'Booty" taken on raids

[Mark Foxe]

A lot of the raids undertaken on the Western Front were to either harass the enemy or obtain positive identification of the opposing units, but what actually happened with the ‘booty’ taken during trench raids that managed to capture new/unusual equipment/technology etc?

I have seen some rudimentary intelligence reports relating to bits and pieces of equipment that may have been 'lifted', and have a fair idea of what happened to prioners captured during such endeavours but what was the overall intelligence derivation process for captured objects of note?

Any ideas, or direction.

Thanks. Mark

[Mark Foxe]

Booty in this post, breast works in my last. I imagine that people will start getting the wrong impression of me!

Let me re-phrase myself. Please replace 'booty' with physical intelligence.

Mea Culpa.

[Michael Johnson]

I imagine some of it was sent up the line to HQ - mostly papers. Some of it was probably just tossed (cut off shoulder straps, etc.), unless it was a case of "You want these for your kids? We were going to chuck them anyway."

[centurion]

Somewhere I've seen a brief acount (in some longer work) of a regimental intelligence officer getting quite vexed about soldiers retaining souvenirs that might provide valuable pieces in the overall information jigsaw puzzle

[salientguide]

Thought of this thread whilst doing some preparation for a forthcoming talk to a couple of WFA branches.

Here is a picture of men of the 1st battalion Northumberland Fusiliers after the "Battle of the St Eloi Craters" March 1916 with souvenirs brought back noticeably Deaths Head shakoes from a particular regiment anyone any ideas which?

Also forage caps, a German steel helmet and gas masks. Certainly I would have thought specimens of the last two would have been of great intelligence interest as like us steel helmets were still rather new issue and the gas masks look of a much advanced kind compared to ours of that time.

Did they keep them or did they get passed on ? SG

[Andrew Upton]

Front of Army Form W. 3092:

[Andrew Upton]

Reverse:

[Cnock]

Hi Salientguide,

There are no 'Deats Head' shakos on the pic You show.

These are shakos from Reserve Jäger Bataillon nr. 18, (46th Reserve Division) that occupied the line at Sint-Elooi on 27/3/1916.

Second man from the left seems to be wearing a captured old pattern machine gunners shako (different plate).

The others havethe regular Prussian plate on the shako.

Regards,

Cnock

[Mark Foxe]

Hello Andrew,

Thanks so much for the two images (front and rear) of the "Collection of Information Regarding the Enemy" form/card.

It's the first I have seen of this type, so all the more exciting.

Any ideas whether this particular 1915 form/card would have been updated as the war progressed and down to what level would the form been distributed.

Regards, Mark

[Andrew Upton]

Hello Andrew,

Thanks so much for the two images (front and rear) of the "Collection of Information Regarding the Enemy" form/card.

It's the first I have seen of this type, so all the more exciting.

Any ideas whether this particular 1915 form/card would have been updated as the war progressed and down to what level would the form been distributed.

Regards, Mark

This is actually a copy of an original, as sold by Geoff Carefoot of the Great War Society as part of his reproduction AB64 package. I presume it would have been issued to each individual soldier and updated as necessary.

[Malte Znaniecki]

Thanks for that guys, very informative stuff, allways new to me.

Malte

[bob lembke]

Thought of this thread whilst doing some preparation for a forthcoming talk to a couple of WFA branches.

Here is a picture of men of the 1st battalion Northumberland Fusiliers after the "Battle of the St Eloi Craters" March 1916 with souvenirs brought back noticeably Deaths Head shakoes from a particular regiment anyone any ideas which?

Also forage caps, a German steel helmet and gas masks. Certainly I would have thought specimens of the last two would have been of great intelligence interest as like us steel helmets were still rather new issue and the gas masks look of a much advanced kind compared to ours of that time.

Did they keep them or did they get passed on ? SG

I am assuming that St. Eloi was not at Verdun? In March 1916 German steel helmets were being just issued to the most elite units at Verdun, first Sturm=Bataillon Nr. 5 (Rohr) , and I would be surprised if steel helmets were being distributed at other points on the front at that time. Are you sure of the date?

Bob Lembke

[jhill]

I am assuming that St. Eloi was not at Verdun? In March 1916 German steel helmets were being just issued to the most elite units at Verdun, first Sturm=Bataillon Nr. 5 (Rohr) , and I would be surprised if steel helmets were being distributed at other points on the front at that time. Are you sure of the date?

Bob Lembke

There seems no doubt that the 1st Northd Fusiliers captured a number of prisoners at the St. Eloi craters on the south face of the Ypres salient on March 27th, 1916. I presume this photo shows souvenirs of this event.

As to when steel helmets were issued to German units in this sector, the 2nd Canadian division was nearby, and their War diary includes daily intelligence summaries. I see identifications of enemy steel helmets as early as 19th March, so issues must have been at least this early.

[bob lembke]

There seems no doubt that the 1st Northd Fusiliers captured a number of prisoners at the St. Eloi craters on the south face of the Ypres salient on March 27th, 1916. I presume this photo shows souvenirs of this event.

As to when steel helmets were issued to German units in this sector, the 2nd Canadian division was nearby, and their War diary includes daily intelligence summaries. I see identifications of enemy steel helmets as early as 19th March, so issues must have been at least this early.

If the intelligence summaries mentioned them, they must have been issued at that sector on the front. I do know that the first ones were distributed during the fighting at Verdun, which began February 21, 1916. Rohr got them first, and they reported other troops were astonished to see them. Then other units got them, and at first some units in line wore them, and then turned them over to their replacements when they rotated out. The manufacture, forming that deep shape, was complicated, I believe that the steel blank had to be pressed something like 18 or 19 times to get the deep form., so they could not be turned out like cookies.

Bob Lembke

[salientguide]

There are no 'Deaths Head' shakos on the pic You show.

These are shakos from Reserve Jäger Bataillon nr. 18, (46th Reserve Division) that occupied the line at Sint-Elooi on 27/3/1916.

Second man from the left seems to be wearing a captured old pattern machine gunners shako (different plate).

The others havethe regular Prussian plate on the shako.

hi Cnock thanks for that. Couldnt blow the pic up enough to get a clear view.

Regards SG

[salientguide]

Bob and James,

There is no doubt about the location,timing and identification of the picture. In fact it accompanies a much better known Official Crown Copyright picture of the majority of the battallion clearly labelled Ist Batt NF, Battle of St Eloi in which the same shakos and gas masks are on display as souvenirs, but interestingly not the Steel Helmet.

Will publish it when I get a chance tonight. But the information you give is interesting, must have been one of the first captured, going back to original post presumably of great interest to Higher Command, showing they were being introduced into the Salient at around the same time. SG

[centurion]

so they could not be turned out like cookies.

Bob Lembke

Given that the entire German army on the WF was reequiped with them by sometime in June 1916 (that's a hell of a lot of helmets) there must have been a fairly effective mass production line in place quite quickly. Perhaps the first field trial helmets issued at Verdun were effectively produced almost as individual items (knife and forking was the term used when I worked at Rolls Royce a long time and the first few of a new engine were almost hand made including had turned parts) and once proven effective they were indeed cookieised.

[bob lembke]

I would think that an officer grabbed the steel helmet and forwarded it to Intelligence. This was at the time when the first German troops issued them clearly recorded the astonishment of other German soldiers upon seeing men wearing these. I am a mechanical engineer, and have seen a set of photographs of each of the pressing steps, in which the deep shape was gradually formed. (I imagine that the plate had to be annealed several times during this process to eliminate "work hardening" so as to allow further pressing without fracture.) The helmet is a remarkable example of metal forming and would have been of considerable interest to Allied war production technicians. The much shallower Brit/Yank helmet probably was formed with one, two three pressings. Were the latter a somewhat lighter gauge steel? Thicker steel would compound the difficulty of the pressing process.

As to the original question, booty taken on raids, in my father's company the men were paid a bounty (paid into the company welfare fund) for every French light MG that they brought back from a raid. My father said that the French tended to get out of the way when they ignited the flame throwers and that they even sometimes had "unofficial" raids to get their hands on booty, especially food, in particular coffee. My father was a wheeler-dealer in this booty, and in a letter to his father from a hospital in 1917 he stated that he had just sent a 900 gram tin of coffee to his mother, and that he had five more under his bed, and urged his father to accept one for sale to then buy more food staples. Real coffee in Germany in 1917 was an indescribable luxury. Another letter from a hospital in 1918, after his fourth wound, he write his father that he had given the CSM 200 Mark's worth of booty to keep while he attacked the French and got wounded. (He even printed out the CSM's name .) The only piece of booty he still had was a nice piece of shaving soap in its original wrapper, which was stained by flame oil, and which he had planned to send to his father.

Was a 900 gram coffee tin (that would be two pounds) a standard size of coffee can in the Allied armies? Two pounds suggests an English or American source for the coffee. Anyone have an idea here?

The Germans had officers specially detailed to collect and secure booty; a particular interest was to keep abandoned British tanks from being stripped. (Two-thirds of the tanks the Germans used were refurbished British Mark IVs; they did not want further damage to these valuable trophies.)

Bob Lembke

[centurion]

The Germans had officers specially detailed to collect and secure booty; a particular interest was to keep abandoned British tanks from being stripped. (Two-thirds of the tanks the Germans used were refurbished British Mark IVs; they did not want further damage to these valuable trophies.)

Bob Lembke

In which they were somewhat usuccesful - I quote from a report by Captain Wegner, who was the liason officer between the A7V committee and the German high command, in part covering the refurbishment of the beute panzers "Unfortunately it was impossible to protect the tanks against theft and wanton destruction at the hands of our own troops; and at that time prize money was given in order to obtain and protect the valuable and unreplaceable parts and instruments.Transmissions were blown up and motors broken to obtainan insignificant piece of brass. Owing to the need for man power the Armee OberKammand was disinclined to furnish guard for the tanks."

[Chris Henschke]

Getting back to the original question...

The process for captured material was well laid out.

This is an extract from 1 Aust Div orders from May, 1916.

'Brigade and other Unit Commanders will issue orders to all units under their command explaining that all captured equipment (which term included helmets, rifles, identity discs, portions of uniform, documents, letters and all other articles of any military value whatsoever) is the property of His Majesty's Government and will be handed in for examination by the Intelligence Branch of the General Staff. Owing to frequent changes, not only of units but also of personnel within units which occur, it will be necessary to re-issue these orders at frequent intervals.'

Occasionally a hitlist of required captures was promulgated, for example;

'Samples of the following articles are desired :-

1. Rations.

2. Electrical equipment.

3. Leather accoutrements and articles of clothing, ... Samples, when necessary and possible, should be disinfected before despatch to Divisional Headquarters'

Army Form W. 3092 was (in theory), issued to every officer in April, 1916.

Chris Henschke

[jhill]

. . .snip,snip, . . .

Was a 900 gram coffee tin (that would be two pounds) a standard size of coffee can in the Allied armies? Two pounds suggests an English or American source for the coffee. Anyone have an idea here?

snip

Bob Lembke

I apologize for veering way off topic here, but you remind me something I always wondered about. This reproduction of a Munich ration card (from "The First World War - A Photographic History") uses the term 'pfund'. Is that just the popular term for half a kilogramme, or did those folks still use pounds for some types of measures? We have heard that every country in Europe had their own pounds at one time, but I thought that was history by 1915.

Sorry for the diversion!

[bob lembke]

Yes, I have seen pfund used, perhaps in family letters. It might have been a half kilo, or some particular measure. A German dictionary of 1906 translates pfund as "pound". A German Lexikon from 1936 has a table of weights and measures of many countries, and some old ones, but does not list the pfund. Probably the use had died out. My guess that it might have possibly been an exact English pound, or some old measure of about a pound, or a half kilo.

Another measure used by my grand-father for several things, including the weight of heavy shells, in his letters is Centner, which I think was also spelled Zentner. It seems to have been 50 kilos, or about 110 lbs. The term likely derives from 100 pounds.

Bob Lembke

[salientguide]

As promised the "Official Photograph"of the 1st battalion Northumberland Fusiliers after "The Battle of St Eloi"

complete with souvenirs..except for the German helmet!! SG

[Mark Foxe]

Thanks Chris and everyone,

Some interesting stuff there which opened my eyes to a few new facts.

Regards,

Mark