German flame thrower attacks

[bob lembke]

5 hours ago, Skipman said:

The Official History 1918 Volume 1 page 203 [or 265/648 of the N & MP DVD] says (21/3/1918) " The 2/6th Manchester which had previously been driven back from the front line by liquid fire, managed to cling on to Carpeza Copse, about the centre of the zone; but the struggle continued to be severe. "

 

Have had a look on Ancestry for the 2/6th Manchester war diary but who knows where they've put it. It should be here (I think?) Click

 

Mike

 

 

Mike; 

 

Two places where you can find the War Diary of 6 Manchesters in "Old Blighty". 

 

At at the Public Records Office, it can be found in WD 95/3144. 

 

Also, poking about my timeline, I now recall that I approached the Archives of the Regimental Museum of the Manchester Regiment, and they kindly sent me three pages of their War Diary that covered that engagement. However, I suspect that that document is thin on material on a FW attack. Ask me to look further into it before you buy some train tickets.

 

Also, I have two German maps of that sector of the front, giving the situation that unfolded on 3/21/18, and indicating the position of the units on both sides. 

 

One of those maps indicates that 6 Manchesters was being attacked by the 4th Guards Division on 3/21/18. Just north of that unit, the attacking division was 25. Infantrie Division. 

 

Caroeza Copse is indicated on one of my maps, but generally I am having a problem with different sources using different place names. 

 

Unfortunately, my scanner is down at the moment, or I could send you the maps and the War Diary. 

 

 

 

[Guest]

Thanks very much Bob. To be honest this is all a passing interest. I transcribed the whole piece because I am researching an officer of the 1/5th Border Regiment (poneers) at this time in the 66th (2nd East Lancashire) Division. I noticed the "liquid fire" mention and thought it would interest your good self and Terry. If I find more I will post them.

 

Mike

[stiletto_33853]

Terry,

 

19th February 1917 on the Somme Front. Attack fell on the 10th RB.

[bob lembke]

A Mystery. Reddemann identifies a successful attack against the Italians on Hill 1050 in Macedonia on February 12; five attacks in the Champagne by

two FW companies on February 15th.; but the next FW attack he mentions was on March 5th, near Reims. I believe that he mentions all FW attacks by

his men in the materials I have transcribed to my timeline. I think that this was long before FW were distributed to many units, late in 1918. So this attack

must have been by one of the few storm battalions that had their own FW detachment. The Storm=Bataillon Rohr history did not seem to have mentioned

their involvement in that engagement, but its author rarely mentioned the use of  FW in the battalion's attacks. So the history of Rohr may mention the

attack without mentioning the use of FW. The battalion had nine companies plus the FW detachment, at this time, I believe, so the unit frequently split off

a "half-battalion" or less for a requested attack. I have included this detail so that my British Pals may understand more about this action, if they wish. If my British Pals are interested I will dig out von Schwerin's history and see if he mentions this attack sans FW. 

 

Interesting that two officers were listed as lost, 2nd lieutenants and probably platoon commanders, but no OR, from a company-strength garrison heavily attacked, unless I am misreading the diary. (Or did the diary not mention enlisted losses?) This may indicate that either many men bolted, or the diary did

not mention OR losses, which in such an attack should have been many more than the loss of officers. I would understand naming the officers and mentioning the OR en masse. Not mentioning losing say 30 OR? The description of the attack suggests that the company lost more than two lieutenants. Any comment? I will incorporate this material in my narrative.

[bob lembke]

I worked very carefully on the optics of the post, but I just repaired one of my computers and the above is the first post. The

simple word processor embedded in the Forum mechanism has stabbed me in the back. 

 

If anyone wants a lookup on a FW attack on a British unit off-Forum, PM me and I would be happy to take a peek into my

timeline and respond off-line.

[Loader]

Since a whole company was lost in this action it was probably thought the less said about losses the better. But I too wonder why no mention of a Company CO who likely would've been a Captain. He surely was lost as well. Always possible some men from the company actually made it back to the line to tell what happened. I'm sure the action was mass confusion & adding FW to the mix only intensified the chaos.

[stiletto_33853]

Bob,

 

There were quite a few OR's but as a typical war diary the officers are noted.

 

Andy

2

[bob lembke]

23 minutes ago, Loader said:

Since a whole company was lost in this action it was probably thought the less said about losses the better. But I too wonder why no mention of a Company CO who likely would've been a Captain. He surely was lost as well. Always possible some men from the company actually made it back to the line to tell what happened. I'm sure the action was mass confusion & adding FW to the mix only intensified the chaos.

 

Ouch!!!

 

I had not even thought that it could have been that bad. Despite working with British War Diaries quite a bit about ten years ago (as shown by my

knowing where the 6 Manchesters' diary was on the shelf), I didn't find them too good or consistent a source and dropped seeking them out.

But I would not imagine not mentioning the loss of a whole company's OR. Is there some other source where I could dig out the casualties at this

action? Brigade or Divisional diaries? An Official History?

 

Is that common in war diaries? When I studied British war diaries, knowing when/where there was a flame attack, I often found that the the worse

the attack, the less it was described. But I attributed it to a bad outcome for the infantry officers on the spot, not malfeasance. 

[stiletto_33853]

No, not common however the Service battalions are in most cases far better than the regulars when it came to the OR's. If you trawled through following months you could quite possibly tie down some of those wounded as well as the Field Ambulances reported someone's death to the O.C. of the battalion. A & Q diaries quite often gives totals for the month, some by Division, some by battalion.

 

 

Edited 19 March , 2017 by stiletto_33853

[bob lembke]

Andrew, thank you. I was writing my your above when you posted your post. So I am guessing that the War Diary was not the place to

systematically put down all losses. So it seems that the company had 1 officer and 25 OR killed and 1 officer and 39 ORs missing, probably

all killed or captured. What would that be compared to the typical company strength at that time in line? Probably very variable.

But that company was clearly out of action until it could be rebuilt.

 

Only G=R=P=R (Flammenwerfer} had a large number of FW, I don't even know

how many Rohr had, not many, although they had five storm companies, and  I think

two MG companies, one infantry gun company (modified Russian parapet guns,

their favorite), I think a light mortar company, so 9 companies plus the FW detachment.

A few other storm battalions might have had a few, I doubt more than eight per battalion.

This attack could have been carried out by only a few FW, and also not by the best

practitioners of the art, the G=R=P=R, who had extremely complex tactics to fool

the enemy and get the FW into range of the front line without casualties, but some

other troops. Perhaps I should study this engagement in more depth. I deeply appreciate

the information from "the other side of the wire".       

 

       Strange formatting due to coping with a malware infection.

Edited 19 March , 2017 by bob lembke
typos

[Terry_Reeves]

Large amounts of  casualties can only be for the general casualty state.  I have been going through the war diary entries and where FW attacks have been noted there is no sense of alarm about them and it is clear in at least one case, the unit involved knew exactly how to deal with the threat, by using intense rifle and machine gun fire.

 

With regard to casualties being played down as implied in  post 81, that is a non-starter I'm afraid. Original war diaries were sent back to third echelon and examined, that's is how they got their casualty statistics and how they planned for casualty replacements. It also imply's  that some COs lied about the unit state which is very difficult to believe, although the precise amount of casualties may not have been known  for some days.

 

 

TR

 

Edited 20 March , 2017 by Terry_Reeves

[stiletto_33853]

Terry,

 

Agreed, there does not seem to have been any sense of alarm during these FW attacks. In this case the men were in a salient hence attacked on three sides.

 

Bob,

I will go through the divisional material for you and e-mail those to you. This is the tally from the A & Q Diaries which are generally pretty good for the 20th Division, right down to records kept for their training period in 1914/15, re-inforcements even noting trained, partially trained or untrained, officers posted etc. As you can see there is a slight variance in the numbers.

 

Andy

Edited 19 March , 2017 by stiletto_33853

[Terry_Reeves]

Report on Flammenwerfer Attack 6 August, 1916

 

WO95/1857/2

 

The battalion was taking  part in an attack on Ration Trench (Gierich Weg) North of Ovillers

 

“At dawn on the morning of the 6th a sudden burst of fire appeared over the top of our barricade and along the trench in rear of it for some 25 yards.  The flames came from various directions. The method of employment seems to have been for one man to creep forward with a hose whole the second man pump[ed up pressure in a tank to supply to with liquid.

 

The men using the flammenwerfer were clad in what looked like shiny black oilskins.  Number of jets doubtful, probably about 8. The attack was supported by about 40 bombers who used smoke as a screen.

 

The attack was checked and finally beaten off in extending some 20 men in the open on each side of the trench supported by two Lewis guns - bombs were also thrown as the ground was so broken up that the  fire seemed seldom to reach the enemy in the shell holes.

 

Flames were of short duration - thick smoke hung about for some considerable time. Towards the end of the encounter we obtained superiority of fire and were able to  dig in some 30-40 yards of trench in daylight, and this formed an efficient barricade after which the covering party on the flanks was withdrawn.

 

SC Cazalet Capt

OC A Coy 9 RF

8.9.16 "

Edited 20 March , 2017 by Terry_Reeves

[bob lembke]

Terry;

 

i am am guessing that the attack was September 6, 1916. Do you know where Ovillers is? Tell me that and I will see what I have. 

 

As as far as the descriptions, there was no pumping. Very early in the war they did use hand pumped FW in an engagement or two, but there was a good model based on ten years work available in 1912. Nitrogen propelled, as any good engineer would tell you. Models were patented about 1905. 

 

Many my allied sources describe protective clothing, never used, I think. My father said getting the flame oil on your uniform was a pain in the butt. 

 

At at that time I think all FW were under the command of Reddemann, except for one or two storm battalions having a few. Reddemann could field about 600 FW about then, including heavy ones. About the time the light model was switching from the Kleif to the Wex. 

[bob lembke]

1 hour ago, Terry_Reeves said:

Report on Flammenwerfer Attack 6 August, 1916

 

WO95/1857/2

 

The battalion was taking  part in an attack on Ration Trench (Gierich Weg) North of Ovillers

 

“At dawn on the morning of the 6th a sudden burst of fire appeared over the top of our barricade and along the trench in rear of it for some 25 yards.  The flames came from various directions. The method of employment seems to have been for one man to creep forward with a hose whole the second man pump[ed up pressure in a tank to supply to with liquid.

 

The men using the flammenwerfer were clad in what looked like shiny black oilskins.  Number of jets doubtful, probably about 8. The attack was supported by about 40 bombers who used smoke as a screen.

 

The attack was checked and finally beaten off in extending some 20 men in the open on each side of the trench supported by two Lewis guns - bombs were also thrown as the ground was so broken up that the  fire seemed seldom to reach the enemy in the shell holes.

 

Flames were of short duration - thick smoke hung about for some considerable time. Towards the end of the encounter we obtained superiority of fire and were able to  dig in some 30-40 yards of trench in daylight, and this formed an efficient barricade after which the covering party on the flanks was withdrawn.

 

SC Cazalet Capt

OC A Coy 9 RF

8.9.16 "

 

Puzzling. On September 4th, 1916 men of the 11. Kompagnie fought in the Somme, and one Pionier (engineer private) died, have his name.

 

On September 8th men of 8. Komp., G=P=P=R (Flammenwerfer) fought at Horgney, in the French sector of the Somme, and two Pioniere fell;

have names. 

 

No G=R=P=R engagements in between, almost certainly, certainly no men fell.

 

Perhaps one of the one or two storm battalions that had FW. But the description of the FW in the report  is that of a heavy FW, which I doubt

that the storm units ever had, and the duration of the firing of the heavy FW might be five minutes, which would be a lifetime if you were under

its fire. Their range was 120 feet, and they would put out gallons and gallons of burning heavy oil, which would have been a nightmare. Usually

the heavy FW operator would jump out of a sap, run forward up to the 30' length perhaps of the hose to the tanks, and fire the device. Once

fired the enormous stream of smoke, burning oil, and flame, possibly 20 feet wide and high at the end, would give him cover. Usually a number

would fire at one time, often firing diagonally to provide more cover. Behind this cover teams with light FW would sprint forward. They had a

number of tricks to distract or suppress the sentries for the few seconds needed to set this up. 

 

The light FW had a hose about 6-8' long between the nozzle operator and the second man carrying the tanks of oil and nitrogen. Never heard

of them attacking lying down. the heavy FW had a long hose, attached to multiple larger tanks of oil and compressed nitrogen. The heavy FW

operator might lie down and crawl a bit, but to fire it you would stand up, you would kill yourself and those about it by trying to fire lying down. I

have studied this stuff for 16 years and my father talked to me about it a great deal.

 

Or maybe the description was of the FW operator crawling forward to fire, omiting standing up to start ignition.

 

Nothing seems to match what the FW troops were doing and wearing and operating at the time. Does not fit the record of attacks, the equipment

seems strange, and the garb,and firing lying down is a no-no. I have seen, or have, probably hundreds of photos of these being fired, and no

lying down. I correspond with a Norwegian Army officer who has one (WW II, similar to the Kleif), and a friend of his has one, and they say they

have a lot of recoil. lying down you could easily hit the ground with the stream and probably burn every one up. The Heavy FW streamed oil for

much longer than the FW's ignitor would burn (90 seconds), so a second man had to stand next to the nozzle with a sort of long burning torch

to reignite the stream of oil and nitrogen. 

 

Either a different unit trying out different stuff or some sort of daydream. Early in 1915 some units tried this type of stuff on their own, but then

Reddemann established a monopoly on the weapon, till late 1918. 

 

 

 

 

[Terry_Reeves]

1 hour ago, bob lembke said:

Terry;

 

i am am guessing that the attack was September 6, 1916. Do you know where Ovillers is? Tell me that and I will see what I have. 

 

As as far as the descriptions, there was no pumping. Very early in the war they did use hand pumped FW in an engagement or two, but there was a good model based on ten years work available in 1912. Nitrogen propelled, as any good engineer would tell you. Models were patented about 1905. 

 

Many my allied sources describe protective clothing, never used, I think. My father said getting the flame oil on your uniform was a pain in the butt. 

 

At at that time I think all FW were under the command of Reddemann, except for one or two storm battalions having a few. Reddemann could field about 600 FW about then, including heavy ones. About the time the light model was switching from the Kleif to the Wex. 

Bob

 

It was definitely 6th August. Ovillers la Boiselle is on the Somme between Albert and Poziers.  Do bear in mind that these men appear not to have come across this type of weapon before and they were under fire, so the description is unlikely to be exact.

 

Many thanks.

 

TR

Edited 20 March , 2017 by Terry_Reeves

[bob lembke]

Thanks. Puzzling. 

[MBrockway]

This is from the contemporary part-work The Great War, hence the rather shrill caption (apologies to our German readers!) ...

 

 

Edited 21 March , 2017 by MBrockway

[bob lembke]

I think that the two devices seem to be the Kleif, a model from 1912, about to be phased out for the Wex. There was a regulation that FW troops could not be forced to use the weapon in a defensive situation, as it was ill-suited for it, but in the emergency of the Somme this was overlooked, and desperate defensive uses occurred, which only worked till the oil ran out; as I said at that point the frustrated attackers often killed the defenseless FW operators. My father wrote how happy he was to be at Verdun, and not at the Somme, as he watched long columns of troops streaming north towards the Somme, including a large part of the FW regiment. 

 

As as I said, in a couple of first attacks they also used a few hand-pumped fire fighting devices, for fear of the nitrogen propelled devices not working, for some reason. But the latter worked. At that time trenches were very close, sometimes 20' apart. The FW changed that, probably its greatest contribution to the war effort. 

[MBrockway]

12 minutes ago, bob lembke said:

As as I said, in a couple of first attacks they also used a few hand-pumped fire fighting devices, for fear of the nitrogen propelled devices not working, for some reason. But the latter worked. At that time trenches were very close, sometimes 20' apart. The FW changed that, probably its greatest contribution to the war effort. 

     

Is there any evidence that trench separation increased as the War progressed?  And even if it did, one rather suspects bombs, grenades, rifle grenades and trench mortars had a greater impact on increasing the size of No Man's Land - not to mention sound common sense - than the rarely encountered Flammenwerfer.

 

The trenches were close at Hooge on 30 Jul 1915 because the British were occupying the original German front line, which had recently been captured along with the fired mine crater, and the German forces had been obliged to convert their old Support Line to their new Front Line.  There were still communication trenches connecting the two blocked by barricades.

 

 

Edited 21 March , 2017 by MBrockway

[bob lembke]

2 minutes ago, MBrockway said:

     

Is there any evidence that trench separation increased as the War progressed?  And even if it did, one rather suspects bombs, grenades, rifle grenades and trench mortars had a greater impact on increasing the size of No Man's Land - not to mention sound common sense - than the rarely encountered Flammenwerfer.

 

 

On the contrary, shell-fire, trench mortars, and maybe rifle grenades would tend to keep the trenches very close, like 20'. More hand grenades would push them apart, but I can cite places where the trenches remained yards apart despite a good supply of hand grenades. 

 

What are "bombs", in English? Bombs from aircraft? They would keep the trenches close, as well. 

 

But light FW with. 90' range and heavy FW with a 120' range would give good reason to have say 100 yards at least between the front lines. 

[MBrockway]

1 minute ago, bob lembke said:

What are "bombs", in English? Bombs from aircraft? They would keep the trenches close, as well. 

 

In the Great War, "bombs" was generally used to refer to hand grenades.

 

Don't really follow your logic on how ranged weapons would bring trenches closer together?

[bob lembke]

You are going to shell the enemy front line if it is 20' from yours?

 

i assumed grenades but you wrote "bombs, grenades" so I thought it might be something else. 

 

And, yes, I think that the distance between front lines increased a great deal as the war went on. 

[bob lembke]

Many times in the first year of the war I have read of the Allied vs. German trenches being 20 feet / 6 meters apart.  I know

for a fact that when the Germans were deciding as to the best places to stage the first FW attacks the closeness of the lines

was a major factor, in fact only such locations were considered. Since at almost every time during the war, except perhaps

March 1918, the Germans were significantly outnumbered, they were mostly on the defensive, and a wider separation greatly 

improved the advantages of the defense. And as I said, most weapons exerted a positive pressure to keep the lines close

together, the single greatest weapon was artillery, and certainly you are not going to be shelling the enemy's front line if it was

20 feet from yours. (Communications trenches, different, I would call shelling them neutral as to the influence on the closeness of

the front lines.

 

Gas, also, as far as it being directed into the enemy front lines, provided an impetus to keeping the lines close together.

 

Also, at ANZAC, where my father served in the Turkish Fifth Army, the lines sometimes were 20' apart.  The Germans never 

attempted to introduce FW into that theatre while the campaign was going on; I only know of Germany supplying the Turkish

Army with two FW, probably in 1916 in Galicia, the location of a rare photo I have seen of Germans training Turkish troops,

wearing the special brimless Stalhelm produced for Turkish troops, in the use of the FW. German plans for Gallipoli in 1916

included selecting six divisions of Turkish troops and training them in storm troop methods, and providing 20 batteries of

German and Austro-Hungarian heavy artillery, as well as copious quantities of German-made artillery ammunition that would

actually explode on impact; Liman von Sanders Pasha, the CO of the Fifth Army, estimated a 95% dud rate for the shells

produced in Turkey, with German help, and many shells had to be made of cast iron instead of steel, so when exploding 

(if they did, a rare occurance), they would produce sand-like particles of iron, instead of razor-sharp shards of steel. Only two

batteries were provided late in 1915, a battery each of 15 cm howitzers (sent to the beachhead at Helles), and a battery of the

Austrian Skoda 24.5 cm Moto-Moerser, which my father saw in action at ANZAC and considered extremely effective. If the

Germans had trained six divisions of Turkish infantry in German storm tactics we can be sure that German or Turkish FW would

have been in the mix. I know more about ANZAC, the the FW weapon would have been devastating, attacking downhill at such

close distances. The Allies did well by deciding to pull out when they did.

 

Probably the greatest impact of the German FW on the war was pushing the Allied trenches away from the German trenches, 

putting the defense in a much better position, keeping the Allies at "arm's length", so to speak. But this effect would be almost

impossible to quantify. Much harder than my imperfect attempt to quantify the effectiveness of the FW weapon by prisoners taken.

[Guest]

This is from the 96th Infantry Brigade war diary 1/7/1916. Not exactly what you are after but may be of interest.

 

Mike