14th (Light) Division - Hooge Liquid Fire attack & later actions

[AlanCurragh]

Now moved

[Julianw]

Mark

Do you happen to know where the 9 RB were during the attack? My great uncle Lt Andrew Nugee was wounded being partially blinded on the 30th July. I think he was in a trench near Hooge.

Julian

[MBrockway]

Mark

Do you happen to know where the 9 RB were during the attack? My great uncle Lt Andrew Nugee was wounded being partially blinded on the 30th July. I think he was in a trench near Hooge.

Julian

Not 100% certain where 9/RB were when the liquid fire attack began just after 03:00hrs on the 30th, but for the 14:45hrs counter-attacks later that day, 9/RB were holding the line either side of the Menin Road near The Culvert. This is approx 400m W of the Hooge Crater. 9/KRRC attacked through them along the Menin Road and 9/RB sent reinforcements forward once 9/KRRC had re-taken Point G.10.

See Andy's map here: Map of the counter-attacks

I'm sure Andy will be along shortly to add more detail.

[stiletto_33853]

Julian,

9th Rifle Brigade were holding the line across the Menin Road to the left on this map.

Andy

[purvis15]

Ronald Campbell Maclachlan D.S.O.

A quite remarkable man, 4th son of the late Archibald Neil Campbell Maclachlan Esq., of Newton Valence, educated Eton and Sandhurst. Gazretted to the Regiment 8/7/93, promoted Lieutenant 27/11/95. He served with the 3rd Battalion in India and later with the 2nd Battalion in South Africa, where he took part in the Defence of Ladysmith, being severely wounded on 6th January at Wagon Hill. He was present at the action of Laing's Nek in January 1900 and the subsequent operations in the Transvaal. Later, at Bergendal he did good services with the machine guns for which he was mentioned in despatches.

Promoted Captain 24/4/00 and was posed to the 3rd Battalion in India. He took part in the Tibet expedition of 1904 as a special service officer.

On 1st Febraury 1908 he was appointed adjutant of Volunteers and six month later was made adjutant of the Officers Training Corps at Oxford and held that post until 30/9/11. On the termination of his appointment the Honorary Degree of M.A. was conferred upon him by the University of Oxford for his excellent service with the O.T.C. In June 1913 he was appointed to Command of the Oxford O.T.C. with the rank of Lieutenant Colonel and commanded the officer's camp at Churn for a month, where 500 men from the Universities were in training at the time when war was declared.

In the following month he assisted to raise and train the 8th Battalion and took over command of that battalion taking it out to France. He was severely wounded at Ypres in December 1915 and was granted the D.S.O. in May 1916. He returned to France in November 1916 and on 7th January 1917 was appointed Brigadier-General. On 11th August 1917 whilst visiting the trenches under his charge he was shot dead by a sniper.

His Divisional General wrote strongly on "the services he had rendered during the battles on the Scarpe" and how "he commanded his Brigade at Monchy on 9th to 11th April with great success .......... We wondered how it was possible for the Germans to have let his men get to the summit of the ridge where there was not a blade of cover. It was his personal example and personal influence only that did it. He was right up at the front, almost in the front line ......The Army has lost a fine leader with tremendous personality."

"In the Rifle Brigade he was beloved, and the large number who attended his funeral was eloquent testimony of the esteem in which he was held by all. But his influence counts much further than his Regiment, and there must be hundreds of Oxford men who are under a great obligation to him for having taught them the duties of an officer."

Hi Andy - Ronnie MacLachlan was the man who recruited my cousin John to the Rifle Brigade (9th Bn) while he was in Oxford OTC and he talks about him very warmly in a number of letters. John witnessed the liquid fire attack from his position next to 8th RB and was concerned and also relieved that Ronnie survived these. I didn't know he died later in the war until I saw this post. Very sad.

[SMG65]

Mark

I give a talk on this action to WFA Branches, it is very popular.

I wrote it in 2006 and keep adding/changing it as I get more information.

I based it around the life and death of Keith Rae and then move on to the disasterous counter attack and the recapture by 2 DLI on 9th August, (The DLI Friends still celebrate Hooge Day). Being a man of County Durham I also mention the actions of 10 DLI who did so much for the wounded and held the line losing over 100 casualties in the process.

I have walked the ground extensively and although I stand to be corrected I believe that the modern day trenches to the left of the hotel are about where Keith Rae was last seen alive, the site of the 1915 crater being near the fence and the brick enclosure ( is this the site of the garden around Keith Rae's memorial before it fell into disrepair and the memorial was moved?).

If I had a pound for the amount of times I have been in the area and heard someone call the 1917 crater the infamous 'Hooge Crater' I would have enough to buy the hotel.

One place you may like to explore is the 2 DLI start line for the 9 August attack.

I walked the attack in 2012, an experience worth doing.

Sean

[MBrockway]

If I had a pound for the amount of times I have been in the area and heard someone call the 1917 crater the infamous 'Hooge Crater' I would have enough to buy the hotel.

Sean

Sean,

Absolutely right! There's a long thread here on the Forum where Andy comprehensively proves the correct location of the relevant 1915 crater and explains the confusion with the crater from 1917 and the several others in the area.

[Mark Hone]

As Mark says, the craters and other features adjoining the hotel have provoked much debate on the Forum. A major problem is that if a mistake gets into one of the popular guidebooks it becomes part of the spiel of tour guides who use that as a reference, is passed on and in that way rapidly becomes an accepted part of battlefield lore. I'm pretty sure that when I last visited Hooge with my school group for the 90th anniversary in 2005 I was under the impression that the later crater was the 1915 one. Now, thanks to membership of this Forum, I know better.

[stiletto_33853]

Maybe this will help a little. The craters on the right being the ones situated where the present hotel is, although that modern hotel is placed where the old stables used to be.

Andy

[stiletto_33853]

3/7/16 will have to check my records but I believe the mines where the hotel is situated were set off in February and April 1916.

Andy

[MBrockway]

I think there were mines set off in Feb and Apr 1916, but the group of four were exploded by the Germans on 06 Jun 1916 as part of the attack on the Canadians.

See this German sketch map reproduced in Simon Jones's Underground Warfare ....

[source: © Simon Jones Underground Warfare 1914-1918, p.139]

Edit: realised the sketch needs some translations!

-schacht = shaft

ehemal. Schloss Hooge = former Hooge chateau

NB Judging by the alignment of the Menin Road, I don't think this sketch is 100% oriented N-S

Edited 21 September , 2015 by MBrockway

[stiletto_33853]

Hi Mark,

Agreed, but I think one of the mines exploded in June was just about where one of the previous mines set off earlier in the year was. Ahhhh Mark, tour guides, hmmmmmmmm.

Andy

[MBrockway]

The remains of Hooge in 1919 ...

[Michelin Illustrated Guides to the Battlefields (1914-1918) - Ypres and the Battles of Ypres, p.105]

... and the British cemetery on the western slopes of the Hooge ridge, also in 1919 ....

[Michelin Illustrated Guides to the Battlefields (1914-1918) - Ypres and the Battles of Ypres, also p.105]

... and the original Hooge Chateau before the War....

[Michelin Illustrated Guides to the Battlefields (1914-1918) - Ypres and the Battles of Ypres, p.106]

[bob lembke]

I just discovered this thread, and am now only been able to skim it, but have found it fascinating.

 

I have done a lot of research on the battle at Hooge. but it was some years ago, but I have retained my work. I have studied the

German Flammenwerfer effort for 16 years. My father was a flame-thrower trooper from mid-1916 to the end of the war, and also

used the flame-thrower fighting Red sailors in Berlin in January 1919, during the civil war in Germany. He was wounded four times in combat.

 

I cannot address this directly now, and am only now resuming my Great War studies. Besides, I have just resumed writing another book,

which will not cover Hooge.

 

However, if this thread is still of interest, I would be happy to contribute from the German side, which would be of great usefulness, as this was

not an ordinary infantry attack, but involved a good deal of technology. I work only from primary sources and official and unit histories, and

work in German, French, and Flemish.

 

If there is no response I probably will still provide a summary of the Hunnish side of this battle. I would be happy to answer any technical

questions that anyone might ask.  

[stiletto_33853]

Bob,

 

Would love to hear more from the German side as I am putting a few more touches to Hooge with the 14th Division presently. I have the German account although I believe it is not complete.

 

Andy

[stiletto_33853]

Not sure if these French reports on Flamethrower attacks by the French are of use to you?, please note the date as 24th July 1915 letter No. I/7741 sent to the French, very close to the Hooge attack.

 

Andy

Edited 26 January , 2017 by stiletto_33853

[bob lembke]

Andy;

 

Hsppy to help, but I have to run off to work soon. 

 

Very interested in any material from the Allied side, but I must warn you they put out a lot of disinformation, acting on several motives. I can read the material in a few hours. 

 

Are you you writing a book?

[stiletto_33853]

Trying to Bob,

 

The CO of the 9th RB down the Menin road by The Culvert had seen activity in the German trenches for a few days with trench ladders being seen as well as other material. Hence I wondered if this activity was for the trench  from Eclusette to Chateau Hooge which was planned to be the secure basis with the Crater.

However it was only on the 26th that General-Leutnant von Bertrab viewed the position. On the 29th a demonstration of the flame throwers took place in the rear for the companies that had been chosen for the attack with the storm battalion under Hauptmann Erhardt. I am curious as to the limit of IR172 on the left attack went, this was successful at first but its targets had not been reached and was forced to dig in.

So much has come to light through continually digging away at this project but some more information from the German side would be fantastic.

 

Andy

[MBrockway]

Bob - Like Andy, I would be extremely interested in the German view of the 30 July action.

 

We have quite a lot of information on the six jet fixed pipe installation either side of the crater, but very little on the what was used for the flame attack against A Coy of 7/KRRC at Point G1 just to the north of SANCTUARY WOOD about 400m to the right (east) of the Hooge Crater.

 

No Man's Land there was considerably wider than the 5m at the 8/RB position, and we suspect that the Germans were using smaller man-portable units using the more standard storm trooper tactics.  This attack was beaten back, though by this stage 7/KRRC were under fire from their rear by the Germans who had penetrated the British communications trenches south of the Crater, as well as to their front from the German front line.

 

Any further detail you could add would be most welcome and very interesting.

 

Cheers,

Mark

 

[bob lembke]

Probably to the dismay of the moderators, I have also been posting on this topic on a thread under "Western Front", I think, and also sending some stuff to a participant via PM. (I am getting a bit dizzy.)

 

Here is something I posted in the other thread. I think that there was a second post with considerably more information on Hooge. Pasted material follows:

 

" Happy to cooperate with you. I have amassed over 1000 pages of timelines linked to the more detailed sources on FW activity, plus another 500 pages on other WW I topics. I have  But your material on the Hooge attack from the other side would be useful. The Hooge attack was one of the most important of the about 600 flame attacks the Germans made. (The biggest employed 154 flame-throwers. That must have been fun to defend against.)

 

Got to run to work (at 77).

 

Bob

 

(Note: Later.)

 

I just looked into my general timeline for the German flame-thrower regiment, my father's unit from Fall 1916 at Verdun to discharge in Germany in December 1918 (Garde=Reserve=Pionier=Regiment (Flammenwerfer)  ) and there is only five pages on the Hooge attack, and some of that was British material. However, the notes indicate that when I was working on this topic some years ago I was working on other Hooge documents, in particular a bibliography on the attack. What I looked at was a timeline, not a transcript of the material that I found; for example, a three line entry might briefly describe and give a reference for a six-page entry in some stated source.

 

One entry gave the relevant line from the sketchy history of the flame regiment by its commander, Major Reddemann:          

July 30, 1915 -      “Attack of Company Beck against the Hooge Position in Flanders on July 30, 1915 with nine large flame-throwers and 11 small flame-throwers.  After shocking the forward positions the ones behind were occupied without much resistance.  Many prisoners.”  RGL translation of entry in Reddemann’s History, p. 19.    (Note: FW unit commander Reddemann had to, either in person or by written report, report to the High Command every month on every FW attack his unit made, even if by a Trupp of two FW. So when he wrote his regimental history he probably had good notes (his report) on every flame attack.)

 

"Company Beck" identifies the attacking flame company by its commander, "Beck", who would have been a captain or a first lieutenant. (I can identify Beck's company later; I have notes organized flame company by flame company; also notes ordered officer by officer.) I have over 100 pages of organized notes on the officers and the men of the flame regiment, and I am sure that I have more on Beck."  Another entry gives the attacking force as using nine large fixed FW (Flammenwerfer, my shorthand) and 11 portable FW, and a third states that the flame company had no casualties. But they only listed the dead, not wounded but recovered. Any KIA, wounded but later lost (died), missing, or lost to disease proximate to the battle would have been listed, and his last name and rank given The flame regiment, across the entire war, in most attacks did not lose a single man, and most of their attacks was on the Western Front. I have the complete listing of the lost men.

   

I thank you for the ten scanned pages, which I have to this moment just seen and skimmed in part. I saw it contained talk of the vulnerability of the FW men to rifle fire, with the FW exploding when hit. 

 

I have studied the FW fighting for 16 years, have read hundreds of sources, almost all primary sources, I almost never read secondary sources. I have read many dozens of war histories of French units, for example. (Someone asked recently, and I counted and identified 11 languages that I have used studying the Great War, I would guess that 5-10% of my reading is in English) I have only come across about two examples in which the operator(s) of a FW were hit and the device "exploded" or caught fire and killed or injured the FW men, and I have notes on and have identified over 300 FW attacks by the Germans in WW I, utilizing from two to 154 FW in the attack.

 

Allied FW did explode, mostly due to bad design (I an a mechanical engineer). The Germans started their work on FW design about 1902, the allies mostly started hurredly during the war, and most of their designs were simply bad designs. The final design for the light FW, the Wex, adopted about 1916, was a more sophisticated design than the WW II German light FW, and weighed less than the standard field pack, when loaded with fuel and propellant. The Germans used inert compressed nitrogen as a propellant, most Allied FW used compressed air or even compressed oxygen (a crazy idea), gasses that reduced range and made the devices much more dangerous. The fuel oil was not under pressure, in most of the device (that might not actually be true, I have not studied the designs in detail, but they were safe designs, and incidentally much of the FW were actually made in France by the regiment's workshop company.) , in a bit of the device under pressure from nitrogen. When pierced by a bullet, the nitrogen probably would put out any fire, while compressed air or oxygen might cause a fire or firery explosion. Plus the pressures were not very high, making the devices safer.

 

The standard Italian flame team had one man with a wet blanket, but their devices were prone to catch fire, being bad designs. Many Allied accounts fantizised that German FW teams wore protective clothing. Never. But my father's letters complained that the flame oil soiled his uniforms. The standard German flame team included two men with a back-pack device containing a fuel oil and a nitrogen propellant attack, during the attack the nozzle device could be switched to the second oil and propellant device, which was carried and directed by a third man. The higher level unit might have yet more oil and nitrogen at hand. 

 

Hope this is useful. I will look in the identified sources for more info on the German side of the attack. But my timeline already has more Brit material than German.  

 

Incidentally, the afternoon counter-attack was a hopeless venture and cost a lot of, the bulk of the Brit casualties. I think a badly-conceived attack ordered by frustrated higher command.  

 

Any questions?

 

[bob lembke]

Mark;

 

At all periods thru the war flame companies had about 24 to 32 light FW, of differing designs during the war, principally two, the pre-Wex model (name slips my mind), a good design, but a bit clunkier than the Wex, and the Wex, a really refined design.

 

But each company also carried (later in the war each FW company had their own trucks, with gear stored under canvas on the trucks, and a large trailer behind each large truck) company probably had at hand several large FW, which were a set of components, including several larger tanks of flame oil (of about 4-5 different recepicies for different tactical situations) and perhaps several different nozzles, the exact set-up of the fixed FW set up depended on  the tactical situation, but usually several fuel tanks. As the standard igniter would burn out during a long burn, a manual ignition torch was at hand, for re-igniting the fuel stream.  The final design chosen for the arrack, with larger tanks of oil and propellant, might weigh say 250 lbs, and was not mobile. With longer range, say 120 feet, these could fire diagonally across the no-man's-land, providing both a tactical impact plus cover of smoke and flame for mobile FW teams to approach the enemy trench unseen. (The later Wex, from memory, probably weighed 43 lbs with fuel and propellant, and had a range of 85-90 feet, which might vary somewhat by the oil chosen and possibly other factors.) If possible saps were run forward from the first line to get the fixed FW closer to the enemy front trench, and to give the light FW a closer place to attack from; a sudden barrage might get the enemy sentries' heads down for a few seconds; the assault teams were physically selected men, usually all under 25 and unmarried, and wearing short boots for more speed and adgility racing toward the enemy front line. 

 

My father said that once the mobile FW opened up, the defenders almost always ran away, sometimes tearing off burning clothing as they ran.

 

many attacks utilized 24-34 light FW, but they ranged from 2 to 154. The latter was a big attack in Russia where several flame companies attacked a square mile of concrete fortifications that infantry attacks could not take. The fortified complex was taken, but 22 flame troopers were lost. But a successful infantry attack might have lost 1000 men or more.

 

I have compiled a spreadsheet of flame attacks, with fixed criteria for attack inclusion (no cherry-picking the attacks included), POWs and guns and MGs taken, and losses of flame troopers, but I rarely ever mention the statistics to anyone, as I believe that most people would not believe them. But if there were many, many more German flame attacks, the Allies would have figured out better counter-weapons and better defensive tactics. So the FW was a very successful but minor weapon and tactic.

 

Now you know more than you ever imagined about Hunnish FWs.

 

Bob

[MBrockway]

This topic gives a thorough bibliography of the sources and references, both British and German, for the Hooge Liquid Fire attack:

Hooge

 

Unfortunately not all the scanned images have survived the migration of GWF attachments to a separate server that was implemented last year.

 

Edited 17 March , 2017 by MBrockway

[bob lembke]

Andy;

 

Hsppy to help, but I have to run off to work soon. 

 

Very interested in any material from the Allied side, but I must warn you they put out a lot of disinformation, acting on several motives. I can read the material in a few hours. 

 

Are you you writing a book?

 

 

 

Now 3/17/17. Just found this, probably a response that I wrote years ago and never sent. 

 

I I had totally forgotten all of this work, 12 years ago!

[seaJane]

Ronald Campbell Maclachlan's memorial in Winchester Cathedral, photo taken by me today:

 

[bob lembke]

seaJane;

 

I have never taken the time to figure out the British regimental system. I gather there was a historic, traditional unit, a regiment or in this case a brigade, but the unit (e.g. Rifle Brigade) was sort of a mothership for eight or 42 battalions, and these were the units that were fielded. 

 

In in view of this, how was a brigadier in a position to be killed in action? I imagine that each battalion would be commanded by a colonel, or a LTC?. (In contrast, at this time German field battalions would usually be commanded by a captain, and in some cases by a first lieutenant.)

 

There was a German flame attack in 1917 in which two British generals got "caught in it"; one was killed, one was captured. I think I discussed that a few months ago. They were inspecting the front lines when the attack kicked off.