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

[stiletto_33853]

Bob,

Thanks, one of the authors on the German side translated it fully for me which I am grateful for. I believe the flamethrower units involved diary did not survive?? mores the pity, however the infantry side is quite full.

 

IR 172 conducted the leftt hand attack to protect the main attack flank, the garrison Regiment were also involved by support through fire with Major Blezinger the sector commander.

 

The Regiment had recently been re-inforced  with 237 men and several officers for the attack of which 150 were incorporated into the attack.

 

Andy

Edited 19 August , 2017 by stiletto_33853

[SiegeGunner]

2 hours ago, stiletto_33853 said:

"the English garrison, as far as those who did not flee, were taken prisoner or killed; only two machine guns in the attack area of the 6th Company afforded stubborn resistance; however in a reckless attack after that they finally became settled after a tough fight.

 

during this the 3rd Company moved into the crater, attacked the western most houses of Hooge with a platoon that was still occupied by Englishmen, out of which strong machine gun fire flanked the 2nd Company and hindered further advancement. Filled with a platoon from this Company the connection to the 3rd Company was established and with this fierce fighting took place about the second trench and the attack goal was reached.

 

On the left the 6th Company was detained anew by a third English machine gun that was skilfully operated by an officer and caused heavy casualties. They had already put in their third platoon and received reinforcements from the 1st Company that advanced into C sector. Therefore the 3rd machine gun was taken."

 

Is that machine-translation, Andy?

 

Mick

[stiletto_33853]

Hi Mick,

 

No, Ralph kindly translated it for me.

 

Andy

[bob lembke]

6 hours ago, stiletto_33853 said:

Bob,

Thanks, one of the authors on the German side translated it fully for me which I am grateful for. I believe the flamethrower units involved diary did not survive?? mores the pity, however the infantry side is quite full.

 

IR 172 conducted the leftt hand attack to protect the main attack flank, the garrison Regiment were also involved by support through fire with Major Blezinger the sector commander.

 

The Regiment had recently been reinforced  with 237 men and several officers for the attack of which 150 were incorporated into the attack.

 

Andy

 

Andy;

 

A few responses.

 

I have studied the GW intensively for 17 years, mostly the German side, by far using non-English sources, and

I have never heard of "German war diaries". That does not mean that they did not exist. Unfortunately, between

the wars the Germans collected historical materials from the the GW and centralized them, storing them

at the Prussian State Archives,

and late in WW II the RAF firebombed the Archive and destroyed the bulk of the assembled material, perhaps including the war diaries. Many regiments produced regimental histories after the war, these

were privately produced; they usually were a serious effort. The Reichsarchiv produced a lot of "official histories" in several series; with some duplicates, I have about 110 of them. But I don't use them a lot.

I have about 50 or so regimental histories, mostly on CD, the actual books are usually quite expensive.

 

I thought I had Major Dr. Reddemann's entry for the Hooge attack stored in my "copy and paste" function that is in his brief History, but it has disappeared. It is 2-3 sentences long. Reddemann, besides his many duties, edited a couple of scientific journals thru the entire war, and one would hope that he would have used that energy and written something longer than that volume, which had to cover 653 flame attacks

and much more in about 50 pages. From memory he said that they had a successful attack, lost no men, used 11 light and 9 heavy FW, and found British dead in the trenches they took. The attacking unit

was Company Beck, named for a seasoned flame commander. (At this point in time, no flame officer was seasoned, this of course was one of the first flame attacks. Beck later managed major multi-company

flame attacks in Russia.)   Later I will post the brief mention by Reddemann.

 

So the principal attacking infantry unit was Infantrie=Regiment Nr. 120?

 

As you posted an image of the Casualty Roll, do you know how many men IR 120 and IR 172 lost in the attack?   

 

 

Edited 20 August , 2017 by bob lembke

[stiletto_33853]

Good morning Bob,

My apologies re. the German War Diaries!! Yes Reddemanns entry for Hooge is very short. Maybe the flame units did not lose any men, however the infantry units involved certainly did. Unfortunately the way the German Army compiled their casualty lists makes it sometimes difficult to fully comprehend the total losses for a particular action. However the units involved were out of the line for some days before the action and immediately afterwards. I think it would be better if I e-mailed you the full list as it goes on for many many pages.

Similarly the German Infantry account of the action covers several pages of A4 without the pictures.

 

In a similar vein some of the British Records are missing some vital information as the Luftwaffe bombed London early in the war, it is what it is.

 

On the British side I have scoured GHQ, Army, Corps, Division, Artillery and Infantry unit Diaries to compile what information there is, i.e. VI Corps gives a valuable timeline for events in it's Appendix. Secondary sources that provide valuable information are personal accounts of which there are a good few. These have had to be verified with Official Accounts for example there is a letter from an OR to Lord Desborough regarding the death of his son, The Hon. William (Billy) Grenville describing his death which turned out to be inaccurate hence was discarded after many hours chasing through the information it contained. However there are good accounts from some of the officers in the way of letters, personal accounts right down to an officer that tried to form a flame thrower survivors club, unsuccessfully.

 

The German side is the sticking point, I do not speak German unfortunately. I have had some very valued help from Forum members helping me with what accounts there are to help me understand more of the complete story in what is an important action for me and what I am trying to do. I do not need every detail but a strong basis of the German view and account to tie in with the British accounts to piece the action together and to help relate both sides.

 

Please find attached a couple of the relevant pages.

 

Andy

[stiletto_33853]

[bob lembke]

Andy and others - Here is my time-line entry where I put my translation of Major Dr. Reddemann's account of the  

Hooge attack. Above where I put it down from memory I managed to embellish it with a bit more info from other

sources. One would have wished that Reddemann, who obviously had the energy to write, as evidenced by his

editing two scientific journals thru the war, had written something more substantial than a 50 page tome.

 

Each FW attack, even by a Flamm=Trupp of two FW, had to have a written report drafted, and they were sent to

the High Command every month for review. The High Command allocated the FW resources to different units

on the basis of requests for FW  services for a proposed attack. Reddemann must have had his copies of the

reports when he wrote his "History"; having a set of those reports would be a fantastic resource.

 

Reddemann's account. His account is only the three sentences within the quotation marks, which I have emboldened.

 

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.        
 

So that is, in effect, the "war diary". The account that there were no "losses" (kia, missing, died

of wounds) came from a separate part of the History, where Reddemann put down a list of every

man lost in the war, which in my time line was put down in a separate entry, which I put into my

timeline as a separate entry.

Edited 20 August , 2017 by bob lembke

[nigelcave]

15 hours ago, bob lembke said:

 

Unfortunately, between

the wars the Germans collected historical materials from the the GW and centralized them, storing them

at the Prussian State Archives,

 

 

 

So far as I understand it they never got hold of the Bavarian ones (which even escaped the 'paper' collecting campaign by the government during WWII); Wurttemberg got theirs returned pre WWII but succumbed (partially), so I am told, to the paper collecting trawl, so their records can be hit and miss. Since the Germans were fond of passing reports etc amongst neighbouring formations, there is a lot more than just Bavarian formation/unit material in the Munich archives.

 

PS I have just noticed that I have been 'promoted'; how gratifying.

Edited 20 August , 2017 by nigelcave

[stiletto_33853]

Bob,

In the 1915 context please is it fair to say that in Spring/early Summer some German Divisions on the western front began deploying assault squads (Sturmtrupps) as in ad hoc units created to overcome primarily French strong points. Assault Squads  typically comprised  of one to three infantry groups and one pioneer group?? which could be armed with machine guns, trench mortars and Kleif M.1912 or M.1914.

 

Andy

 

Welcome to generals land Nigel although I still feel I have been over promoted, waiting to be sent home probably next March

Edited 31 August , 2017 by stiletto_33853

[stiletto_33853]

Remembering the men who took part, were injured or killed on this day 104 years ago.

 

Andy

Edited 30 July , 2019 by stiletto_33853

[MBrockway]

We will remember them.

[DavidOwen]

[stiletto_33853]

Still little snippets coming to light re this flamethrower attack, from WO95/50-3

[Mark Hone]

More fascinating material. Sadly, we shall not be able to make our planned visit to the site of the attack in October to commemorate Bury Grammar School old boys Denis Lauria (killed) and Phillip Holmes ( survived and wrote eyewitness account but died in November 1915), both KRRC. We hope to reschedule the Battlefields Tour to 2021.