The night patrol help!

[Desmond7]

Below - some really good detailed accounts of night patrols. Need help in 1. clarifying area (described as 'Left sector of our trenches') ; and 2. If Mr. Whitehead would take a look and see if these accounts match up to his side of the lines? I believe this is the sector between Beaumont Hamel and the Ancre. The 12th R Ir Rifles moved out of billets at Hedauville on the 24th and marched to trenches in the area described in war diary accounts below.

March 26th – 4am – Everything very quiet through the night. Situation normal throughout the day. Three patrols went out to the German wire. Below is a copy of their reports:-

Lt. J. H Haughton: "I left our lines with one corporal and two men at 7.30pm going from the left of Rooney’s Sap. On clearing our wire, which is about 40 yards deep, I bore along slightly to the right. The German trenches cannot be seen till 5-10 yards outside our own wire.

"I kept on in this direction for quite 150 yards and found the ground to fall away gradually, no cover whatsoever is to be had.

"The ground is very thick with dead weeds and is extremely difficult to avoid great noise from the cracking and breaking of these weeds.

"I kept on bearing to the right until I came in contact with the German wire. The whole of ‘no man’s land’ falls in a gentle slope from our lines to the German, thee is no cover beyond thick dead grass and the weeds already mentioned.

"I found where I was againt the German wire that there was a small sap to my right running out about 15-20 yards in a northerly direction, this would be opposite sector Q10/11. Their wire appeared to be about 25 yards deep except at the head of the small sap where it was very thin. Their wire is good with many short pickets among which it is thickly entangled.

"The barbed wire is very thick with one strand only having long barbs at intervals of 1" to 1.5". My wire cutters would not penetrate it, I tried in two places.

"To the left of the small sap, the wire appears to be of the same and of uniform depth. I could see nothing but wooden pickets and no trip wires or plain wire of any kind was to be found.

"I returned finding three shell holes 50 yards from the German wire opposite Q10/12, they were small and full of deep mud. No one was seen or heard and I am of the belief that the German trenches are thinly held as with most careful listening no one could be heard. A lot of flares were fired from the front line but noe fell directly onto our party. I returned to our own lines at 9pm."

Lt. J. E. Furness – "I found the German wire to be in good condition, varying in depth from 20 – 25 yards and about three feet high. One wek point in the wire I discovered at Q10 d 75. At this point there seemed only to be one row of wire which closely resembled our ‘knife rests’ and looked as if it might be easily removed.

"Ground:- There is a certain amount of dead ground in front of our right sector which might be used for massing hostile troops especially in the old Road in the Q16.B and Q. 10.D which has a bank on each side of it sufficient to give protection to hostile or our own troops.

"We encountered a hostile patrol numbring about 12 who had taken up a position between ourselves and our own lines, evidently with the intention of cutting us off. We advanced in open formation and were about 50 yards from the enemy when they opened fire. We replied and after a the first exchange the enemy advanced and threw three grenades at us. We held our ground and threw five Mills grenades amongst them.

"The enemy rapidly retired and two of their number were distinctly seen lying on the ground. Owing to the intensity of machine gun and rifle fire we were obliged to move off to the left flank and were unable to follow up on our advantage. A large number of flares were sent up from the enemy’s lines.

"I had with me on patrol, Sgt. Harvey and four other ranks. We returned at 12.15am."

Lance Sergeant A. Steele/L.corporal J. Hamilton:- "The patrol went out at 8.30pm from our own wires. After patrolling the coy’s front thoroughly we found nothing of any importance, only a very large shell hole which the patrol, 7 strong, was able to take cover from machine gun fire from the enemy lines and also our own lines.

"We then turned to our front heading for the enemy lines and about 200 yards in front of the enemy’s wire we came across another very large shell hole, half full of water, but there was no connection with the German trenches.

"We crept cautiously up to the German wires over crackling rushes and 15 yards of ploughed ground. We made a thorough examination of the wire and found that it was mostly put up in tight conertina fashion, each concerntina being about eight feet in length and at each end was cross sticks for trestles. The depth of the wire from where we were was about 25 yards.

"We also saw that there was wire put up in the same fashion as our own only it appeared to be much tighter but just about the same height, we also saw that they have got the iron corkscrews.

"We cut a piece of the wire and brought it with us and after lots of difficulty in getting through our own wires the patrol returned safely at 11. 30pm."

The following wire was received from Gen. Griffiths GoC 1018th Inf. Bde.: "Please congratulate patrols on the good work done last night."

[Ralph J. Whitehead]

Interesting details Des.

I checked my records on the date given but unfortunately did not locate any specific details. I checked the Ehrentafel to see if the report of casualties had any bearing. I came up blank here as well though I only checked fatal losses and did not have a chance to look through any lists for wounded, etc.

I will see if I can locate the appropriate Verlustlisten and see what I might find. The only difficulty I will encounter is that the lists do not report dates on the actual casualty lists as they were in the earlier ones, 1914 vintage. Nevertheless, let's see what we find.

Ralph

[Desmond7]

Cheers Ralph - hope to have a few more scouting reports for you soon.

[Desmond7]

Having looked back over the war diary, and checked names of trenches etc. I now believe the area circled in red is what we are taling about.

I know this map is from 1917 (Croonaert site) ... it still has the right trench names and is in the right sector.

[Rupert]

Des - seems to be the are roughly covered by the Newfoundland Park.

Stu

[Desmond7]

Cheers Stu - my thoughts exactly. Reckon these 'ground reports' and 'wire intelligence' would be useful to those who follow 29th DIv. etc

More to follow when I get them keyed in!