the crusades. At home, bells were rung in celebration and British Prime Minister David Lloyd George described the liberation of Jerusalem as "a Christmas present for the British people".

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Back in the trenches of the Hulluch right subsector, enemy machine gunfire killed 30965 Private William Murray and injured another man at dawn on 14 December. The barbed wire needed strengthening right across the front occupied by the 137th Infantry Brigade. This had become a matter of urgency as the British strategy became more defensive, in anticipation of enemy troops arriving from the Eastern front following the non-aggression pact between Germany and the new Bolshevik leadership in Russia. 

In 1910, Britain’s traditional ally Portugal had overthrown its monarchy. The new Republic was then ruled by a series of unstable governments which seriously undermined the Portuguese economy. Although the country continued to assist its long-time ally, there was no widespread support for Portuguese involvement in the war. Then, in December 1917, a military junta overthrew the ruling Portuguese Government in a coup d'état. The parlous state of the Portuguese economy, and the new regime’s less than enthusiastic support for the war effort, meant that Portugal was now a far from reliable ally, even though it did send about 100,000 Portuguese troops to fight alongside the Allies, in the British sector of the Western Front and also in Mozambique; an estimated 10,000 of these were killed or wounded. 

Over the next three days, the weather turned much colder and snow began to fall on 17 December. The Battalion was relieved that afternoon and spent the next 4 days in Brigade Reserve at Noeux-les-Mines. With the hard frost and cheerful fires, at times it almost seemed seasonal, especially as gifts and Christmas cards began to arrive from home. The 1/5th South Staffs received a donation of £75 from the Mayor of Walsall – the 2/5th South Staffs received a similar amount – and Major John Lees, who was recuperating from his wounds back home, collected £100 from friends to swell the Battalion’s Christmas fund, which also received a 1000 Francs contribution from the 137th Infantry Brigade canteen and 500 Francs from the 46th Division.  

On 21 December, the 1/5th moved back up to the front-line trenches in the Hulluch left subsector. Officers returning from leave reported a scarcity of sugar in Walsall, an indication that people back home were also feeling the effects of the war. On Christmas Eve, the 46th Division put on “a show”, targeting the enemy with 900 gas bombs in half an hour, with the 42nd Division on their left joining in to create a massive noise. The Germans retaliated but did little damage. As snow threatened on Christmas Day, the men received extra rations with their breakfast and each Company was provided with a case of bottles of beer, so each man could have one with his dinner. The Battalion was relieved during the afternoon and moved to Brigade Support in Mazingarbe for three days of cleaning, bathing and training in the freezing weather, before moving to the trenches in the Hulluch right subsector during the afternoon of 29 December, the coldest day of the year so far. With snow returning at 9 p.m. on New Year’s Eve, both sides fired their weapons to welcome in 1918. 

After a quiet day, the Germans began an intense artillery barrage at 8 o’clock in the evening of New Year’s Day 1918. They were targeting the 3rd Canadian Division on the Battalion’s right flank and the Canadians sustained a large number of casualties as the Germans attacked to the south of Hill 70. 28503 Private Lewis Blower was killed as the 1/5th South Staffs caught the fringe of the enemy shelling and 40024 Private George R. Stanley was wounded and taken to hospital. The following morning there was some aerial activity when two British aeroplanes prevented eleven enemy aircraft from flying over the Allied lines. That afternoon the Battalion was relieved and went again to Brigade Reserve at Noeux-les-Mines. At 1 o’clock the following afternoon, the sergeants carved and waited on the men as they finally got to enjoy a grand meal, their Christmas Dinner and New Year Dinner all rolled into one: 90 turkeys, 60 geese, hams, cake and a bottle of beer for each man. The sergeants then sat down to their own meal, and the officers had theirs at 8 p.m. 

The weather was cold in Brigade Reserve, but strenuous training and gas mask practice filled the days until the men returned to the trenches in the Hulluch left subsector on 7 January: D Company in the tunnels; C Company providing troops for Vendin Post; A Company, B Company and the remnants of C Company in the Reserve Line. The 46th Division Commander, Major General William Thwaites, visited Battalion Headquarters at noon the following day; as he wished everyone a Happy New Year, he announced that the 46th Division was due to be relieved for a six-week holiday. On 10 January, as rain brought a welcome thaw in the weather, word came through that the divisional relief was scheduled to start on 16 January and that the Battalion would be replaced by the 33rd Infantry Brigade of the 11th Division. As part of the normal rotations, the 1/5th South Staffs were relieved that afternoon and, while A Company and B Company remained in Tenth Avenue, the rest of the men had a slushy and muddy march back to Brigade Support in Mazingarbe. Nightly patrols had resumed during this tour and, although they had taken no prisoners, the men’s morale remained high.  

After 2 days of heavy snow, the 1/5th moved back to the Hulluch right subsector on 14 January. There was little evidence that the winter weather had done any serious damage to the trenches which were in surprisingly good order. However, a raid that night by the Canadians brought a swift enemy response that left the Battalion’s front line “knocked about a bit”. The following evening, orders came through postponing the promised divisional relief. The decision had been taken as a precaution; after heavy snow – and now rain, hail and thunderstorms – the thaw had made movement treacherous; the mud made the trench boards so slippery that one company asked for pumps to remove some of the stagnant water.  

After another brief period in Brigade Reserve at Noeux-les-Mines, the Battalion moved up once more, during the afternoon and evening of 22 January, to the trenches in the Hulluch right subsector. Their first day passed quietly but, at 9 o’clock that night, 2nd Lieutenant Ronald Terence Bloor led a party of 8 men from C Company on patrol. There was bright moonlight and the patrol was spotted. The men came under rifle and machine gun fire near the enemy barbed wire and 40206 Private John Edward Williams and 2nd Lieutenant Bloor were wounded, the latter severely. 2nd Lieutenant Bloor’s men fetched a stretcher, and carried him back to the Battalion lines, but he died of his wounds at the dressing station. 

The next day, 24 January, was quiet with the promise of good weather to come. That evening the Battalion was replaced by the 6th Battalion of the Border Regiment as part of the promised divisional relief; the men marched to billets in Houchin, Battalion Headquarters to Fouquières-lés-Béthune, as the 137th Infantry Brigade moved to Corps Reserve. 

The first two days were spent cleaning up and re-organising from 2 to 3 platoons per company. Church Parade on 27 January was followed by two days of wiring south of Drouvin-le-Marais. Word came through on 30 January that the 1/5th North Staffs had been transferred to the 176th Infantry Brigade in the 59th (2nd North Midland) Division; a week later, they absorbed the remnants of the 2/5th North Staffs, that Battalion and the 2/6th North Staffs ceasing to exist as separate units. This was part of a wider re-organisation designed to reduce each brigade from 4 to 3 battalions because of the shortage of men on the Western Front. The weather turned much colder at the end of January, but practice continued on the firing range; wiring, training and inspections filled the first week of February 1918 which ended with the men preparing for a long march, though they were not told the destination. A loaded lorry went ahead on 8 February and, at twenty past eight the following morning, the Battalion marched to Vaudricourt where they formed up with the rest of the 137th Infantry Brigade – Brigade Headquarters, Billeting Parties, 1/6th North Staffs, 1/6th South Staffs, 1/5th North Staffs and 1/5th South Staffs. At 10 o’clock, the long column set off for Burbure via Fouquières-les-Béthune, Fouqueuril, Labeuvrière, Lapugnoy, Marles-les-Mines and Lozinghem, a distance of about 12 miles. Fortunately, the weather was fine and they reached Burbure at a quarter past two in the afternoon, no one having fallen by the wayside. At twenty past eight the following morning the Battalion marched to Heuchin via Hurionville, La Bellery, Amettes, Nédon, Fontaine-lès-Hermans and Fontaines-lès-Boulans, a similar distance to the previous day but in horrible, wet conditions that left 3 men unable to keep up.  

Training, rest and recreation filled the rest of February but, on 1 March, the men were on the move once more. Over the next four days they made their way via Febvin-Palfart and Busnes to Beuvry. On 5 March, at half past eight in the morning, the 1/5th South Staffs moved up to the trenches in the Cuinchy north subsector, 5 miles east of Bethune; there they shared the 137th Infantry Brigade’s front and support lines with the 1/6th North Staffs who had moved to the Cuinchy south subsector. They were now about 5 miles north-west of the Hulluch subsector.

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The 1/5th Battalion South Staffordshire Regiment occupied about 750 yards of the front, from The Lane to La Bassée Canal. The company on the left occupied the Brickstack area; the Allies held 15 of these stacks altogether. There were defended by machine gun emplacements in the stacks themselves and several had men, in position, in trenches behind them. Tunnels led to these posts but the tunnels in that area were markedly different to those the men had experienced in the Hulluch sector; these were very low and resulted in a great deal of bad language, even from the officers. The Germans held 13 brickstacks in front of the Battalion and the No Man’s Land that separated the two sides was a mess of unoccupied shell holes and craters, the barbed wire being in a poor state on both sides. The 1/6th South Staffs were in Support to the west, at Annequin and Le Préolan; the 138th Infantry Brigade were to the right of the 137th, and the 139th Infantry Brigade were in Divisional Reserve at Beuvry. 

There was a great deal of noise on the Battalion’s left at 5.30 a.m. the following morning, as if the enemy was welcoming them to the area. The Company on the right flank and Battalion Headquarters in Glasgow Road were also targeted by gas shells; there were no casualties, just the inconvenience and discomfort of having to wear gas masks. Things settled down after that initial flurry and the days were generally fine and quiet. On 8 March, an officer from the Machine Gun Corps was attached to the 1/5th South Staffs as liaison; being young, he got his leg pulled repeatedly. Next day, the Battalion relieved the 1/6th South Staffs in Brigade Support; A Company and B Company moved into Village Line, C Company and D Company into the unshelled section of the village of Annequin that lay north of La Bassée Road. The men’s first tour in the Cuinchy sector had been generally quiet and free of casualties. That evening, 9 March, the enemy fired 200 gas shells, targeting battery positions to the Battalion’s rear. The response came in the very early hours of both the 11th and 12th March, when the Allied artillery harassed the enemy lines north of La Bassée canal. Although the nights were cold and frosty, these days in early Spring saw some glorious sunshine.  

A second tour of the front-line trenches, from 13th to 17th March, saw an increase in action from the enemy artillery; meanwhile, night-time Battalion patrols in No Man’s Land passed uneventfully. On 16 March, the enemy targeted the Cuinchy area and succeeded in knocking in the entrance to Marylebone Tunnel, burying one man from the 1/5th South Staffs. Although the German shells did not contain poison gas, the explosion caused afterdamp which injured 9 men, 3 of whom had to be sent away for treatment. The enemy artillery also caused some damage to Hertford Street and Esperanto Street. {“Firedamp” is the name given to the flammable gas – consisting primarily of methane – that accumulates in pockets in coal seams. Firedamp is derived from the German word “dampf”, meaning vapours. “Afterdamp” is the mixture of choking and suffocating gases found in a coal mine after a fire or explosion caused by firedamp; afterdamp has a high content of carbon dioxide, but can also contain nitrogen, carbon monoxide and sometimes hydrogen sulphide.} 

The 55th Division raided the northern side of La Bassée canal at 5 o’clock in the morning of 17 March, but this had no effect on the Battalion’s relief by the 1/6th South Staffs which was completed by 11 a.m. The Battalion moved into Brigade Support in the Cuinchy Sector of the Cambrin defences; A Company and B Company moved into Village Line, north of La Bassée Road; C Company, D Company and Battalion Headquarters into Annequin. The Cambrin defences were in a state of neglect, but the Battalion was advised not to work on them too openly in case they attracted enemy attention. However, the barbed wiring was in good condition, and the machine gun placements had been sited with care, making the area difficult to attack. The trench lines were clear, so the men took picks and shovels with them as they made their way up to their posts. There were no accommodation dugouts, which forced the infantry to take what rest they could in the open trenches. At night, parties of 150 men worked on the barbed wire. 

18 March was a bright summer day with more enemy aerial activity than normal. That evening, the Germans lit up the sky as they shelled what they wrongly thought were allied gun positions near the Fosse. Reports – based on information supplied by a prisoner captured by the 138th Infantry Brigade – indicated that the Germans were planning an offensive that month directed against Richebourg and the area south of La Bassée canal. On 20 March, the Battalion completed its reconnaissance of the Cambrin Defences and prepared its defence scheme. The enemy artillery was very active the next morning as the Battalion moved to Le Préolan after being relieved by the 1/6th South Staffs. There was very heavy bombardment of the Allied front and shelling near the quartermaster stores left 9 men from the 1/5th wounded. The Battalion received telephone orders to stand to arms, which they did until the early hours of 22 March, when it became clear that the focus of the German attack had been the 138th Infantry Brigade, who had 2 men killed, 1 wounded and 14 taken prisoner.

The withdrawal of Russia from the war in December 1917 allowed the German Army to transfer 50 divisions from the Eastern Front, bringing relief to and substantially increasing its forces on the Western Front. Aware that submarine warfare had failed to force Britain to the negotiating table, the Germans launched a massive offensive on 21 March 1918 with the intention of bringing an end to the war before the American Expeditionary Force could be fully deployed. The German aim was to isolate the British Expeditionary Force first and, having done so, then compel the French to surrender.

Picture 78

On 22 March, information reached the 1/5th South Staffs that the German Offensive had begun across a 50–mile front, focussing on the areas near Cambrai and to the south of Arras; however, early communiques indicated that the enemy had not, as yet, broken through divisional lines.  

On 23 March, the Battalion marched about 5 miles to Divisional Headquarters at Fouquières-lès-Béthune where 28 officers and 568 other ranks were inspected by Major General William Thwaites, the General Officer Commanding the 46th Division; they then marched back to Le Préolan. The questioning of prisoners taken by the 138th Infantry Division had generated reports saying that three divisions had arrived to reinforce the 4th Ersatz, the enemy division facing the 1/5th South Staffs across No Man’s Land; furthermore, the enemy was planning to attack on 25 March. As a precaution the Battalion was ordered to stand to – with rifles loaded and bayonets fixed – from dusk till dawn during the night of 24/25 March. The Allied artillery was expected to hold back the assault by bombarding – at regular one-minute intervals – the German rear and front lines, and the roads and tracks the enemy would use. In the event, the Allied artillery did not go into action and the night passed quietly apart from a plane that flew low over Le Préolan firing tracer bullets at the Battalion billets; fortunately, these did no damage. In the meantime, the 55th Division took some prisoners as they carried out raids on the Battalion’s left. 

At 9 o’clock in the morning of 25 March, the Battalion relieved the 1/6th South Staffs in the Cuinchy Sector. The 1/5th were careful and vigilant as they took over the posts previously held by the 1/6th, however the front line was occupied only at the tunnel entrances; isolated posts in the front line were also withdrawn in anticipation of the German attack; the Battalion did occupy the reserve line, but only with guns trained on the enemy trenches. Intelligence reports suggested that, to support their major offensive to the south, the Germans were planning subsidiary attacks, including one south of the La Bassée Canal. At 11.30 p.m. that night, the Battalion received orders to be on alert, to thin their front line at 2.30 a.m., and to listen out for tank movements on the roads as the enemy was expected to attack in the moonlight. In the event, the night again passed peacefully, patrols going out until 3.00 a.m. but finding nothing to report. 

At 9 o’clock in the morning of 26 March, the Battalion heard that they might be ordered to move if the tactical situation changed. At 9.25 p.m. the Company on the left reported heavy motors on La Bassée Road, and the Allied artillery turned in anticipation of enemy tank movements, but – once again – the night passed peacefully. At 10.30 a.m. on 27 March, the Battalion was notified by Brigade Headquarters that the 46th (North Midland) Division was going to take over the front at Lens from the 4th Canadian Division, the 137th Infantry Brigade replacing the 11th Canadian Infantry Brigade. Following its relief that afternoon by the 1/4th Battalion King’s Own Royal (Lancaster) Regiment, the 1/5th Battalion South Staffordshire Regiment moved to Le Preol which was then, and still is, a village of just a few houses; meanwhile, the Division’s two other battalions went straight to the front line at Lens. The following afternoon, the Battalion marched to nearby Beuvry expecting to board buses at 4.30 p.m. but these did not arrive until 9 p.m. Once the equipment was loaded, the men boarded the 30 buses and left for Souchez, 12 miles to the south; from there they marched 3 miles to Lievin, the old mining town 3 miles to the west of Lens, where they took over the billets vacated by the 1/6th Battalion North Staffordshire Regiment who had gone up into the front line. The Battalion War Diary describes Lievin at that time as “all broken houses and devastation, well shelled continuously”. On 30 March, the 46th (North Midland) Division was congratulated on its relief of the 4th Canadian Division, which had gone “without a hitch in difficult circumstances”. After dark that evening, the 1/5th South Staffs moved up to the Lens left sector in the rain to relieve the 1/6th North Staffs.  

On the last day of March 1918, Lieutenant Colonel James Lamond returned from leave and resumed command of the Battalion. It was a fine day with a drying wind and the sun shone brightly. Information had been received that, on 28 March, the Germans had planned to capture the Arras-Lens railway line and then attack Vimy Ridge from the south; if they were successful, they would then launch an attack on the Hulluch front, south of La Bassée Canal, pushing on towards Hill 70. Thankfully, the enemy’s initial attack failed on 28 March otherwise the Battalion would have been in a difficult position. 

April 1918 began with some gas shelling of the Brigade front in the very early hours but otherwise the first two days were quiet. On 3 April, the 1/5th South Staffs moved back to Brigade Support in Lievin; once again there was heavy gas shelling, but no casualties were sustained. The decision had been taken that only those personnel needed for a tour would be sent into the trenches; alongside this, a percentage of all ranks would go back to the Transport Lines where they would receive divisional training for offensive action; in particular, 16 NCOs would undertake a special class lasting 10 days. The first such batch – comprising the 2nd in Command, the Adjutant, 9 officers and 99 other ranks – left by train for Albert Camp at Carency at 8.15 p.m. on 3 April; the rest of the men remained behind, to go into the line at the next relief. It rained all that evening. 

On 5 April the Battalion relieved the 1/6th North Staffs in the Lens right sector, where they stayed until 10 April when they were relieved in turn by the 1/6th South Staffs. Night patrols were largely unsuccessful, but a German officer was killed during the night of 8/9 April; a map was taken from his body showing details of an intended enemy raid on the left subsector; this information was passed on and the necessary precautions were taken. The following night one officer and a man from the ranks were wounded as another patrol tried, unsuccessfully, to take an enemy post. 

After a short period in Brigade Support, and a night at Marqueffles Farm, the companies moved by light railway to Aix-Noulette and from there marched to billets in Beugin, 15 miles to the west of Lens. After two days spent cleaning up and training, orders came through, just after midday on 17 April, to move to a position next to the site the No. 6 Casualty Clearing Station had just vacated in a camp at Hallicourt. Not unnaturally, the 34th Division Field Ambulance – which had remained there – objected to having combatant soldiers billeted so close and, after a night’s rest, the Battalion moved to the other side of the railway where they pitched camp with the 1/6th South Staffs. Five days of training followed, though the Battalion was given orders to be ready to move at 2 hours’ notice, though this was sometimes relaxed to 4 hours. 

On 24 April, the 1/5th South Staffs moved to Verquin and the next day, with the 1/6th South Staffs on their left, the Battalion moved into trenches in the Gorre sector, B Company and C Company in the front line, A Company and D Company in the support line.

Picture 79

Picture 80

At 10.15 p.m. on 26 April, the enemy artillery began an intense barrage of the isolated position at Route A Keep, which was being held by a platoon from C Company led by 2nd Lieutenant Leonard Frank Hayes. The barrage lifted on the east side of the Keep at about 11.20 p.m. and an enemy force estimated to number 120 to 160 men approached along ditches, and under cover of hedges, until they were close enough to rush the Keep. Hayes and his men drove off this first group with rifle and Lewis Gun fire but, after a 3-minute lull, a second enemy assault was made by about 40 men on the left rear of the Keep. As men from other outposts withdrew to join his main group, Hayes formed two parties, one facing east, the other west, and opened fire on the enemy from front and rear. With Very lights illuminating the scene, 2nd Lieutenant Hayes realised that the group was virtually surrounded so began to withdraw to nearby shell holes. Suspecting that some of his men were still trapped in the Keep, Hayes led his group back to rescue them, but they were driven off. Hayes then requested further orders from the officer commanding C Company, Captain Reginald Charles Piper, and was told to form part of the counter-attack that Captain Piper was organising with the troops at his disposal. When the British artillery opened fire, Hayes and his men advanced but they found the allied barrage had not been effective; unable to advance in the chaos, outnumbered, and facing superior fire power, Hayes and his men were forced to withdraw. However, they had inflicted a substantial number of casualties on the enemy. The confusion made it difficult to give accurate figures for Battalion losses; an early estimate suggested that 2 men had been killed in the encounter, 6 were missing and 20 more were wounded. 

The 1/5th South Staffs moved into Brigade Support during the night of 27 April and, the next day, 5 men who had been reported missing during the fighting of 26/27 April turned up in the lines of the 1/6th South Staffs, too exhausted to give a coherent account of how they had got there. Later, an enemy shell killed 3 men and severely wounded 2 others as they were eating. At 10 p.m. that evening, and with Captain Piper in command, B Company and C Company moved back up to the assembly trenches with orders to retake the Route A Keep. They succeeded but at a tremendous cost. 4 officers were killed in this second counter-attack: Captain Piper, 2nd Lieutenant Hayes, 2nd Lieutenant William Raymond Barnett and 2nd Lieutenant Norman Bayley Wilkes. The 1/5th South Staffs also suffered numerous casualties in the ranks, while German losses numbered approximately 40. About 60 enemy prisoners were taken, but the forward line that the Battalion established was far from secure. The following men from the ranks died during the defence and recapture of the Route A Keep:

On the night of 1st/2nd May, the 137th Infantry Brigade was relieved by the 139th Infantry Brigade and moved back to the 46th Division Reserve in Verquin and Vaudricourt Wood. The 1/5th South Staffs spent the next 3 days cleaning up and, on 5 May, paraded in the grounds of Verquin Chateau where the 46th Division Commander, Major General William Thwaites, congratulated them on the recapture of the Route A Keep. General Sir Henry Sinclair Horne, the First Army Corps Commander, also sent his congratulations.

Picture 81

The next evening, as part of the 137th Infantry Brigade’s relief of the 138th Infantry Brigade, the 1/5th South Staffs relieved the 1/4th Battalion Leicestershire Regiment in the Essars left subsector, 2 miles north east of Bethune. On 7 May, the Battalion received a wire warning them that there was likely to be an enemy attack on the front occupied by the 1st Army Corps. A brief spell in Brigade Support followed and, during the evening of 9 May, Battalion Headquarters was hit by a small shell; luckily, no casualties were sustained. Later that night, anticipating the forecast German attack, Allied artillery pounded the enemy lines. The Battalion moved to the Essars right subsector during the evening of 10 May and, the following day Military Medals were awarded to 8029/200147 Sergeant Harry Samuel Bond, 201087 Lance Corporal Joseph Harrison, 20041/203335 Private S Hudson and 3398/203285 Corporal Arthur John Walker for their action in the recapture of the Route A Keep. Corporal Walker was particularly commended:

On 11/12 May, a night patrol of 6 men led by 2405/20520/203423 Sergeant Thomas Hardwick stumbled across a German post. They opened fire on it, and eventually managed to silence its guns, but 15827 Private Howard Corfield was killed in the firefight. The other men – all wounded – lost their bearings and spent the remainder of that night, and the daytime hours of 12 May, taking cover in shell holes in No Man’s Land. In the daylight Sergeant Hardwick was able to identify their position and that night he brought his men back to the Battalion lines, carrying 2 men who were badly wounded, one of whom – 9620/20006/242464 Private John Worton – died later of his wounds. 2nd Lieutenant Jack Coulson Bunn took out a patrol that night and brought back the body of Private Corfield; however, when the patrol went back out again later that night, to investigate 2 German posts they had spotted, 2nd Lieutenant Bunn was wounded, and he died later of his wounds at the Regimental Aid Post. Earlier that evening, at dusk, Battalion snipers spotted a German cyclist approaching their position; obviously lost, he stopped about 50 yards from them and consulted his map; he then pushed his bicycle into a ditch and strolled in their direction; rushed by the snipers, the German cyclist quickly surrendered. He was found to be carrying valuable information on the German battle formation. 

Patrols were cancelled the following night, 13/14 May, because the 1/6th North Staffs had moved about 45 men up to reinforce the barbed wiring. 24 hours later the 1/5th South Staffs moved into 46th Division Reserve in Vaudricourt Wood and, on 18 May, the 137th Infantry Brigade returned to the Gorre sector, the Battalion in Brigade Support. Next day, for their actions during the recapture of Route A Keep, the Military Cross was awarded to Captain George Edward Bradbury, and the Distinguished Conduct Medal was awarded to 20085 Sergeant Jeremiah Albert Evans and 8855/200436 Arthur Henry Wilkins, the latter having been promoted from Private to Lance Corporal.

Pictures 82, 83 and 84

During the night of 20/21 May, the Battalion relieved the 1/6th South Staffs in the Gorre right sector, with Battalion Headquarters moving to the Brewery by Gorre Bridge where there was already an Advanced Dressing Station. At 1 a.m. the enemy targeted B Company with some light trench mortars but there were no casualties from the shells or the gas. Four hours later the A Company Commander, Captain Harold Alfred Ivatt M.C., 2nd Lieutenant George Carvel Broadbent and 2nd Lieutenant George Jones were all killed instantly when a gas shell hit A Company Headquarters. A hot day followed as enemy gas shells targeted Gorre Chateau in the morning, forcing 50 reinforcements from Bruay to take shelter until after midnight, only then were they able to move up and join their new comrades.  

In the early hours of 22 May, a shell killed 2nd Lieutenant William Arthur Motteram. The enemy gas shelling – which varied in intensity and covered an area of about 10,000 square yards {a bit larger than a football pitch} – finally died down around dawn. Reports at 6 a.m. indicated that A Company were OK, having worn their gas masks for four hours, but by 8 a.m. the situation had worsened, with many of the men complaining of irritation in their eyes from the enemy’s mustard gas, indeed some were already suffering badly. By noon, half of the men in A Company were badly affected and only 6 of the remainder were unaffected. A number of men from A Company – and D Company, which was also affected – had begun making their way back from the front and support lines. At 1.15 p.m. 2nd Lieutenant Frank Edward Gray Martin reported that his subaltern, 2nd Lieutenant George Thomas Start, had been blinded by the gas and that he himself was badly affected; both men were from A Company. Meanwhile, the D Company Commander, Captain George Herbert Ball, reported that he did not have sufficient men left who were able to man the machine gun and trench mortar in his support line. Faced with this worsening situation, orders were issued at 4 p.m. that the 137th Infantry Brigade was to be relieved that night by the 138th Infantry Brigade. Around that time 2nd Lieutenant Martin and 2nd Lieutenant Start made it back from their line; they were exhausted, and both had been blinded by the gas attacks; 2nd Lieutenant Martin was transferred back to England on 28 May, 2nd Lieutenant Start on 29 May. It was not until 9.30 p.m. on 22 May that the 1/5th Battalion South Staffordshire Regiment was finally relieved by the 1/6th Lincolnshire Regiment. The Brigade arranged 7 light railway trains to transport the men and stores back to bivouacs in Vaudricourt Wood. Following such extensive gas exposure, on their arrival at about 3 a.m. on 23 May, “each man stripped, gave up his clothes, washed his hands, face and neck in some medical concoction, and put on clean underclothing, his overcoat, and slept in a blanket. His clothes will be returned to him later in the day after having been put through the Foden Lorry Thresher”. Medical assessments took place that afternoon and it was found that all the men’s eyes had been affected by the gas attack; a first group of 109 men had been sent to the field hospital and another 63 were due to go. The weather was fine on 24 May as the men recuperated. The Battalion was deemed to weak to go straight back into the line that night, however orders were received for the day after.

At 10 p.m. on 25 May, the 137th Infantry Brigade relieved the 138th in the Essars left sector; with D Company 1st Monmouth Battalion attached, the 1/5th South Staffs relieved the 1/8th Battalion Sherwood Foresters just after midnight. By way of welcome, the enemy shelled Battalion Headquarters during the afternoon of 26 May but no harm was done other than the officers’ latrine being shattered.

Enemy airplanes were active at midday the next day and that afternoon and evening the enemy again targeted Battalion Headquarters, wounding Orderly Room clerk 200561 Private Reginald Nicholls. That night the 1/6th North Staffs relieved the 1/5th South Staffs who moved back to Brigade Support in Essars, the 1st Monmouth Battalion’s D Company remaining with the 1/6th North Staffs. Gas shelling of C Company on 28 May caused no further casualties, the enemy misjudging and landing the shells well behind the Battalion’s positions all day. Two officers joined the Battalion as reinforcements the following evening, the Battalion then moving up to relieve the 1/6th South Staffs in the Essars right subsector. During the very early hours of 30 May, a small German patrol approached B Company’s No.2 Post on the left front, threw some bombs and then bolted; the post’s Lewis gun opened fire and killed the patrol’s N.C.O. who was later identified as being from the German 190th Infantry Regiment. An hour later the enemy artillery targeted C Company on the right front but did no damage. It later became clear that this was to cover another unsuccessful enemy raid on Route A Keep. During the day, 6 more officers joined from the Base Reinforcement Camp and the final afternoon of May 1918 saw the enemy lay down a light 20-minute artillery barrage of the Battalion’s front line and left support line, but there were no casualties and no damage was done; from the amount of lights the enemy sent up, they appeared to be testing their S.O.S. lines. The weather in May had been fine and hot, the nights warm, but the Battalion’s night patrols had produced little of value. It had been a costly month for the 1/5th, with 5 officers and 3 men killed, 11 men wounded and taken to hospital, 4 officers and 184 men sent to hospital suffering from gas exposure, and 3 men wounded who remained on duty.

Somehow, James Merrick had managed to survive another harrowing month on the Western Front. However, as he served in both C Company and D Company, it is possible that he was amongst those from D Company who were affected by the enemy gas shelling on 22 May. 

June 1918 began with the Battalion in the line in the Essars right subsector. 1 June was a quiet day but, sadly, 14474 Private Daniel O’Connell from D Company was killed when two patrols went out. Patrols also went out during the night of 2/3 June, during which 20462 Private Sidney Colcombe of A Company was killed and 2nd Lieutenant Charles Joseph Murphy and another man from the ranks were wounded. Although these patrols often found little to report, the group that went out on a full daylight patrol on 3 June, led by 2nd Lieutenant Arthur Oswald Jones and 200358 Sergeant Victor Norman Marston, were commended by the 46th Division Commander for “a most excellent reconnaissance affording much valuable information”.  

Relieved by the 1/5th Battalion Leicestershire Regiment during the early hours of 4 June, the Battalion spent the next few days in 46th Division Reserve at Vaudricourt Wood, bathing and cleaning up before returning just after midnight on 8 June to the support line of the Gorre sector. That night the enemy targeted Battalion Headquarters with Yellow Cross mustard gas shells but the shell holes were successfully treated with chlorine and there were no casualties. During the evening of 9/10 June the Battalion relieved the 1/5th North Staffs in the Gorre right subsector. Two night patrols went out, followed by one in the daylight, but all was quiet; once again the 46th Division Commander sent his congratulations, this time for the “useful work” done by the group led by 2nd Lieutenant Cyril Stuart Embrey. There were no more casualties as the night and day patrols continued through to the end of this tour, and there was further praise, this time for the “good and useful reconnaissance” done by the party led by 2nd Lieutenant William Jennings Bond. Relieved by the 1/6th South Staffs during the night of 13/14 June, the Battalion moved into the Gorre support lines where they worked on the support defences. Then, during the night of 14/15 June, the German 3rd Division advanced their line on the left and – in the forward positions – A Company and D Company came under fairly heavy shell fire, during which 2271 240277 Private Fred Simpson was killed and five men from the ranks were wounded. Relieved 24 hours later, the Battalion returned to the 46th Division Reserve, A Company and B Company in Vaudricourt Wood, C Company and D Company at Verquin. Bathing, equipment cleaning and training were the order of the day, with A Company and B Company on the Lewis Gun range and all the men undertaking a one hour, 2-mile night march in box respirators before the 1/5th South Staffs moved to the left Essars sector during the night of 17/18 June. The following night the enemy artillery was very active, targeting the trenches leading to the Battalion’s front line. Two patrols went out and 241097 Private Edward Smith was killed; two men from the ranks were also wounded. Although the following night was quieter, the German artillery continued to shell the approach trenches and 5 men from the ranks were injured when a shell entered the Regimental Aid Post. The enemy artillery was very active between 10.15 and 11.30 p.m. on 21 June, targeting D Company on the Battalion’s right front. A night patrol went out, another in the daylight, and one man from the ranks was wounded. The 1/5th South Staffs moved into the Essars support line when they were relieved during the evening of 23 June; the next relief – 72 hours later – took them to the right Essars sector, where 2 more men were wounded, and the end of June 1918 saw the Battalion back in the 46th Division Reserve in Vaudricourt Wood.

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During the evening of 1 July 1918, the 1/5th South Staffs relieved the 1/6th Sherwood Foresters in the Gorre right subsector; they remained there until the night of 3 July when they moved back to Brigade Support. From there they went to the Gorre left subsector where 3029 202723 Private William H Bainbridge was killed in action on 4 July 1918. At 7.10 p.m. on 7 July the enemy began heavy shelling in the vicinity of Battalion Headquarters and Gorre Bridge; 10 minutes later the bridge had been destroyed; after a further 10 minutes the shelling began to ease and, half an hour after it started, the shelling ceased altogether. Mercifully, the next day was quiet. The Battalion was relieved by the 1/4th Battalion Leicestershire Regiment between 9.30 p.m. on 9 July and 1.10 a.m. on 10 July, and then returned by light railway to Brigade Reserve for training and to clean up. The weather was fine on 13 July as the Battalion paraded and then, in the afternoon, enjoyed the Battalion’s combined Sports and Horse Show. After Church Parade on Sunday 14 July, the 46th Division Commander congratulated the men – of all ranks – whose daylight patrols had been particularly effective, saying that these were now being carried out across the 46th Division. Short tours of the Gorre and Essars front lines followed and, on 20 July, 9256 200637 Sergeant Herbert Stanley Marston was killed in action.

Just after midday on 22 July, a daylight patrol consisting of 2nd Lieutenant Cyril Stuart Embrey and 46542 Lance Corporal Albert Edward Furze left No. 6 Post; moving east, they spotted the heads of 2 enemy soldiers in a shell-hole close to the barbed wire and a few yards from one of the Battalion’s front-line posts. Uncertain how many enemy troops were hiding there, the patrol returned, fetched 3 more men and then took up favourable positions either side of the shell-hole. When they were given the signal, the patrol threw 3 bombs and – covered by the smoke – rushed the enemy position. An officer and three German soldiers bolted and made their escape, although one of the three was wounded; 2 others surrendered and a third lay dying from his wounds. The enemy patrol were from the German 395th Reserve Infantry Regiment and had taken up their positions at about 3 a.m. in scooped-out shell holes, their intention being to attack an Allied patrol or one of the Battalion’s front-line posts if the opportunity arose. The two prisoners were brought in and a search was made for the wounded member of the German patrol, but only blood tracks were found. The remainder of that day, and the day that followed, were both quiet. 

At 2.50 a.m. on 24 July, an attack was thwarted on one of the front posts of the brigade to the left of the 137th Infantry Brigade. Enemy shelling then spread along the whole length of the 46th Division front, finally easing at about 4 a.m. That day saw the death in action of 201803 Private Albert Adshead and 3815 3286 202973 Corporal Frank Edward Willmore. Also, at 6 o’clock that evening, a German carrier pigeon was caught and the coded message it was carrying was sent off to be deciphered.  

A brief period in Brigade Support was followed by a longer rest period in Divisional Reserve where the 1/5th South Staffs trained and cleaned up – on short notice to move in case an attack was made on the Allied 3rd Division. Sadly, the Brigade Horse Show on 29 July was rather spoiled by the rain. Battalion working parties continued to perform well, improving the trench system and digging a cable trench. In a memo dated 20 July, the General Officer commanding the 46th Division had commended the 137th Infantry Brigade – and, in particular, the 1/5th South Staffs – on the amount of salvage they had recovered from the battlefield; the memo went on to chastise 3 other battalions, one for recovering well below its average amount and two for reclaiming nothing at all. Casualties were light in July compared with earlier months, just 4 men killed in action and 17 wounded, 4 of whom remained on duty.  

It rained all day on 2 August, the Battalion’s last day in the 46th Division Reserve. That evening, as the 137th Infantry Brigade relieved the 139th, the 1/5th South Staffs were taken by light railway as far as the La Bassée Canal then made their way on foot to le Hamel in the Essars right subsector where they relieved the 1/5th Sherwood Foresters. It stopped raining the next day and the weather the day after was fine as three new 2nd Lieutenants joined the Battalion. 4 August also saw the award of the Military Cross to 2nd Lieutenant Embrey and the Military Medal to Lance Corporal Furze for their part in the encounter with the enemy on 22 July.

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The rain returned on 5 August as rumours spread that the enemy was planning to withdraw on that front; however, in the short term, the speculation proved to be largely unfounded. A 3-day period in Brigade Support followed, and the area close to Essars Church was targeted for a quarter of an hour in the afternoon of 6 August by 50 high explosive shells but no serious damage was done. Although that night was quiet, there was a lot of aerial activity and both sides lit up the sky with searchlights after dark. A message was received the next day from the 1/6th North Staffs saying that one of its platoons had occupied Le Cason Farm but there had been no other enemy withdrawals on their side of the Lawe River; when they relieved the 1/6th North Staffs in the Essars left subsector during the night of 8/9 August, the Battalion’s posts on the bank of the Lawe River were more advanced than those of their predecessors. 2nd Lieutenant Bernard Whitecraft Tolton was wounded at 6 a.m. on 9 August while he led a morning patrol of the banks of the River Lawe; his patrol still managed to bring back useful information. Later in the day there was some shelling of the Battalion front and, in the early evening, the Allied guns responded. 9436 20060 203353 Private John Witsey was killed in action that day. 

The weather was fine the following day, 10 August, but sadly 2405 20520 203423 Sergeant Thomas Hardwick was killed in action and 4259 201023 235398 Private Joseph Latham died from his wounds. Then, at about 7 o’clock in the evening, a deserter from the German 1st Guards Regiment surrendered to C Company; he said that the 1st Guards Division had moved into the enemy front line 3 days before, but he did not want to serve in the Prussian Army as he was from Lorraine. When he was questioned, he revealed that the enemy were completing a new front line, about three-quarters of a mile behind their present one, and the Germans were expected to move there in about 2 weeks’ time. {Following its defeat in the Franco-Prussian War, France had been forced to cede the Imperial Territory of Alsace-Lorraine to the new German Empire. As a result, Germany gained 26% of Lorraine in the upper Moselle valley and 93% of Alsace in the Rhine Valley; France retained the remaining parts of those two regions. Following its defeat in the First World War, the 1919 Treaty of Versailles compelled Germany to accept punitive territorial, military, and economic sanctions that included the return of Alsace-Lorraine to France.} 

During the hour before midnight, the enemy targeted D Company Headquarters with gas shells; an aeroplane then dropped a bomb that smashed the Company Headquarters, killing 6 men – 7962 200125 Sergeant Edward Cadnam, 8526 200305 Private John Henry Lewis, 564 201185 Acting Sergeant Frank Clifford Maskell, 6875 200034 Sergeant Albert William Stace, 2040 20110 235001 Private William Albert Taylor and 964 9611 200766 Private Thomas Tromans – and wounding 20 more. The following day was quieter but several men from D Company were suffering from the effects of the previous night’s gas poisoning; also, 3918 3365 203252 Private Albert Victor Myatt died from his wounds.  

12 August was also quiet but the following afternoon the enemy shelled Battalion Headquarters, killing 2 men – 14422 Private Joseph Howes and 1300 201597 Lance Corporal Thomas Edwin Metcalf – and injuring 7 others. 42470 Private John William Shaw also died that day; he passed away at the Number 6 Casualty Clearing Station from the effects of gas poisoning. During the evening of 14 August there was heavy shelling of the line occupied by the left support company, B Company, and its headquarters, but thankfully there were no further casualties. Overnight, the Battalion was relieved by the 1/6th Sherwood Foresters and moved to Divisional Support in Vaudricourt Wood. Their first full day there was hot and fine, and the men spent it cleaning up; in the afternoon, the XIII Army Corps Commander, Lieutenant General Sir Thomas Lethbridge Napier Morland, toured the camp. After a hot day spent training, the 1/5th South Staffs received orders at 7 p.m. on 16 August to stand ready to move at 2 hours’ notice as Army Intelligence suspected the enemy were preparing to pull back from their current position; in the event the Battalion was not needed. Instead, its 19 officers and 467 men paraded at 2.45 a.m. before being taken by light railway to work on the Newcastle line in the Gorre sector; by 9.30 a.m. their tasks had been completed, to the satisfaction of the officers of the 1st Monmouth (Pioneers) Regiment, and the Battalion then returned by train to Vaudricourt Wood, arriving back at 11.30 a.m.

It remained quiet for the remainder of their time in Divisional Support but on 20 August the 137th Infantry Brigade relieved the 138th, the Battalion replacing the 1/6th Sherwood Foresters in Brigade Support in the Essars sector. After two more hot days, the weather broke and it turned much cooler. Wearing boots in the heat had caused particular problems and arrangements were made for the men to bathe their feet daily. During the evening of 23 August they were on the move again, this time to the Loisne area in the Le Hamel right subsector. 

At 7.25 a.m. on 24 August the British artillery targeted the enemy positions facing the Battalion and the 46th Division front. The 55th Division attacked at the same time and secured the mine system at Festubert – 4 miles to the east of Essars – that had been taken by the enemy the previous March; fortunately, the enemy’s retaliation along the front occupied by the 137th Infantry Brigade was largely ineffective. The four companies of the 1/5th South Staffs pushed their outpost lines forward during the last week of August 1918. Then, on 29 August, the enemy at last showed signs of pulling back. The weather had turned fine after rain the previous day and the Battalion, advancing in three stages, moved forward about 2500 yards and succeeded in establishing a new outpost line that was then extended on the left by the 1/6th North Staffs. 

The days had been fine and sunny, in the main, during the Battalion’s periods in the front-line during August 1918 but casualties had also been high, with 10 men from the ranks killed, 3 officers and 69 other ranks wounded (21 of them from gas poisoning).  

On 2 September, the 1/5th South Staffs moved into 46th Division Reserve in Verquin. The following afternoon they marched 2½ miles to Hesdigneul-lès-Béthune. Such was the high regard in which the 46th (North Midland) Division Commander, Major General William Thwaites, was held that the men of the 137th Infantry Brigade lined the road and cheered as he left to take up the post of Director of Military Intelligence, having relinquished the command of the 46th that he had held since July 1916. He was succeeded by Major-General Sir Gerald Farrell Boyd. 

On 5 September, after a day’s training at Hesdigneul-lès-Béthune, the Battalion marched 6 miles west to billets in Lozinghem, the 46th Division having been relieved by the 19th Division. It was a hot day and the men were out of training, having not marched in full packs for about six months. Sixteen fell out along the way and, although 6 re-joined the march, 10 had to be transported the rest of the way by ambulance. The following day, the 137th Infantry Brigade paraded as a guard of honour while the XIII Army Corps Commander, Lieutenant General Morland, presented medal ribbons; a French general also presented medals, then took the salute as the Brigade marched past. The men then returned to their billets while Major-General Boyd met the officers of the 137th in Lozinghem Church where he praised the Brigade’s fine standard.

The Companies resumed their training on 7th and 9th September; in between it rained all day and the planned Church of England and non-conformist Church Parades were cancelled, giving the men the opportunity to bathe. On 9 September, Major Charles Child Dowding DSO MC joined the Battalion from the King’s Own Royal Lancaster Regiment, taking up the post of 2nd in Command to Lieutenant-Colonel Alfred White who had taken command of the 1/5th South Staffs on 1 September when Lieutenant-Colonel James Lamond had returned to England for 6 months home service. 

On 7 September, in his Special Order of the Day, the Commander-in-Chief of the British Armies in France, Field Marshall Sir Douglas Haig, gave an upbeat assessment of Allied successes that had turned the tide of the war following the German Spring Offensive. A second Special Order three days later informed the men of the congratulatory telegram Haig had received from the Queen Mother, Queen Alexandra, the wife of King Edward VII, and Haig’s reply to her on behalf of the men he commanded. 

On 10 September, as the Battalion prepared to move in the wet weather, Lieutenant General Morland thanked the 1/5th South Staffs for 2½ months of good work with the XIII Army Corps. The next evening, A Company moved by Divisional train number 3 from Lillers at 7.41 p.m., the remainder of the Battalion following on train number 6 at 10.41 p.m. The men travelled via Saint-Pol-sur-Ternoise and Doullens to Amiens, over 50 miles to the south of Bethune. The last leg of their train journey took them 12 miles east-north-east to Heilly. A Company arrived at 10.30 a.m. the next morning, the remainder of the Battalion at 3.15 p.m. After cups of tea at the station, the men – minus A Company, who were detraining the Battalion’s transport – marched through the village of Heilly to dug-outs on either side of a valley. Their billets were in poor condition and the wet weather continued. 

Next morning, 13 September, B Company took over at the station, relieving A Company who had worked all night. Training continued in the rain showers and the following afternoon the Commanding Officer, Major-General Farrell Boyd, gave a short lecture to the officers and NCOs on “Leadership”. A second lecture followed at 6.30 p.m. on “Cooperation of Infantry with Tanks”. Training on Sunday 15 September consisted mainly of musketry practice on improvised targets. The weather had turned fine and warm and Church Parade took place at midday. Training next day concluded with another lecture from Major-General Boyd, this time on “Attack Formations”. 

On 17 September, the Battalion route marched via Bonnay to Franvillers where the men carried out a tactical manoeuvre, A Company and B Company – in front – “capturing” the first objective, C Company and D Company then “leap-frogging” through to the final objective. A second tactical manoeuvre on 18 September began with the 46th Brigade advancing on a two-battalion front with the 1/6th South Staffs on the left, the 1/5th South Staffs on the right, and the 1/6th North Staffs in support; from the outpost line on the Amiens to Albert road, the men moved forward to high ground overlooking the Somme Canal, but then at 2 p.m. the manoeuvre was terminated and the men returned to their billets with orders to stand-to ready to move. That evening, Battalion transport left and marched to Rainecourt.  

In the late afternoon of 19 September, the Battalion boarded 34 lorries and travelled via Corbie, Villers Brettoneux, Foucaucourt-en-Santerre, Brie and Estrées-Mons to Estrées-en-Chaussée. They arrived just over 4 hours later and bivouacked in a field at the side of the road. After a dry but cold night, and general training the following day, the 1/5th South Staffs replaced the 50th Battalion Australian Imperial Force – part of the 4th Australian Division – in Divisional Reserve on 21 September, occupying trench shelters north of Vendelles. Platoon training and a route march occupied the next three days, and on 24 September word reached the Battalion that the 1/5th Battalion Leicestershire Regiment had taken the village of Pontruet. On 25 September, the Battalion relieved the 1/6th South Staffordshire Regiment in Orchard Trench in Le Verguier. The next night the men went to Victoria Crossroads where working parties carried trench mortar ammunition; eight men were wounded but the Battalion were all back in billets by 6 a.m.  

On 27 September, the 1/5th Battalion South Staffordshire Regiment received orders that they were to take over trenches from the 4th Battalion Leicestershire Regiment to the west of the St. Quentin Canal and north-west of Bellenglise. The relief was completed by 4 o’clock in the morning of 28 September. The German forces were very active and D Company, who had taken over the outpost line, were soon engaged in bombing the enemy; however, the number of bombs available was very limited, the previous battalion having used most of those stored in the forward lines. D Company was counter-attacked at about 5.30 a.m., and some enemy troops managed to get into the Battalion trenches. These were ejected, but the fighting continued, and D Company came under such severe pressure that they were forced to send up an S.O.S. 1/5th South Staffs commander, Lieutenant-Colonel Alfred White, ordered C Company to counter-attack, and they succeeded in bringing forward more bombs and a Lewis gun, but enemy machine gunfire inflicted heavy losses. By 1.00 p.m. D Company had been driven out of their trenches, however they had managed to link up with men from the 1/6th North Staffs. One officer, 2nd Lieutenant Ernest Clifford Bracey, was killed in this heavy fighting, along with a number of men. Eventually, at dusk, the order was given to fall back to the main front line; no further casualties were sustained during this withdrawal. A Company was ordered forward from Reserve and brought the special stores required for the canal crossing: in preparation for the attack the next day, the men of the Battalion were to be issued with lifebelts (from cross-Channel steamers). 

Known to its German defenders as the “Siegfried Stellung”, the St. Quentin Canal was an integral part of the Hindenburg Line. Its bank incorporated an impregnable series of fortified redoubts and machine gun positions, protected by fields of thick barbed wire entanglements. The St. Quentin Canal sector was regarded as the most strongly defended section of the Hindenburg Line and the 137th Brigade’s audacious operation – to cross the canal, capture the opposite bank and move on to take Bellenglise – was thought by many to be a suicide mission. However, it proved to be one of the pivotal battles of the First World War. 

In a secret message – sent on the day before the attack to Brigadier-General John Vaughan Campbell, Commanding Officer of the 137th Infantry Brigade – the 46th Division Commanding Officer, Major-General Gerald Farrell Boyd, entrusted to Campbell and his men the difficult task of crossing the St. Quentin Canal and capturing Bellenglise.

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The battle was preceded by an enormous British artillery bombardment with 1,044 field guns and 593 heavy guns and howitzers firing almost one million shells over a short period of time. Many of the high explosive shells had special fuses that made them particularly effective in destroying the German barbed wire. 

The 137th Infantry Brigade assembled at 5.30 a.m. on 29 September 1918, with the 1/6th North Staffs on the left, the 1/5th South Staffs in the centre and the 1/6th South Staffs on the right. For the Battalion, B Company were on the right and – following their losses in the heavy fighting the previous day – C Company and D Company were combined on the left; A Company were in support and a platoon of Sherwood Foresters were to act as “moppers up”.

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The assault began in good light at Zero Hour – 5.50 a.m. – but the men had to advance almost a mile before they reached the canal. Brigadier-General Campbell led the 137th Infantry Brigade, blowing his hunting horn as he usually did in an attack. The 3 Battalions of the 137th Infantry Brigade advanced together, behind a creeping artillery barrage that was maintained until the canal was reached; its ferocity contributed significantly to the success of the assault as it kept the Germans pinned down in their dugouts. However, within 20 minutes of the start of the attack, fog and smoke made it impossible to see clearly, and this made the operation even more treacherous.

Spanning the St. Quentin Canal north of Bellenglise, the Riqueval Bridge in 1918 was the main artery of supply for the German troops on the western side of the canal. Explosive charges had been placed along its length to prevent the bridge falling into Allied hands. Captain Arthur Humphrey Charlton and a small group of nine men from the 1/6th North Staffs emerged from the fog and smoke to find themselves near the western end of the bridge. The German sentries – unaware how close British troops were – were still sheltering after the Allied bombardment. Captain Charlton and his men dashed out of the fog and bayoneted the machine-gunners in the trench guarding the approach to the bridge; they then ran across the bridge shooting at the German demolition party who were just emerging from a bunker at the eastern end. Whilst Captain Charlton cut the leads to the explosive charges, the remainder of his party rushed forward, overwhelming the remaining sentries and capturing the Riqueval Bridge intact.

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The way was now open for the second wave – the 138th and 139th Infantry Brigades and the 32nd Division – that would leapfrog the 137th Infantry Brigade. 

Meanwhile, the men of the 1/5th South Staffs had fought their way through the German trenches west of the canal. The Battalion’s left company kept its direction and reached its final objective; the right Company went some way to the right and half of its men managed to cross using one of the wooden footbridges that had not been damaged during the bombardment; later they helped to clear up the north side of Bellenglise. The remainder of the men clambered down to the cold, stagnant canal and crossed, some by swimming, some using ropes, and others using improvised floating piers (devised by the Royal Engineers) made from wooden planks. Scaling ladders were used to climb the brick wall lining the canal’s far bank and all were across by one hour after zero. 

The enemy artillery responded to the Allied bombardment with a heavy barrage of their own, but the men were quickly away from the targeted areas; it was machine gun fire that caused most of the 137th Infantry Brigade casualties on the western side of the canal. “The German Outpost Line north of the canal caused no trouble and we took it in our stride with some 150 prisoners”. There was some enemy artillery barrage of the canal area itself but it “was not enough to stop the enthusiastic morale of the men”. All three battalions were together, and morale was high, their sole objective was to get across the canal.  

Some opposition on the eastern bank “was overcome by parties of officers and men climbing the opposite embankment and routing the Germans out of their dug-outs, capturing three machine guns”. Once across the canal, the first target – the Blue Line – was passed in the fog; A Company – in Support – joined the front companies, pressed on and took the second target, the Brown Line. As the fog and smoke lifted, detached men and lost sections found themselves in the midst of bewildered groups of enemy soldiers. It was common for groups of Germans – 10, 20 and 30 strong – to surrender to a single British soldier, and one officer and his orderly captured 75 Germans. Communication was an enormous problem in all the chaos; shell fire had broken telephone wires and replacement wire was scarce; the Lucas lamps used by signallers were ineffective in the smoke and fog. However, wounded soldiers made sure that Battalion Headquarters was kept informed of the situation on the ground.

The 46th (North Midland) Division captured the village of Bellenglise, including the Bellenglise Tunnel to Bellicourt; it had been constructed as part of the Hindenburg Line defences and was used as a troop shelter and supply dump; it also housed an underground field hospital with dressing stations cut out along the banks. Led by Captain Percy Randolph Teeton (who was to die in the fighting 4 days later), Bellenglise Tunnel was captured by a group of men from the 1/6th South Staffords. It is said that they dragged a German howitzer to the southern end of the tunnel and fired it through the opening; they then assaulted the tunnel complex, with its labyrinth of dugouts and interconnecting cellars, and quickly overwhelmed the occupants, capturing 800 prisoners.

Soon after its capture, the Allies decided to utilize the field hospital inside Bellenglise Tunnel, along with its equipment and surgeons; captured German engineers helped the Royal Engineers to re-establish electrical power within the tunnel; they also revealed the location of the explosive charges that were intended to destroy the complex. 

In the immediate aftermath of the successful operation, the 1/5th South Staffs commander, Lieutenant-Colonel Alfred White, gave the following approximate times for the key events that day: 

5.50 a.m.      Zero Hour.
6.40 a.m.      Report to Battalion Headquarters that the St. Quentin Canal had been reached.
7.00 a.m.      Prisoners coming in.
7.20 a.m.      Battalion Headquarters moved forward to G 28 c 9.4.
7.30 a.m.      All men reported to have crossed the Canal.
8.10 a.m.      The first objective (the Blue Line) reported reached and taken.
8.35 a.m.      Forward Battalion Report Centre established at G27 c 25.10.
10.05 a.m.    Parties of Leicestershire Regiment soldiers (from the 138th Infantry Brigade) moving past.
10.30 a.m.    The enemy shelled Battalion Headquarters killing a number of German prisoners who were waiting to be moved back.
1.00 p.m.      Battalion Headquarters was established at the Forward Battalion Report Centre. By this time, the second target (the Brown Line) was established and consolidated, and the 138th and 139th Infantry Brigades and the 32nd Division were now passing through them. 

Lieutenant-Colonel White concluded his report by saying he was sending in a book of recommendations for immediate rewards. 

By the end of the day the 46th Division had taken 4,200 German prisoners and captured 72 guns. The Division’s assault across the canal had met all of its objectives but at a cost of around 800 casualties. Above all, the great success that day had come where most had least expected it. 

The 137th Infantry Brigade’s capture of the canal was one of the most significant events during a push that saw British, American and Australian forces break through the Hindenburg Line across a six-mile front. During the next three days some 22,000 German prisoners were captured along with 300 guns. So weakened was the enemy position that Erich Ludendorff – the General in command of military strategy in the later years of the war – came rapidly to the conclusion that Germany should seek an Armistice to end the war. The Hindenburg Line had fallen. The war would be over within six weeks.  

On the night after the battle, the 1/5th Battalion South Staffordshire Regiment slept on the ground they had won, Battalion Headquarters being in the canal bank. The Battalion had captured numerous German prisoners, 4 field guns, 50 machine guns and various other stores. Inevitably, the Battalion’s losses were substantial during the two days of fighting on 28th and 29th September, but they were lighter than might have been anticipated thanks to the speed and success of the attack:

1 officer was killed, and 8 officers were wounded (3 of whom remained on duty);
23 other ranks were killed, 108 were wounded and 42 were missing.

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The 46th Division Commanding Officer, Major-General Gerald Farrell Boyd was quick to congratulate his men on their stunning success

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and numerous congratulatory messages followed:

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Messages of congratulations were also received from “back home”, from the Lord Lieutenant of Leicestershire and, on behalf of their councils, from the Mayors of Walsall, Wolverhampton and Burton-on-Trent.

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The war was coming to an end but there was to be little respite for the victorious survivors of the 1/5th Battalion South Staffordshire Regiment. On 30 September, the men rested and re-organised before being ordered back to their jumping-off trenches to train and clean up. The Battalion War Diary records that the men were “full of buck and ready for the next show”. At 6.45 p.m. on 1 October, the men formed up on the battle ground on the west bank of the St. Quentin Canal where they were praised by the 137th Infantry Brigade commander Brigadier-General John Vaughan Campbell V.C. At 7 p.m. the next day, the whole Brigade was photographed on the banks of the canal where their brigadier congratulated them on their achievements (see photograph 99). 

The battalion commanders of the 1/5th South Staffs, the 1/6th North Staffs and 1/6th South Staffs were then sent hurriedly in motor transport to reconnoitre the high ground west of Levergies, three and a half miles to the west of Bellenglise. When they returned at 9 p.m. they met with the Brigade commander who issued them with orders for an attack at dawn the next day. At 10.45 p.m. the 1/5th South Staffs commander, Lieutenant-Colonel Alfred White, called his company commanders together and gave them their orders for the assault formation. 

The Beaurevoir Line, approximately 4 miles to the east of the Hindenburg Line, consisted of thick barbed wire entanglements and well-sited bunkers containing machine guns and anti-tank guns; however, the bulk of the trenches in that sector were only partially dug. The original intention was for the troops leading the attack on 29 September to cross the St. Quentin Canal and break through the Hindenburg Line; the second wave would then press on and smash through the Beaurevoir Line. The latter had proved a step too far and that task now fell to the 2nd Australian Division while the 46th (North Midland) Division targeted the Fonsomme Line to the south.

The night was pitch black as the Battalion began to move at 1.30 a.m. on 3 October. They left their bivouacs to the west of the St. Quentin Canal and by 5.00 a.m. were to the north of Levergies, in position for the attack. The Brigade formation was spearheaded by the 1/6th North Staffs, on the left, and the 1/6th South Staffs, on the right; the 1/5th South Staffs – who were in support – were 600 yards behind them, with A Company on the left and B Company on the right, C Company in support on the left, D Company in support on the right. The 32nd Division outposts had been withdrawn, leaving little ground between the enemy and the attack formation. On the Brigade’s left, the 139th Infantry Brigade were aiming to take Montbrehain, while the 32nd Division on the right had Sequehart as their objective.

Picture 109

As the 137th Infantry Brigade formed up prior to the attack, the enemy artillery shelled the valley along the southern slope of Lehaucourt Ridge. A significant accumulation of poison gas built up in the area of the valley nearest to the 1/5th South Staffs, but they managed to avoid it by assembling on the high ground. At Zero Hour, 6.05 a.m., the Battalion began to move forward. They kept – as much as possible – to the higher ground and, because no enemy shells fell there, they suffered very few casualties until they reached Châtaigniers Wood. Finding that the advance of the 1/6th North Staffs had stalled, A Company – on the left flank – pushed forward to reinforce them, sending forward a platoon to mop up Châtaigniers Wood. The direction of the 1/6th North Staffs slipped to the right in the meantime, leaving B Company exposed in the front line. C Company moved up on the left of A Company to fill a gap of 1000 yards between the Battalion’s left flank and the 139th Infantry Brigade. This gap contained pockets of enemy resistance; C Company, led by Captain Edward James Hugh Meynell, decided to attack and succeeded in taking a section of the Fonsomme Line; they captured prisoners and machine guns but, sadly, Captain Meynell was wounded and died later, aged just 22, at Number 12 Casualty Clearing Station.

Because the 1/6th North Staffs had not kept to their intended direction, A Company pushed a platoon forward north-east of the Fonsomme Line – in an attempt to maintain contact with the 139th Infantry Brigade – but this platoon suffered heavy casualties as it came under machine gun fire from Mannequin Hill. On the right, D Company found that, while they were attacking the parts of the Fonsomme Line still held by the enemy, they were having to reinforce, at the same time, those that had already been taken. The majority of the 1/6th North Staffs – whose direction had slipped further to the right – were now between the Battalion’s two front companies and the 1/6th South Staffs. Eventually, the 1/6th North Staffs moved to the left, and this allowed D Company to extend their right flank and link up with the 1/6th South Staffs. The 1/6th North Staffs then extended their line towards Nevilles Cross and re-established contact with the 139th Infantry Brigade. 

The 137th Infantry Brigade had achieved all of its objectives by 10.00 a.m., but these were not held securely so the Brigade could not take advantage of its early success. Unable to reach its Montbrehain target, the 139th Infantry Brigade stalled in Ramicourt; they were outflanked by the enemy who forced them back, and A Company – who made vigorous attempts to counter this – suffered heavy casualties. The 32nd Division succeeded in taking Sequehart, but rumours – which proved to be accurate – suggested they had then been driven out; nevertheless, they did occupy Sequehart again shortly afterwards. The 1/6th South Staffs had managed to establish themselves on Mannequin Hill; however, they were unsettled, not knowing for certain which side had control in Sequehart, and their outposts fell back. The enemy, who were quick to notice this, and to take advantage, succeeded in pushing the Battalion’s outposts back; other isolated outposts were forced to withdraw later.  

In spite of these set-backs, the Brigade held an outpost line that night that stretched northwards from Sequehart to the western fringe of Montbrehain; these outposts were withdrawn early in the morning of 4 October. That afternoon, B Company and D Company received orders to attack again, to claim the high ground east of Mannequin Hill; at the same time, the 1/6th South Staffs were to regain the parts of Mannequin Hill they had relinquished the day before. However, neither of these assaults went ahead and at 6 p.m. the Battalion was relieved by the 1st Battalion Gloucestershire Regiment. 41 men from the 1/5th South Staffs were killed in action in the fighting on 3 October, and 7 more died from their wounds during the next two days. 

Further north, the Australian attack succeeded in breaking through the Beaurevoir Line on 3 October but stopped short of the village of Beaurevoir itself. Following an ill-fated attempt to capture Beaurevoir on 4 October, the 6th Australian Brigade attacked Montbrehain the next morning and secured the village by the end of the day, but at a cost of 430 casualties.  

The action at Montbrehain was the last battle fought by the Australian infantry in the First World War, but there was to be no similar let up for the 1/5th Battalion South Staffordshire Regiment. First came the liberation of Cambrai (8 – 10 October) which forced the Germans to fall back to a new defensive line along the River Selle, close to Le Cateau. The Allies were now firmly on the front foot, but the British had suffered heavy casualties in the fighting to secure the St. Quentin Canal and Cambrai; they needed time to reorganise, to bring up and deploy their artillery, and to prepare an attack on the new German positions. The Battle of the River Selle lasted from 17 – 25 October, the Allies having to overcome determined enemy resistance. The German Army then fell back and formed a new line between Valenciennes and the River Sambre, but that line was broken on 4 November. In the final push, Canadian forces captured the Belgian town of Mons on 11 November, the final day of the war. This liberated the region that had been under German occupation since 1914 and the town where it had all begun for the British Expeditionary Force more than four years earlier. 

The 1/5th Battalion South Staffordshire Regiment ended the war in the hamlet of Zorées in France. On 13 November they moved to temporary billets in Avesnes-sur-Helpe where it became clear that the 46th (North Midland) Division had not been selected to join the Army of Occupation in Germany; they were the first Territorial Division to arrive on the Western Front and the men were disappointed by the decision, especially so in view of the crucial part they had played in breaking the Hindenburg Line. But it was not to be, and, on 14 November, they marched 16 miles to Preux-au-Bois where they remained until mid-December. From there they moved to Fresnoy-Le-Grand and, early in January 1919, demobilisation began.

Photograph 99 shows Brigadier-General John Vaughan Campbell V.C. standing on the Riqueval Bridge addressing the victorious men of the 137th Brigade (46th Division) who had crossed and captured the St. Quentin Canal on 29 September 1918. It has since become one of the iconic images of the First World War, an indication that the balance between the two sides had shifted significantly in favour of the Allies, a sign of hope that this horrific and protracted war was finally coming to an end. However, we must not forget the men who were unable to share in the euphoria and excitement of that victory. The War Diary for the 1/5th Battalion South Staffordshire Regiment reported at the time that 24 men had lost their lives in the fighting on 28th and 29th September, and that 116 more were wounded. But the number who died rose as 42 men were reported missing, many of whom were later presumed to have been killed in action, their bodies never found:

Amongst those killed on 29 September was 764/201298 Private James Merrick. Given the rapid pace and chaotic nature of the advance, it is impossible to say exactly where or when he died. His body was never found. James’ sacrifice is remembered with honour on panels 6 and 7 of the Vis-en-Artois Memorial.

Picture 111

Picture 112

Picture 113

Please refer back to photographs 43 to 50 on the biography of James’ brother Alfred Merrick. 

Like his brother Alfred, James’ name is recorded on the Staffordshire Roll of Honour which is contained in a glass case in the Chapel of St Michael in Lichfield Cathedral. The Chapel was dedicated on 26 April 1926 for the perpetual remembrance of the Staffordshire men who gave their lives in the Great War 1914-1918. James’ name is in the section for Cannock-Hednesford. 

The South Staffordshire Regimental War Memorial at Whittington Barracks was “erected as a record of the War Service of the South Staffordshire Regiment in its many campaigns and to commemorate the serving together of its Line Special Reserve Territorial Service and Garrison Battalions in the Great War of 1914-1918 and the World War 1939-1945.”  

James’ name, and that of his brother Alfred, are inscribed on the Cenotaph War Memorial at Hednesford; they are also recorded on the War Memorial in Wimblebury though there the surname is given, mistakenly, as Merricks.

Picture 114

Picture 115

Having enlisted for the Territorial Force at Hednesford in May 1915 and having fought on the Western Front through such horrific events, and for so long, it seems particularly cruel that James was not to survive the war. Having already lost his elder brother Alfred in the war in October 1915, it must have been particularly painful when news of James’ death reached his family at home. 

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James’ mother, Sarah Ann, died in 1923 at the age of 53. Her husband, James, lived on to the age of 90 and died in 1961. James’ and Alfred’s sister Mabel Ann Merrick died in Cannock, in 1977, at the age of 81. 

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Picture 116

 Reference, item and source

1.        Extract relating to Alfred Merrick from Walsall and District: The Roll of the Great War 1914 – 1918 © copy held by Burntwood Family History Group
2.        Extract relating to James Merrick from Walsall and District: The Roll of the Great War 1914 – 1918 © copy held by Burntwood Family History Group
52.      Copy of the birth certificate for James Merrick © General Register Office
53.      Photograph of HMS Magnificent © Imperial War Museum
54.      Photograph of a French soldier firing an aerial torpedo shell from the trenches © MilitaryImages website https://www.militaryimages.net/media/french-aerial-torpedo-ww1.83187/
55.      Extract from the 1:20,000, 1916 trench map 57D NE, edition 2B, showing the area around the Gommecourt Salient {with the trenches corrected to 16 May 1916} © Chasseaud Collection, McMaster University, Ontario, Canada
56.      Extract from the War Diary of the 1/5th Battalion South Staffordshire Regiment giving details of the raid carried out with the 1/6th South Staffs on the night of 5/6 August 1916 © The National Archives
57.      Photograph of the grave of Frederick Hawthorne at the Warlincourt Halte British Cemetery © Vikki Swain, great niece of Frederick Hawthorne (Brownhills Bob website) https://brownhillsbob.com/2017/11/12/a-dreadful-dawn/
58.      Casualty form for Private Frederick John Mason showing that he was a prisoner of war © Find My Past
59.      Extract from the 1:20,000, 1916 trench map 57D NE, edition 4a, showing the area around the Gommecourt Salient {with the trenches corrected to 7 February 1917} © Chasseaud Collection, McMaster University, Ontario, Canada
60.      Extract from the 1:20,000, 1916 trench map 57D NE, edition 4a, showing the area around the Radfehrer Graben {with the trenches corrected to 7 February 1917} © Chasseaud Collection, McMaster University, Ontario, Canada
61.      Notice of the award of the Military Cross to Captain Stanley Sextus Barrymore Harrison (Medical Officer) of the Royal Army Medical Corps, who was attached to the 1/5th South Staffs © London Gazette edition dated 11 May 1917
62.      Notice of the award of the Military Cross to 2nd Lieutenant Gordon Ernest Cronk of the 1/5th South Staffs © London Gazette edition dated 11 May 1917
63.      Notice of the award of the Military Cross to 2nd Lieutenant Ernest Bertram Brown of the 1/5th South Staffs © London Gazette edition dated 11 May 1917
64.      Notice of the award of the Military Cross to 2nd Lieutenant Samuel Rubery of the 1/5th South Staffs © London Gazette edition dated 11 May 1917
65.      Extract from the 1:20,000 British WW1 trench map 36C SW, edition 10A, showing the area around Lens and Liévin, {with the trenches corrected to 26 June 1917} © McMaster University, Ontario, Canada
66.      Extract from the 1:20,000 British WW1 trench map 36C SW, edition 10A, showing the area where the events of 22 May 1917 took place © McMaster University, Ontario, Canada
67.      Extract from the 1:20,000 British WW1 trench map 36C SW, edition 10A, showing the area of the successful advance on Nash Alley by the 1/6th North Staffordshire Regiment on 24 May 1917 © McMaster University, Ontario, Canada
68.      Photograph of chevaux de frise © WW1 revisited website https://ww1revisited.com/2014/03/28/chevaux-de-frise-champagne/
69.      Extract from the 1:20,000 British WW1 trench map 36C SW, edition 10A, showing the 1/5th South Staffs operational area on 28/29/30 June 1917 © McMaster University, Ontario, Canada
70.      Extract from the 1:20,000 British WW1 trench map 36C SW, edition 10A, showing the 1/5th South Staffs operational area on 1/2 July 1917 © McMaster University, Ontario, Canada
71.      Hill 70 1:10,000 British WW1 trench map 36C SW2, Field Survey Co., R.E. 5046, trenches corrected to 19 October 1917 © McMaster University, Ontario, Canada
72.      Extract from the 1:10,000 British WW1 trench map 36C NW3, edition 8, {trenches corrected to 4 May 1917} showing the line occupied by the 1/5th South Staffs on 1 September 1917 © McMaster University, Ontario, Canada
73.      Handwritten copy of the poem “Gommecourt Wood” written by 8201/200198 Drummer George Getley © The National Archives
74.      Flying Fox II resting on the collapsed bridge in the St. Quentin Canal © TANK100 (The Tank Museum) website (http://tank100.com/cambrai/st-quentin-canal/)
75.      1917 map of the Cambrai area © Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle of Cambrai (1917))
76.      Photograph of Lieutenant General Sir Edmund Allenby entering the city of Jerusalem on foot, out of respect for the Holy City © Imperial War Museum
77.      Extract from the 1:10,000, 1918 trench map 36C NW.1 (La Bassée), edition 10B, showing the area in the Cuinchy subsector {with the trenches corrected to 24 May 1918} © National Library of Scotland
78.      Map showing the German Spring Offensives of 1918 © Wikimedia Commons {https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Western_front_1918_german.jpg}
79.      Extract from the 1:20,000 British WW1 trench map 36: Festubert - Loos Area, {trenches corrected to 6 February 1918} showing positions near Gorre, Beuvry, Verquigneul, Labourse and Bracquement, British trenches are in blue, German trenches are in red © McMaster University, Ontario, Canada
80.      Extract from the 1:20,000 Field Company Survey Royal Engineers 6149 map of the Gorre sector showing the trenches occupied by the 1/5th South Staffs on 25 April 1918 © The War Diary of the 1/5th Battalion South Staffordshire Regiment and The National Archives
81.      Message of congratulation to the 1/5th Battalion South Staffordshire Regiment on the recapture of Route A Keep © The War Diary of the 1/5th Battalion South Staffordshire Regiment and The National Archives
82.      Notice of the award of the Military Cross to Captain George Edward Bradbury of the 1/5th South Staffs © London Gazette edition dated 16 September 1918
83.      Notice of the award of the Distinguished Conduct Medal to 20085 Sergeant Jeremiah Albert Evans of the 1/5th South Staffs © London Gazette edition dated 5 September 1918
84.      Notice of the award of the Distinguished Conduct Medal 8855/200436 Arthur Henry Wilkins of the 1/5th South Staffs © London Gazette edition dated 5 September 1918
85.      Advertising card for the Quest Disinfector from the Thresher Disinfector Company mounted on a Foden steam engine © Historic Military Vehicle Forum {http://hmvf.co.uk/topic/22047-foden-us-yankee-division-steam-mobile-delousing-vehicle/}
86.      A Foden steam delousing vehicle being operated by the 101st Sanitation Train, part of the US 26th Division which arrived in France on 21 September 1917 © Historic Military Vehicle Forum {http://hmvf.co.uk/topic/22047-foden-us-yankee-division-steam-mobile-delousing-vehicle/}
87.      Extract from the 1/5th South Staffordshire War Diary showing the disposition of the companies between 19 and 23 June 1918 © The War Diary of the 1/5th Battalion South Staffordshire Regiment and The National Archives
88.      Notice of the award of the Military Cross to 2nd Lieutenant Cyril Stuart Embrey of the 1/5th South Staffs © London Gazette edition dated 15 October 1918
89.      Extract from the 1:20,000 British WW1 trench map 36: Festubert - Loos Area, {trenches corrected to 6 February 1918} showing the area that the 1/5th South Staffs occupied at the start of August 1918 © McMaster University, Ontario, Canada
90.      Copy of Field Marshall Haig’s Special Order of the Day of 7 September 1918 © The War Diary of the 1/5th Battalion South Staffordshire Regiment and The National Archives
91.      Copy of Field Marshall Haig’s Special Order of the Day of 10 September 1918 giving details of the congratulatory telegram Haig had received from the Queen Mother, Queen Alexandra, and his reply on behalf of the men he commanded © The War Diary of the 1/5th Battalion South Staffordshire Regiment and The National Archives
92.      Copy of the secret message sent by the 46th Division Commanding Officer, Major-General Gerald Farrell Boyd, entrusting the 137th Infantry Brigade with the task of forcing the line of the St. Quentin Canal and capturing Bellenglise © The War Diary of the 1/5th Battalion South Staffordshire Regiment and The National Archives
93.      Copy of the message the Commanding Officer of the 137th Infantry Brigade, Brigadier-General John Vaughan Campbell, sent to his men passing on the message from the Major General Boyd © The War Diary of the 1/5th Battalion South Staffordshire Regiment and The National Archives
94.      Copy of the orders issued on 28 September 1918 for the attack by the 1/5th Battalion South Staffordshire Regiment on the St Quentin Canal © The War Diary of the 1/5th Battalion South Staffordshire Regiment and The National Archives
95.      Extract from the 1:20,000 British WW1 trench map Sheet 62B NW., Edition 5a, Bellicourt, {trenches corrected to 8 February 1918} showing the area where the Battle of St. Quentin Canal took place on 29 September 1918 © McMaster University, Ontario, Canada
96.      Extract from the 1:20,000 British WW1 trench map Sheet 62B NW., Edition 5a, Bellicourt, {trenches corrected to 8 February 1918} showing in greater detail the region of the St. Quentin Canal sector where the 137th Infantry Brigade crossed the canal on 29 September 1918 © McMaster University, Ontario, Canada
97.      Notice of the award of the Distinguished Service Order to (Acting) Captain Arthur Humphrey Charlton of the 1/6th North Staffs © London Gazette edition dated 4 October 1919
98.      Notice of the award of the Military Cross to (Acting) Captain Percy Randolph Teeton of the 1/6th South Staffs © London Gazette edition dated 4 October 1919
99.      Photograph, taken on 2 October 1918, of Brigadier-General John Vaughan Campbell VC on the Riqueval Bridge over the St. Quentin Canal addressing the men of the 137th Brigade (46th Division) who had captured and crossed the Canal on 29 September 1918 © Imperial War Museum
100.   Postcard showing the St. Quentin Canal before the First World War © Andrew Pouncey and the War Untold website {http://www.waruntold.com/western_front/battlefields/005.php}
101.   Photograph, taken on 2 October 1918, showing Infantry passing over the Riqueval Bridge which men from the 1/6th North Staffs (46th Division) had saved from demolition on 29th September and which the 466th Field Company repaired © Imperial War Museum
102.   Postcard showing the St. Quentin Canal (Bellenglise Tunnel) before the First World War © Andrew Pouncey and the War Untold website {http://www.waruntold.com/western_front/battlefields/005.php}
103.   Photograph showing soldiers of the 30th American Infantry Division and 15th Australian Brigade (5th Australian Division) at the southern entrance at Riqueval of the Bellenglise to Bellicourt Tunnel, captured by 1/6th South Staffords on 29th September 1918 © Imperial War Museum
104.   Photograph, taken on 2 October 1918, of men from the 137th Brigade (46th Division) on the banks of the St. Quentin Canal under the Riqueval Bridge as they are being addressed by Brigadier-General John Vaughan Campbell VC © Imperial War Museum
105.   Message from the 46th Division Commanding Officer, Major-General Gerald Farrell Boyd, congratulating his men on their stunning success in taking the St. Quentin Canal © The War Diary of the 1/5th Battalion South Staffordshire Regiment and The National Archives
106.   Message of congratulations from General Henry Seymour Rawlinson, Commanding Officer of the British Fourth Army © The War Diary of the 1/5th Battalion South Staffordshire Regiment and The National Archives
107.   Message of congratulations from Lieutenant General Walter Pipon Braithwaite, Commanding Officer of IX Army Corps © The War Diary of the 1/5th Battalion South Staffordshire Regiment and The National Archives
108.   Congratulatory telegram sent by Mayor Samuel Mills Slater on behalf of Walsall Town Council © The War Diary of the 1/5th Battalion South Staffordshire Regiment and The National Archives
109.   Extract from the 1:20,000 British WW1 trench map Sheet 62B NW., Edition 5a, Bellicourt, {trenches corrected to 8 February 1918} showing the area where the attack on Levergies took place on 3 October 1918 © McMaster University, Ontario, Canada
110.   Notice of the award of the Military Cross to Captain Edward James Hugh Meynell of the 1/5th South Staffs © London Gazette edition dated 4 October 1919
111.   Plan of the Vis-en-Artois British Cemetery © Commonwealth War Graves Commission
112.   Photograph of the Vis-en-Artois British Cemetery © WW1  Cemeteries website https://www.ww1cemeteries.com/vis-en-artois-memorial.html
113.   Photograph of panel 6 and 7 of the Vis-en-Artois British Cemetery © WW1  Cemeteries website https://www.ww1cemeteries.com/vis-en-artois-memorial.html
114.   James Merrick’s medal card © Ancestry
115.   The entry for James Merrick in the UK, Army Registers of Soldiers’ Effects, 1901-1929 © Ancestry
116.   Certificate in memory of James Merrick © Commonwealth War Graves Commission