H.E. FIRST USED BY EIGHTEEN POUNDERS

First Battle of Ypres

On October 31^st, 1914, the 70^th Battery, 34^th Brigade, R.F.A., commanded by Major H.C. Stanley-Clarke, R.F.A. was in action in close support of 6^th Infantry Brigade holding a pronounced salient along the eastern and southern edges of a large wood to the east of Passchendaele-Bercelare road and bending back across this road south-west to Reutel.

The battery was disposed as follows:

Four guns (right and centre sections), south-west of the village of Molenaarelshoek (sometimes known as Nord Westhoek) and just clear of the north-east corner of the Polygon de Zonnebeke.

Two guns (left section) in an orchard in the village of Molenaarelshoek

The centre line of fire was in the direction of Kieberg-Waterdamhoek. The main

Observing station was in a house near the Passchendaele –Bercelare road, with a forward observing station in the trenches of the 2^nd South Staffordshire Regiment.

About 9 a.m. Lieutenant Maitland-Dougall, R.F.A., the forward observing Officer of the 50^th Battery, R.F.A., which together with the 22^nd Battery, R.F.A., was in action behind the 70^th Battery, came to the observing station of 70^th Battery and reported that an enemy gun was in action just behind the German trenches on the southern side of the salient.

Major Stanley-Clarke, having communicated with the infantry, ordered Second Lieutenant T.J. Moss R.F.A., commanding the left section in the village, to go up with Lieutenant Maitland-Dougall and reconnoitre with a view to taking a gun forward and, if possible, knocking out the gun at close range. Orders were sent at the same timeto the Wagon Lines in Polygon Wood to send up the gun team and limber of “E” sub-section and to fill the limber entirely with the twenty-four rounds H.E. which had just been issued to the Battery.

Second Lieutenant Moss, who had come out with the battery in August as Battery Quartermaster-Sergeant and had been given a commission on October 1^st and remained with the battery as a section commander, returned from his reconnaissance and reported that he could take a gun team forward to the Passchendaele-Bercelare road and thence man-handle the gun down the road till he got within less than 500 yards of the German gun, which was plainly visible.

By this time “E” sub-section limber and team had arrived, and Second Lieutenant Moss led it forward and unhooked the team on reaching the road. The gun and limber were then man-handled to the spot which had been selected. The muzzle was poked through the hedge and Second Lieutenant Moss, carrying a reaping-hook, crept on all fours through some grass to another hedge where he cut a hole in ditect line between his 18-pounder and the German gun.

Meanwhile his detachment had got the gun ready for action, had hidden the limber close by, and brought up all H.E. ammunition handy. On his return Second Lieutenant Moss took the place of the layer, laid his gun over the open sights, and was just about to pull the firing lever when he noticed movement in the trenches near the enemy’s gun. He accordingly waited a moment and then saw a party of fifteen or twenty Germans with fixed bayonets jump out of their trench all round the gun. He pulled the firing lever, observed his shell hit the gun fair and square and detonate on it, and saw the party of Germans collapse in three heaps in front of it. He then fired several more rounds at the hostile gun to complete its destruction, and also at the trenches and neighbouring houses suspected to containing machine guns. Having expended the whole of his ammunition he withdrew his detachment to the shelter of a house close by. For the remainder of the day the vicinity of the 18-pounder was subject to continuous and very heavy rifle and machine-gun fire.

Second Lieutenant Moss returned to the battery observing station and reported the result of his shooting to his battery commander, who went forward with him to see the effect. The German gun could be seen lying on its side---wrecked; and three heaps of dead Germans in front of the trench. At dusk the eighteen-pounder was taken back to its old position in the orchard.

The next day the Germans “crumped” the position where the eighteen-pounder had been the previous day with heavy howitzers for over an hour, and no doubt flattered themselves that they, in their turn, had knocked it out.

Taken from The Royal Artillery War Commemoration Book Page 30-31

Source: First use of HE Ammunition in 18 Pdr in action