Trench Raids

[suesalter1]

My great-uncle died of wounds following a trench raid (the only one who died - unlucky or what!) Anyway, the raiding party consisted of 4 officers, 11 NCO's and 74 men. Is this number of troops normal for a trench raid? With that many men, there was hardly an element of surprise!

 

Sue.

[horatio2]

It would depend on the target of the raid and the task to be undertaken.

Howe Battalion of the RND carried out a trench raid at Gavrelle on 20 July 1917.

It was organised as a 2-Company, 6-Platoon, trench raid (6 officers and 180 ORs). The stated purpose of  raid was “(i) to kill or capture Germans, (ii) To obtain identifications and (iii) To do as much damage to the enemy’s trench as possible.” The raid went in at 0100 and withdrew twenty minutes later.

Edited 5 July , 2020 by horatio2

[Gus1914]

One man crossing no man's land quietly is just as quite as 150 men crossing quietly... More chance of noise with greater numbers, yes...

[sheldrake]

On 05/07/2020 at 18:46, suesalter1 said:

My great-uncle died of wounds following a trench raid (the only one who died - unlucky or what!) Anyway, the raiding party consisted of 4 officers, 11 NCO's and 74 men. Is this number of troops normal for a trench raid? With that many men, there was hardly an element of surprise!

 

Sue.

Who was he what regiment and what raid?

 

Raids are a controversial subject.

 

One of the IWM's interview subjects talked of how the men hated them as pointless waste of lives.   

The British had a policy to encourage aggressive action even on quiet sectors.  The jury is still out about the extent to which they benefited the raider. A raid was one of the few ways to capture prisoners. In 1918 Australian aggressive patrolling (peaceful penetration) gained ground.  But if you wanted to attack a particular sector, raids encouraged the defenders to remain alert and could warn of dangerous approaches, where the attacker might prefer the defender to have a false sense of security.   

 

I get the impression that the British enthusiasm for raids had quite a bit to do with commanders demonstrating that their men were aggressive chaps with fire in their bellies and not skulking in the trenches.  

Edited 9 July , 2020 by sheldrake

[suesalter1]

My great-uncle, Arthur Price, was a private in the 13th RWF. This was the 3rd trench raid he had been on and according to his brother, was reluctant to go as it was his 28th birthday. It proved to be his last as he died the next day (Friday the 13th!). 

 

Sue.

[sheldrake]

This looks like the trench raid on the night 12-13 October 1916. https://www.cwgc.org/find-war-dead/casualty/87094/price,-/

I attached a map showing were this took place a few miles north of Ieper, the relevant pages from the war diary and a report on the raid by the commander of the 38th (Welsh) Division. This was one of two raids launched that evening. The second was by the 15th Battalion the Royal Welsh Fusiliers. As you can see they did not record any men as killed in the raid itself. Why do you think he died on the raid and not in the German artillery bombardment fired in retaliation or random trench violence? 

 

One reason these raids may have been carried out was to test the performance of the soldiers and commanders involved. The 38th Welsh Division were volunteers from Wales and therer was a lot of politics concerning its formation. Many senior officers owed their positions to political favour. In its first battles on the Somme the Welsh division was not seen to perform very well and lost a lot of casualties. (Was Alfred Price there at Mametz wood? Or did he arrive as a replacement) 

 

It was   then sent to Ypres a quiet sector in the second half of 1916. Senior These large scale  raids may have  been organised in order to test  leadership and demonstrate that it could be relied on in future battles.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/38th_(Welsh)_Infantry_Division

 

There was a raid on the night 19 -20 and 29-30 September at roughly the same spot.  If you have ancestry you can read the war diaries yourself,