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Remembered Today:

Long Distance Fighting Patrol - What did that entail?


Shiny

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Hi All,

 

I've found an entry in the 2/5th Bn East Lancashire Regiment's war diary from the 29th of Jan 1918 when they were at Ypres naming my great great uncle and stating:

 

"Long distance fighting patrol under 2Lt Woodger sent out - leaving camp at 7pm returning at 5am"

 

Can anyone give me an idea of what sort of thing they would have been doing?

 

How many people would be in the patrol? What sort of kit would they be carrying? How far would long distance be? What sort of thing would they be doing?

 

Thanks a lot for the help,

 

Michael

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A military patrol is generally an operation where a group of soldiers leave their own lines and head into enemy territory for a number of purposes.  They might go on a reconnaissance patrol - to find out information about the enemy or the terrain (or both), they might go on a patrol to set up an observation post, or they might go on a patrol to have a physical impact on the enemy.  This latter type is a fighting patrol.  What differentiates this fighting patrol from a trench raid I can't say.  As for your questions, I have no idea.  I would have though that it would have been a platoon sized patrol (it has a Pl Comd in charge) so somewhere around 30 men.  They would carry as little or as much kit as was required.  If they were going to do harm to the enemy they would probably carry more in terms of weapons and ammunition than if they were on a reconnaissance patrol.  

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Thanks a lot Gareth, so basically they went out looking for trouble.

 

I wasn't sure if there was some sort of manual or standing order that might have detailed numbers, kit and so on. From what you have described it is sounding a lot bigger than I had imagined, I was thinking maybe half a dozen men so that has helped me a lot.

 

Thanks again,

 

Michael

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You need a decent size gang for a number of reasons. You need sufficient mass in order to have the chosen effect and you want numbers to protect the group delivering the violence. 

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Shiny, you might be interested in Anthony Saunders' book 'Raiding On The Western Front'. He makes the same point as Gareth, that there was little if any distinction between a fighting patrol and a raid. He examines the development of raiding as the war progressed, with examples from both sides of the wire, including the composition and roles in one of the larger raids. Some good photos of raiding parties and their kit, though he doesn't use the well known photo of 9th Scottish Rifles as they wait to go over on their daylight raid on 9 April 1917, though he does detail the raid in the text.

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Fighting patrols were sent out to stir up the enemy with a decisive offensive action against the enemy. They were extensively used for snatching enemy troops from forward positions for intelligence purposes, so a trench raid and fighting patrol were to my mind one of the same things. 

Normally commanded by a Platoon Commander and a couple of sgts with 20ish men and good covering fire - and if lucky artillery support on call from their own lines.

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Thanks for the help everyone, I'm starting to get a much better idea of what he was up to.

 

According to the diary he took a patrol out on the 25th then two days later on the 27th one of his colleagues did the same thing however they didn't return. He then went out again on the 29th and came back in the morning.

 

The next time he get's a mention is when he's reported missing in March.

 

Michael

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Here is an example of a night raid. First is the Btn war diary entry followed by the Divisional order that fleshes out the details:

 

2nd Battalion East Lancashire War Diary

FRONT LINE

May 23rd 1918          A fighting patrol under Lieut. C. Davies O.C. “C” Company, strength and particulars under operation orders attached, left our lines at about 2am but owing to the extremely bright moon and the extreme thickness of the enemy’s wire, were unable to progress quickly enough before dawn, and did not enter the enemy’s line.  The patrol reported hostile wire as being very thick everywhere, and the mats which had been issued previously for scaling it proved entirely useless owing to their age. No casualties were incurred.

 

2nd-East-Lancs-Raid-May-23.png.50b98f28b7afda96f58afb6a2e1102fe.png

 

2nd-East-Lancs-Raid-May-23-II.PNG.71a832252fe10ace997d9cfd6bf15f03.PNG

2nd-East-Lancs-Raid-May-23-III.PNG.8549a0fe66d49e26fc54340c7cce590a.PNG

 

Peter

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That's brilliant Peter, thanks very much. That's almost the same regiment at the same time as well so it must have been very similar in composition and task.

 

Michael

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I wonder how they decided who went out armed only with a club and a couple of bombs?

 

I found the detailed orders in the Divisional War Diary for the 2nd East Lancs, so if you have not already done so I would recommend getting hold of the Divisional War Diary in case your Gt Uncle's patrol is mentioned. You never know ...

 

Peter

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I would certainly HATE to go out against the German army armed with just a club & couple of bombs. One could fined themselves in an awkward situation very easily!

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I'm wondering where "long distance" comes into this. Most raids targetted the front line area. Where would the patrol go beyond that? 

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The line in the OP says "leaving camp" which suggests to me that they weren't in frontline trenches. That would have added a bit of distance.

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I'm particularly interested in the line: "Special identity discs will be issued".

 

Does anyone know what form these would have taken, and how were they different to the normal ones, please?

 

Thank you.

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2 hours ago, The Scorer said:

I'm particularly interested in the line: "Special identity discs will be issued".

 

Does anyone know what form these would have taken, and how were they different to the normal ones, please?

 

Thank you.

 

My assumption is that all troops wore some kind of "standard" identity disks and these fake ones were issued specifically for raids so that if captured the enemy would be given false information about the captured men.  The primary purpose of the raid above was to capture and identify German troops so that Divisional Command could determine who they were actually going to be fighting against. In this particular case, it was May 1918 on the Aisne and at that time every Battalion rotated onto the front line was ordered to send out raiding parties almost every night.

 

And separately, I have a letter from my Grandfather where he references having to "borrow" a dog's id tag for a snap parade because he had lost his "identity disk", (he was in camp posted to India in Nov 1918). So, that gives some idea of what i he disks must have looked like. 

 

Peter

Edited by PJS
Added reference to Grandfather's letter
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12 hours ago, The Scorer said:

I'm particularly interested in the line: "Special identity discs will be issued".

 

Does anyone know what form these would have taken, and how were they different to the normal ones, please?

 

Thank you.

 

10 hours ago, PJS said:

 

My assumption is that all troops wore some kind of "standard" identity disks and these fake ones were issued specifically for raids so that if captured the enemy would be given false information about the captured men....

 

It's been covered on the forum somewhere in the past, but essentially the special discs were used to link a man to his identifying papers, property, etc, that was left behind, without giving the enemy any obvious information as to what unit they were facing. If a man was killed and his body subsequently found he could be identified by matching the two. Nothing to do with feeding the enemy false information...

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RE; The long distance phrase. I've read where some raiding parties were marched or trucked back to rear areas where a mock up of the trenches to be raided were laid out to practice for the actual raid. Sometimes for days so they knew every nook & cranny of the system they would be fighting through. This may be as opposed the nightly raids from the front where they were sometimes told to go out & kill or capture a few enemy & generally cause trouble. In any case a dangerous business & needing a lot of courage & coolness under fire.

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It's also worth remembering that at this time in the war the Trench systems were less defined with the front line only defined by outposts and 2nd and 3rd line further back.  A carefully planned raid could potentially push further back into the 2nd and 3rd systems.  This may be the meaning of a long range patrol

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Thanks for the help and interest with this everyone, I had wondered about the long distance bit as well.

 

If it helps any there is an entry from the day before talking about Echelon C rejoining the battalion at West Farm Camp, Ypres. I don't know if that means anything to anyone or helps ID how close to the front line they actually were.

 

There are three entries in the diary relating to patrols being sent out in January and all three are described as long distance fighting patrols, two are the ones my great great uncle led and a third in between his two which didn't return.

 

Michael

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On 16/06/2018 at 11:34, PJS said:

 

 

 

And separately, I have a letter from my Grandfather where he references having to "borrow" a dog's id tag for a snap parade because he had lost his "identity disk", (he was in camp posted to India in Nov 1918). So, that gives some idea of what i he disks must have looked like. 

 

Peter

 

When I did a tour of NI in 1974 , my dog tag was similar in shape to a real dogs name tag.

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