The battle for Hill 304 in France

[Guest horacio]

I'm interested in finding information (from a German point of view) about the battle for Hill 304, near Verdun, fought I believe in August 1917. More specifically, which German divisions or regiments, etc. were involved.

Many thanks for any guidance I may get.

charrua

[bob lembke]

I'm interested in finding information (from a German point of view) about the battle for Hill 304, near Verdun, fought I believe in August 1917. More specifically, which German divisions or regiments, etc. were involved.

Many thanks for any guidance I may get.

charrua

The fighting for 304 went on for a year or more, episodically. The fighting that comes to mind was from March thru December 1916, but there occasionally was fighting there later than that. I will poke about. Why the interest in August 1917?

Bob Lembke

[Landsturm]

In Verdun, Cote 304 was on the western bank of Meuse and the fighting there and Mort-Homme indeed took place in March-May time. During the rest of the year 1916 the French took back the territories lost on the eastern bank (like Fort Douamont), the lost territories on the western back were attacked in August 1917.

I try to look something up too...

[truthergw]

Almost all the accounts of the fighting in this area concentrate on the main battle which was February to June, 1916 and tailing off over the rest of the year until winter put an end to campaigning. 1917 was noteworthy for Chemin des Dames for the French and even further away for the British. I think you will find very little reference to fighting in the area of Hill 304 in 1917 outside unit diaries.

Post Script: By a strange co-incidence, I have just come across a short passage in Duff Cooper's Haig. In discussing the battle of III Ypres, he mentions the morale problems of the French Army after Chemin des Dames.

I quote, " That Petain himself was sincere in the opinion he expressed is proved by the fact that although the trench warfare in the Verdun area became intensified from the 20th August onwards, it was not, as will be seen, until the 23rd October that he dared to use his troops for an offensive, and then only on a comparatively minor scale."

It seems then that there was an action by the French in the Verdun area in late summer- Autumn of 1917. I must have read that before but it failed to register.

[Guest horacio]

The fighting for 304 went on for a year or more, episodically. The fighting that comes to mind was from March thru December 1916, but there occasionally was fighting there later than that. I will poke about. Why the interest in August 1917?

Bob Lembke

My dad fought at Verdun on the German side. He never talked much about his four years fighting in the war. Now I found an old photo showing him playing cards with his comrades, bearing the information that it was taken at Hoehe (Hill) 304, in 1917. I'd like to fill in the gaps in what I know about my father's life as a WWI German soldier.

Charrua

[truthergw]

Fighting went on everyday for the whole length of the Western Front. Even on days when it was " All Quiet on the Western Front", men went about their daily tasks and were shot at or fired on by artillery, ate slept and played cards. There are several books. Remarque gives a good feel for the daily life of the German soldier, Under Fire by Henri Barbusse will give you an idea of what was going on on the other side of no mans land in the French lines. These are both available in English and the original German and French. Storm of Steel by Ernst Junger, is another much praised book on the German side.

[dundeesown]

Hi Charrua and welcome to the forum, I`m sure it will not be long before you have all the info you require the pals on this forum are second to none with the info they have on the Great War. Pic from World War 1 in Photographs.

[Chris Boonzaier]

The fighting for 304 went on for a year or more, episodically. The fighting that comes to mind was from March thru December 1916, but there occasionally was fighting there later than that. I will poke about. Why the interest in August 1917?

Bob Lembke

Thats the date of the last French offensive.

Markus Klauer's book "Die Höhe 304" has a full chapter on this.

Best

Chris

[Luc Pozières]

Thats the date of the last French offensive.

Markus Klauer's book "Die Höhe 304" has a full chapter on this.

Best

Chris

Hi,

In the last chapter of La Cote 304 et le Mort-Homme, 1916-1917, general H. Colin talks about the last fighting days at le MH and 304 Hill, 20-24 August 1917. If I'm not wrong, several units of Régiment de Marche de la Légion Étrangere took part in these fightings.

Regards.

[phil andrade]

This 1917 fighting at Verdun appears to have been underated. In late June of that year the Germans launched a fierce attack in the Cote 304 vicinity which disrupted French plans for their forthcoming offensive there.

In their August 1917 offensive in the Morte Homme/ Cote 304 sectors the French fired three million shells in a ten day bombardment prior to the attack of August 20th, and, significantly, one third of these were rounds from heavy guns. I remember visiting the battlefield with Christina Holstein and Tony Noyes in October 2006, and it was apparent that the huge metal casings of the gun turrets in one or two of the forts had been smashed not, as I had supposed, in the main 1916 battle but in the subsequent 1917 fighting.

Overshadowed by the events in Champagne and Artois in the spring, and by the Flanders fighting later that year, this fighting at Verdun in the summer of 1917 is worthy of more study. It was clearly intense.

As an edit, I would point out that the three million shell bombardment in the ten days prior to launching the assault at Verdun in August 1917 is beginning to approach, in weight and intensity, the artillery programme deployed by the British in their Flanders offensive in July 1917.

Phil.

[bob lembke]

Thats the date of the last French offensive.

Markus Klauer's book "Die Höhe 304" has a full chapter on this.

Best

Chris

Charrua;

Do you have a unit for your father? Is the "old Photo" actually a sent post card? If so, it will have some stamps on it which will tell you a good deal. Do you have any letters?

We can try to see if there is a unit history for your father's unit. Can you read German?

My father was wounded on a pre-dawn raid on Hill 304, and badly wounded on a full-blown flamethrower attack on Dead Man's Hill, the sister hill to Hill 304. Markus Klauer has written two books on Verdun, one on the fighting on Hill 304, the second on the fighting on Dead Man's Hill. I can happily recommend them. He kindly tried to help me figure out more about the raid on Hill 304, with no success. When I last corresponded with him he was a serving captain in the German Army.

Bob Lembke

[Christina Holstein]

Markus Klauer is still a serving captain in the German army. His books - in German only - on Hill 304 and the Mort-Homme are excellent. He's also produced a wonderful guide book to the German side of the front in Flanders and northern France.

There's an interesting series of articles on the 1917 fighting at Verdun that details, among other things, the sites of the French heavy guns used in August 1917 in the current edition of 'Les Cahiers de la Grande Guerre', which is the bulletin of the Association Nationale du Souvenir de la Bataille de Verdun.

Phil - I can't think of any gun turrets destroyed in 1917. Which ones are you thinking about? Where gun turrets are missing in the Left Bank forts, it's because they were scrapped by the Germans during WW2. The turret on Ft. Vaux was blown up by the Germans before they abandoned the fort in November 1917. The turrets at Douaumont survived, apart from the machine gun turrets. The 1917 battles were well north of the fortress line on both sides of the river.

Regards,

Christina

[phil andrade]

Phil - I can't think of any gun turrets destroyed in 1917. Which ones are you thinking about? Where gun turrets are missing in the Left Bank forts, it's because they were scrapped by the Germans during WW2. The turret on Ft. Vaux was blown up by the Germans before they abandoned the fort in November 1917. The turrets at Douaumont survived, apart from the machine gun turrets. The 1917 battles were well north of the fortress line on both sides of the river.

Regards,

Christina

My mistake, Christina...thanks for putting me straight on that. I do remember some huge fragments of heavy metal cupolas scattered about at least one of the forts, and my impression was that they had been shattered in 1917; perhaps, as you point out, these were the ones that had been destroyed by the Germans before they abandoned Ft Vaux, but for some reason I associated them with the 1917 fighting.

I referred back to Doughty's book Pyrrhic Victory to read some more about this August 1917 battle at Verdun, and read that the French used three thousand guns for their bombardment. This does indeed rival the British artillery deployment at the outset of Third Ypres, and, if I am correct, actually exceeds the total that Petain had at his disposal at the height of the 1916 battle. How remarkable that this affair has been so "sidelined", and mentioned as a minor accompaniment to the Flanders battles of 1917!

Again, I remember reading somewhere - I think it was in Mosier's terribly distorted but admirably compelling book - that a breath takingly large proportion of graves in German cemeteries in the Verdun sector come from 1917. Then again, this might be because such a large number of their 1916 dead were not recovered for identified burial.

Phil.

[Christina Holstein]

Hi Phil,

The big chunks of metal you remember are on Fort Vaux. They come from the 75mm turret that was blown up by the Germans as the last thing they did before evacuating the fort. What a sight that cupola going up into the air must have been!

Christina

[Shenkie]

Great to read more about the 1917 fighting in Verdun, as this is a overshadowed and underated part of the Verdun battle.

[Chris Boonzaier]

I'm interested in finding information (from a German point of view) about the battle for Hill 304, near Verdun, fought I believe in August 1917. More specifically, which German divisions or regiments, etc. were involved.

Many thanks for any guidance I may get.

charrua

Hi,

1917 in English is hard to find...

I translated an overview of the Verdun fighting in 1917 by a German general here...

http://www.kaiserscross.com/136501/234801.html

It has a section on the West bank as well.

Best

Chris

[Shenkie]

Great info Chris!

[bob lembke]

charrua;

Your original question was information on the German units in the August 1917 fighting on Hill 304. Chris gave a link to his excellent site with a description of that fighting ftom an article from Generalleutnant August Fortmueller. The article mentions the attack of August 1, 1917 on Hill 304, and the use of flame-throwers in that attack.

The flame-thrower troops in that attack were from 2. Kompagnie, Garde=Reserve=Pionier=Regiment (Flammenwerfer) , and they lost one man, Pionier Erich Hahn, who was reported missing on Hill 304. According to General Fortmueller, the Sturm=Bataillon Nr. 5 (Rohr) also took part, and as that unit also had a flame-thrower platoon, flame-throwers from that unit might also have taken part. There is a chance that my father may have been in that attack, as he was a member of that flame company at that time, and also was lent out to the Storm Battalion Rohr for flame attacks at Verdun upon occasion, but probably he was not in the attack, as he was still recovering from a wound received at Verdun in 1916.

If you are interested, I could poke about and see if Storm Battalion Rohr also lost any men there, although the death roll of that unit is not as accurate and complete as that for the flame regiment.

Chris;

Thanks for the interesting material on this fighting. Could you mention a citation for the interesting Fortmueller article? I am not actively working on Flammenwerfer at this time, but I am always happily vacumning up sources and squrreling them away in my time-lines. The OHL communique for August 2 briefly mentions the attack, but with little detail, except for mentioning "over 750 prisoners".

Bob Lembke

[egbert]

Although Charrua did not visit this forum since 3 months, here is a map on positions from Markus Klauer's book "Höhe 304", showing the lines on 19.8.1917

[bob lembke]

charrua;

Poked about a bit more in my material, and the article from Generalleutnant August Fortmueller also mentions an attack of November 9, 1917 in the general area, that also involved the use of flame-throwers in that attack, and that troops from the Sturm=Bataillon Nr. 5 (Rohr) also took part. I have no information on that attack from materials from the flame regiment, which indicates that they lost no men in the attack, but I have descriptions of this attack and the use of flame-throwers from unofficial histories of two French regiments who were hit by that attack. It is possible that the Flammenwerfer in the attack were from Storm=Bataillon Rohr and not the flame regiment.

Bob Lembke

[trenchtrotter]

I guess Klauers book will never be printed in English! Shame as having visited those hills would love to know more.

TT

[Shenkie]

Great info, thanks for sharing! It's very interesting to read about the Verdun 1917 fighting

[Pete O]

Fighting went on everyday for the whole length of the Western Front. Even on days when it was " All Quiet on the Western Front", men went about their daily tasks and were shot at or fired on by artillery, ate slept and played cards. There are several books. Remarque gives a good feel for the daily life of the German soldier, Under Fire by Henri Barbusse will give you an idea of what was going on on the other side of no mans land in the French lines. These are both available in English and the original German and French. Storm of Steel by Ernst Junger, is another much praised book on the German side.

Storm Of Steel is an excellent book.

[bob lembke]

Storm Of Steel is an excellent book.

Ernst Juenger was a fascinating fellow, a storm troop leader, who also wrote at least one other book, Copse XXX (XXX = some number), which may not have been translated, and is hard to get, on WW I, and other books later. Juenger only died a few years ago, and was the last surviving Pour le Merite ("Blue Max") holder. He was a German officer in Paris during WW II, and was very close to many French intellectuals. He wrote a fscinating account of being on the roof of his Paris hotel at night, drinking an excellent Bordeaux with sliced strawberries in it, and watching the visually attractive spectacle of Allied night-time bombing of Paris. I think he was asked to participate in an uprising against Hitler, and he decided that it was a good time to go on vacation, prudent, if not self-sacrificing. Germans held him in considerable suspicion after the war, but many French intellectuals found this odd. He wrote a lot of other material, I am now recalling, novels and perhaps some philosophy.

Bob Lembke

[trenchtrotter]

Is it Copse 105 or 109..cant recall. However has been translated and relatively available in UK. I have a copy. Much harder read than Storm Of Steel and more reflective thought in it. Nevertheless worth getting and of course the copse is known to us as Rossignol Wood between Gommecourt and Puisieux on the Somme. Had a mooch in it when over there two weeks ago!

TT