Outersteene, Training and Billets

[Robert StJohn Smith]

I have read in a lot of diaries troops passing through Outersteene and carrying out further training before being sent to the front. For example, in the battalion diaries of the 21st Kings Royal Rifles, it mentions them arriving on the 10th of May 1916 and undergoing continued training to the 30th. 

 

All the accounts I have come across seem rather sketchy in details.  There is mention of anti gas training, and from other sources bayonet drills. I was just try to build a bigger picture of what sort of training a Tommy would undergo in this area and what the infrastructure was like. I am pretty sure I have read nearby there was a range setup for sniper training. 

 

 

[Guest]

5th July 1916. 

Quiet morning. Packed ready to move on to the front line. At 8 am we set out in pre- arranged sections at intervals. Passed along Fort Romprey road until we came to Elbow Farm, and shortly after we had our first experience of being under fire. The whine of the approaching shells, followed by a blinding flash and roar and one realised that a salvo of shells had burst amid us. No-one was hurt and beyond a quickening of our pulses no-one seemed to have taken any notice as we steadily plodded on under our heavy loads-for we were going into the line in fall marching order. The night was pitch black with drizzling rain falling and the star shells and flares which lit up the sky from time to time only made the darkness more intense when they were out. At Tin Barn we branched off into communication trenches and here our real troubles commenced. The Flanders soil is very low lying and the trenches soon became water logged. Duck boards and revetments are put in to prevent the trenches from falling in and making walking more comfortable. The width of a duckboard is from 12 to 15 inches and as a trench takes continual turns and twists and is never straight, one has to be almost a tight ropewalker to keep on the duckboards. It is no easy job and the penalty of a false step is to step knee deep in water and at the same time receive a severe shaking. Just imagine how we new chums floundered and cursed our awkwardness. Then to cap all our woes, suddenly the gas alarms commenced shrieking. This is the warning of a coming gas attack and everyone must instantly don their helmets. Half of us had them on all squi-whif with the eye pieces anywhere but where they should have been, whilst those who had them on aright found that the perspiration from their faces fogged the glasses and made them useless for seeing out of. So we floundered on and on almost by feel, continually falling and bumping up against the sides of the trench as it twisted and turned. It seemed as though we had been marching for centuries before the word came that the attack was over and we could remove our helmets. We thought we must be nearly to the German frontier and were quite surprised to find we had yet some distance to traverse before reaching no man's land. I'll not forget one of the men sinking to the ground, exhausted saying "I'm over powered with the gas". The funny part of it was that we learnt afterwards that it was a false alarm but the physical and mental strain had caused his imagination to run riot. We reached the front line at 1 am after a gruelling march of 5 hours, loaded up like camels and under such conditions as described. We went on duty straight away. The hun was very quiet but we blazed away all night at all sorts of imaginary objects and Fritz must have realised new troops were in the line.

[Robert StJohn Smith]

many thanks for sharing, 

[A Lancashire Fusilier by Proxy]

The diary of my grandfather (2/5^th Lancashire Fusiliers) records that he spent three nights in billets at Outtersteene from 14/05/1915 to 17/05/1915, his unit having arrived in France on 03/05/1915.

They had been promised more training on arrival in France, but at first it seemed likely that they might have to go straight to the Front, as things were not going well at Ypres following the first gas attack on 22/04/1915.

In the event, Outtersteene was the closest they got to the Front at that stage, as it was decided that they would get their training after all, for which they were sent west from Outtersteene to Arques.

They spent 7 weeks training at Arques from 20/05/1915 to 08/07/1915 doing “Close Order Drill, Field Exercises, Bayonet Fighting, Attack Formation, and Musketry … Night Marches, Route Marches, Night Attacks and Bivouacs”.

As my grandfather was the Signals Officer at the time, his men were also trained in “Flag Work, Morse and Semaphore, Cable Laying, Buzzer Work, Discs … Map Reading, Communication, Telephone, Road Reconnaissance, Reports on Villages, Country, etc.”

The only training they did during their four days in Outtersteene was a Route March on 16/05/1915, so maybe either it did not at that time have much in the way of facilities for training, or possibly the training facilities were already in use for other units. If the former. maybe things were different by 1916.

You have mentioned gas training specifically in your post, which was not really underway in May 1915, as the first gas attack had only just happened. My grandfather does subsequently mention anti-gas training and also various modifications to the equipment to counter gas attacks.

[A Lancashire Fusilier by Proxy]

I'm revisiting this thread as I was interested in David Pleasance's grandad's diary. His account of wearing the early gas helmets in the second piece is particularly vivid.

As mentioned in my earlier post, my grandad refers in his own diary to the various different types of gas helmet as they came along, such as the introduction of the valve so you could breathe out, though he says the helmet was still "a very uncomfortable thing to wear, and very hot"..

He also mentions the duckboards, both in Belgium and France. This is from October 1915, in the trenches near Aveluy:

A tour round the Line on such a night was a bit wet, but full of exciting incidents - slipping here – falling there - calculated to drain the dregs from anybody’s vocabulary. The duckboards floated about. Sometimes you stepped on one end, and then either the other end came up and hit you, or you slipped off into the mud, or the falling duckboard made a fountain of mud and muddy water. If you put your hand on to the side of the trench to steady yourself, the sides were all slimy, squelchy mud, which your hand dived into and consequently even the cuff of your shirt, as well as your jacket, became caked with slimy mud ...

It is interesting that both David's grandad and mine chose, for whatever reason, to write their experiences down. They obviously weren't in the same unit, but I'm wondering which unit David's grandad was in, what period is covered by his diary, and whether David knows when he put pen to paper - I'm assuming not actually while in the trenches?

Edited 18 May , 2020 by A Lancashire Fusilier by Proxy

[Robert StJohn Smith]

thankyou for your reply, Its interesting that you mentioned Arques, my current feeling is that whatever was there, was quite spread-out.

[RegHannay]

On 18/05/2020 at 18:03, A Lancashire Fusilier by Proxy said:

I'm revisiting this thread as I was interested in David Pleasance's grandad's diary. His account of wearing the early gas helmets in the second piece is particularly vivid.

As mentioned in my earlier post, my grandad refers in his own diary to the various different types of gas helmet as they came along, such as the introduction of the valve so you could breathe out, though he says the helmet was still "a very uncomfortable thing to wear, and very hot"..

He also mentions the duckboards, both in Belgium and France. This is from October 1915, in the trenches near Aveluy:

A tour round the Line on such a night was a bit wet, but full of exciting incidents - slipping here – falling there - calculated to drain the dregs from anybody’s vocabulary. The duckboards floated about. Sometimes you stepped on one end, and then either the other end came up and hit you, or you slipped off into the mud, or the falling duckboard made a fountain of mud and muddy water. If you put your hand on to the side of the trench to steady yourself, the sides were all slimy, squelchy mud, which your hand dived into and consequently even the cuff of your shirt, as well as your jacket, became caked with slimy mud ...

It is interesting that both David's grandad and mine chose, for whatever reason, to write their experiences down. They obviously weren't in the same unit, but I'm wondering which unit David's grandad was in, what period is covered by his diary, and whether David knows when he put pen to paper - I'm assuming not actually while in the trenches?

Just for interest, my grandfathers first description of a crude respirator June 1915.

"A respirator consists simply of a lump of cotton wool which is saturated with a mixture of sodium carbonate and sodium thiosulphate this is tied round the head with a piece of muslin. They also supply helmets with talc eyepieces."

I can only imagine the "talc eyepieces" consisted of a very fine mesh doused in talcum powder to catch the droplets of gas.

[A Lancashire Fusilier by Proxy]

I was fascinated by the reference to talc eye-pieces, I am not a chemist, but talc is not normally a material that we think of as being translucent. I have read that it can be used in the manufacture of plastics. Google directed me to this website: https://spartacus-educational.com/FWWgas.htm which includes in its list of sources Robert Graves' Goodbye to All That, with the following quote:

At Cambrin village, about a mile from the front trenches, we were taken into a ruined chemist's shop with its coloured glass jars still in the window: the billet of the four Welsh company-quartermaster-sergeants. Here they gave us respirators and field-dressings. This, the first respirator issued in France, was a gauze-pad filled with chemically treated cotton waste, for tying across the mouth and nose. Reputedly it could not keep out the German gas, which had been used at Ypres against the Canadian Division; but we never put it to the test. A week or two later came the 'smoke-helmet', a greasy grey-felt bag with a talc window to look through, and no mouthpiece, certainly ineffective against gas. The talc was always cracking, and visible leaks showed at the stitches joining it to the helmet.

This seems to make it clear that the talc was itself the material used for the eyepiece, and that it was not applied in powder form to some other material such as a gauze.

Dave, we have exchanged posts before on this forum regarding certain similarities between our grandfathers' diaries. The first actual description of a gas helmet  that my grandfather gives is in January 1916, when he says they tested their gas helmets "the old flannel sand bag type with mica eyepieces". I have got as far as discovering that talc and mica are both silicates, and both are used to manufacture plastics. In WW1 were they actually the same thing, or was mica an improvement on talc? Hopefully a chemist on this forum may be able to shed more light - dare I say transparency? - on this topic.

Edited 17 October , 2020 by A Lancashire Fusilier by Proxy

[RegHannay]

28 minutes ago, A Lancashire Fusilier by Proxy said:

I was fascinated by the reference to talc eye-pieces, I am not a chemist, but talc is not normally a material that we think of as being translucent. I have read that it can be used in the manufacture of plastics. Google directed me to this website: https://spartacus-educational.com/FWWgas.htm which includes in its list of sources Robert Graves' Goodbye to All That, with the following quote:

At Cambrin village, about a mile from the front trenches, we were taken into a ruined chemist's shop with its coloured glass jars still in the window: the billet of the four Welsh company-quartermaster-sergeants. Here they gave us respirators and field-dressings. This, the first respirator issued in France, was a gauze-pad filled with chemically treated cotton waste, for tying across the mouth and nose. Reputedly it could not keep out the German gas, which had been used at Ypres against the Canadian Division; but we never put it to the test. A week or two later came the 'smoke-helmet', a greasy grey-felt bag with a talc window to look through, and no mouthpiece, certainly ineffective against gas. The talc was always cracking, and visible leaks showed at the stitches joining it to the helmet.

This seems to make it clear that the talc was itself the material used for the eyepiece, and that it was not applied in powder form to some other material such as a gauze.

Dave, we have exchanged posts before on this forum regarding certain similarities between our grandfathers' diaries. The first actual description of a gas helmet  that my grandfather gives is in January 1916, when he says they tested their gas helmets "the old flannel sand bag type with mica eyepieces". I have got as far as discovering that talc and mica are both silicates, and both are used to manufacture plastics. In WW1 were they actually the same thing, or was mica an improvement on talc? Hopefully a chemist on this forum may be able to shed more light - dare I say transparency? - on this topic.

Thanks for clearing that up ALFbP, it all makes sense, crystal clear, in fact far more than the eye pieces themselves.

[A Lancashire Fusilier by Proxy]

Not quite crystal clear yet, I'm afraid! I do hope that someone is able to tell us more about the materials that these eyepieces were made of.

[RegHannay]

48 minutes ago, A Lancashire Fusilier by Proxy said:

Not quite crystal clear yet, I'm afraid! I do hope that someone is able to tell us more about the materials that these eyepieces were made of.

Would be ok to PM you on a different subject ?

[A Lancashire Fusilier by Proxy]

Yes, of course.

ALFbP