I am preparing the spiel for my annual school tour. This year we shall be following the progress of Lieutenant Richard Hobhouse, 38th Heavy Brigade RGA who won the Military Cross for leading an observation patrol into Langemark during its capture by 20th Division on 16th August 1917. He was the great-grandfather of one of the boys on the tour. As I'm not by any means an artillery expert, I'd appreciate some help with describing FOO techniques in this period. Hobhouse took 11 NCOs and men with him. I'm presuming that these were mainly signallers, presumably toting lots of telephone wire leading from their previous OP at Stray Farm near Pilkem. Would Hobhouse also have had means of communicating with circling aircraft? Backup methods such as pigeons? How many guns would 38 HB have consisted of? I think that the standard ORBAT was four batteries of six guns but this presumably varied under real-life conditions. Apologies if any of these are naive questions but I come from a line of many generations of PBI! The only thing I remember about artillery is that you never say 'repeat' on the radio.

Source: Artillery FOO 1917