They Called it Passchendaele Read online

  PENGUIN BOOKS

  THEY CALLED IT PASSCHENDAELE

  Over the past twenty years Lyn Macdonald has established a reputation as a popular author and historian of the First World War. Her books are They Called It Passchendaele, an account of the Passchendaele campaign in 1917; The Roses of No Man’s Land, a chronicle of the war from the neglected viewpoint of the casualties and the medical teams who struggled to save them; Somme, a history of the legendary and horrifying battle that has haunted the minds of succeeding generations; 1914, a vivid account of the first months of the war and winner of the 1987 Yorkshire Post Book of the Year Award; 1914–1918: Voices and Images of the Creat War, an illuminating account of the many different aspects of the war; and 1915: The Death of Innocence, a brilliant evocation of the year that saw the terrible losses of Aubers Ridge, Loos, Neuve Chapelle, Ypres and Gallipoli. Her most recent book is To The Last Man: Spring 1918, which describes the first momentous months of the last year of the war, when a massive German assault on the Western Front brought to an end the long stalemate of the trenches. All are based on the accounts of eyewitnesses and survivors, and cast a unique light on the First World War.

  Lyn Macdonald is married and lives in London.

  LYN MACDONALD

  THEY CALLED IT

  PASSCHENDAELE

  THE STORY OF

  THE BATTLE OF YPRES AND OF

  THE MEN WHO FOUGHT IN IT

  PENGUIN BOOKS

  To all the soldiers who served in the

  Ypres Salient and, in particular, to the boys

  of the 13th (Service) Battalion, The Rifle Brigade,

  this book is dedicated in admiration and with love.

  PENGUIN BOOKS

  Published by the Penguin Group

  Penguin Books Ltd, 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England

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  Penguin Books Ltd, Registered Offices: 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England

  www.penguin.com

  First published by Michael Joseph Ltd 1978

  Published in Penguin Books 1993

  21

  Copyright © Lyn Macdonald, 1978

  All rights reserved

  Except in the United States of America, this book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, re-sold, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the publisher’s prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser

  ISBN: 978-0-14-196031-9

  Contents

  List of Illustrations

  Author’s Foreword and Acknowledgments

  Part 1

  The Big Bang

  Part 2

  The Interlude

  Part 3

  The Rains Came

  Part 4

  ‘O Jesus Make it Stop’

  Part 5

  ‘We Died in Hell – They Called it Passchendaele’

  Part 6

  The Aftermath

  Bibliography

  Author’s Note

  Index

  List of Illustrations

  Captain Martin Greener (on the left)

  Gunner Jason Addy

  Lance-Corporal (later Quartermaster-Sergeant) Joseph Pincombe

  2nd Lieutenant Jimmy Todd

  2nd Lieutenant Alfred Angel

  Captain Alan Goring MC

  Field Postcard

  Typical postcard sent from home to the field

  2nd Lieutenant Paddy King

  Private Victor Fagence

  Typical postcard on general sale out of the line

  Rifleman George Winterbourne

  Private Charles Miles

  Charles Miles and legless comrade, photographed after the war

  Private W. G. Bell MM (extreme right)

  Private Frank Hodgson (back row, third from left)

  Gunner Walter Lugg MM

  Major George Horridge TD

  Private Harold Diffey

  Rifleman Tom Cantlon

  Quartermaster-Sergeant George Fisher

  Sergeant John Carmichael VC

  Corporal Nick Lee MM and the crew of the tank Revenge

  Unteroffizier Jeff Werner

  C-in-C Field-Marshal Douglas Haig inspects the Signal Section of the 78th Winnipeg Grenadiers

  Gunner Bert Stokes

  Colonel Roderick Macleod DSO, MC

  Cyclist Jim Smith

  Mrs Gays’ letter to Jim Smith

  Rifleman Bill Worrell

  2nd Lieutenant Jimmy Naylor

  Private Bill Smith

  2nd Lieutenant Sivori Levey

  The padres of the 34th Division

  Gun-team of the 16th Canadian Machine Gun Company

  Taking ammunition up the line

  Reginald Le Brun with his machine-gun team in the reserve line at

  Passchendaele

  Sister Jean Calder with VADs and nurses, photographed with a Belgian woman and her baby

  The Salient

  The aspect of a salient upon a map is familiar to most of us. It is a piece of ground projecting into the enemy lines and offering, therefore, peculiar disadvantages and dangers to the defenders. The Hun can shoot right across it. A salient is an awkward place. But how awkward none can realise fully unless he has tried the following experiment.

  The top of the Ypres Salient is somewhere about the trenches in front of ‘Y’ Wood. Place yourself at night in one of these ditches, moving with care so that the mud and water does not sluice over the top of your gum- or thigh-boots (assuming that you are fortunate enough to possess a pair), and turn your back, for a moment, upon the diligent Boche who is no doubt busily engaged in draining a lake behind his line into your temporary abode. Look at the salient. You will never get a better idea of its extent for it is outlined with the Very lights of which the enemy has so inexhaustible a store. To right and left of you the lights stretch far into the distance. But it is not the distance which impresses you, it is the lack of distance, the short space between that light which has just gone up, far away on the right, and that light which has just fallen far away on the left. That little space – one might think it merely a few hundred yards – is the neck of the salient, and if the Boche gets through there, from either side, or from both sides at once, what hope have you and your pals and the thousands of men round Ypres? Now you know what a salient is.

  The Ypres Times, Vol. 6, No. 1 January 1932.

  Author’s Foreword and Acknowledgments

  If this book reads like a novel, or even at times like a horror story, please do not blame me. It is all true, or rather it is compiled from more than 600 true stories and eyewitness accounts of men and women who were there in the blood-bath of Ypres. Some of their experiences are reproduced in their own words as they were recorded. Many more are incorporated in the text, and the tiniest details have contributed to building up a picture of life as it was for the Tommies and Anzacs and Canucks who were at Ypres in that terrible summer and autumn of 1917. Writing this book was a straightforward task of compiling and interpreting their experiences in the light of the events which took place a
s the campaign unrolled. The facts were all there. There was no need for imagination to be brought to bear on them, for the events were beyond imagining.

  Although it has of necessity been compiled from the recollections of old people, this is a story about boys and young men and women, many still in their teens, who were snatched from a safe and circumscribed world, still basking in the afterglow of those Edwardian summers when God was still in his Heaven and a third of the atlas was firmly shaded in the pink of the British Empire. This is their story, faithfully recorded as they remember their experiences, their thoughts, feelings and conversations – and they remember them vividly. The experience of that ‘Great’ war could never be forgotten. Perhaps Bill Fowler, who was a stretcher-bearer with the 13th (Service) Battalion, The Rifle Brigade, summed it all up when he said, ‘In a way I lived my whole life between the ages of nineteen and twenty-three. Everything that happened after that was almost an anti-climax.’

  Mere words cannot sufficiently express my gratitude to all the people who have taken the time and trouble to cast their minds back and talk and write about their experiences. Nor can I set one above another by selecting particular names for particular thanks. I can only hope that they will feel that this book does them justice. Their names are listed at the back and I should like every one of them to know how grateful I am for his or her co-operation and assistance.

  This book has been a team effort. It would have been impossible for one person to have tackled the magnitude of work and research involved, or to have accomplished such a task within ten years without assistance. John Woodroff deserves my special thanks, not only for indirectly sparking off the idea in the first place, but for his meticulous checking of all the military facts and for his unabating willingness to meet and talk to old soldiers. Tony Spagnoly also ranged far and wide in his search for old soldiers and, throughout the three years during which this book has been in preparation, he has never flagged in his enthusiasm and has sacrificed much of his time to the task of checking personal stories against the bald facts recorded in regimental records and histories. Above all, his wide knowledge of military tactics and history and his personal feeling for the period have made a contribution of incalculable value to this book.

  Of my BBC colleagues I should like to thank Alan Rogers, Head of Current Affairs Magazine Programmes, for his unflagging interest and encouragement; and Ritchie Cogan, not only for his enthusiasm and interest, but for devoting innumerable evenings and weekends of his spare time to assisting with the interviewing.

  I am also deeply grateful to Tony Spagnoly, John Woodroff and Ritchie Cogan for accompanying me on many trips to Ypres and tramping in all weathers and seasons almost every inch of the ground that formed the salient. I particularly remember a freezing November dawn, five o’clock in the morning on the Bellewarde Ridge. We had the consolation of knowing that it must have been worse for the soldiers in 1917 – but there were times when we felt that it couldn’t have been much worse.

  I must specially thank Mr A. E. Thome, MBE (now deceased), Honorary Secretary of the 13th (Service) Battalion, The Rifle Brigade, Old Comrades Association, for his constant interest, advice and help and many introductions.

  Baron Yves de Vinck, proprietor of Hooge Chateau, was unfailingly courteous and helpful and my thanks are due to him, as well as to Dr Canapeele in Ypres, who spent valuable time talking to us about the campaign, and showing us his collection of maps and books.

  Mr P. D. Parminter, now resident in Ostend, has a unique knowledge of the salient, for he not only served there during the war but stayed on afterwards during the period in which the battlefields were cleared and the land reconstructed, as an officer of the Army Graves Service. His knowledge, advice and interest have been of the utmost help and he has most generously showered me with contemporary printed material which was absolutely unavailable elsewhere. He also provided the key to unravelling the diary of the Dickebusch priest, Pastor van Walleghem, which had been privately published in Flemish by a historical society, and ‘volunteered’ his nephew and niece, John and Nenette Parminter, to undertake the monumental task of translating it. They did so with the utmost good humour and interest and, with unfailing patience, resolved the many queries that arose. It is largely due to their efforts that I have been able to present a complete picture of the salient as it was when the Army was there.

  The Ypres Tourist Office was exceedingly helpful on our many visits and I should like to thank Jan Breyne for his patience and kindness, which was only equalled by that of Pierre Claus in the Belgian Tourist Office in London, who cleared up many points for us and put us in touch with valuable contacts in the Belgian Army.

  I am greatly in the debt of various members of the Commonwealth War Graves Commission. In Ypres, Bob Wall and J. Priestley-Dunne, whose knowledge of the area was invaluable and, in Britain, to Clem Stephens and Mike Shepherd, who were always able to answer queries in five minutes flat and did so with unfailing interest and courtesy.

  Alma Woodroffnot only transcribed some 300 hours of recorded interviews but typed the draft and the final manuscript with the sort of meticulous efficiency and interest that goes far beyond the call of duty. For this I am greatly in her debt.

  I should like to thank David Higham Associates for permission to quote from The Supreme Command 1914–1915 by Lord Hankey; The Times for permission to quote from their contemporary newspapers; the Ypres League for permission to quote from The Ypres Times; Genootschap voor Geschiedenis, Societe d’emulation, for permission to quote from De Oorlog Te Dickebusch En Omstreken 1914–1918 by Pastor van Walleghem; and Francis, Day and Hunter for permission to quote the words of ‘A Bachelor Gay Am I’ and ‘The Laddies Who Fought and Won’.

  Lastly, and most importantly, I have to thank my able assistant, Vivien Bilbow, who has not only done the lion’s share of the monumental amount of work involved in organising and following up the contributions of some 600 or so people, but has masterminded the whole operation and, by some mental feat which I, at least, consider to be miraculous, has always been able to produce the right information at the right moment. Without her hard work and constant support, this book would certainly never have been written. That may be a cliche, but, with my hand on my heart, it is true.

  LYN MACDONALD

  LONDON, 1978

  Part 1

  The Big Bang

  Chapter 1

  Before 1914 the ancient city of Ypres had been one of the gems of Flanders. Not that many people outside Belgium had ever heard of it, for, in tumbling from its pinnacle as one of the great cloth towns of the middle ages, Ypres had also tumbled into obscurity. A sleepy backwater of less than 20,000 inhabitants, whose prosperity largely depended on the harvest of hops and corn and beets growing on the plains beyond the ramparts that enclosed its medieval towers and high-gabled houses.

  Four years of war turned Ypres into a ghost town. Not a leaf grew on a tree. Scarcely one stone stood upon another. From the battered ramparts the eye swept clean across a field of rubble to the swamp-lands beyond. The jagged ruins of the Cloth Hall tower, still pointing an angry skeleton’s finger at the sky, were the only evidence that a town had ever stood there.

  By 1920 it was the booming mecca of the first mass-explosion of tourism in history. The single third-class fare from London to Ypres was a mere £1 12s 6d – a little less than the average weekly wage of the lowest-paid workers. A package-deal was even better value, for a four-day excursion, including travel, hotel accommodation and meals, could be arranged for as little as £3 17s 6d. In the Twenties, tens of thousands of people travelled to Ypres, packing the cross-channel steamers to the gunwales, pouring into trains at Ostend and pouring out again at the shabby wooden sheds that served as a temporary station.

  In the face of such an influx, accommodation was a problem. The construction of hotels was naturally not at the top of the list of priorities in a city whose returning inhabitants were still living in cellars and huts; but there were inns in the surround
ing villages and organisations like the YMCA; and the Church Army, which had put up temporary wartime buildings in the area as canteens for the troops, turned them into hostels to provide for the needs of the post-war visitors. Their needs were simple, for they regarded themselves less as visitors than as pilgrims.

  They were mostly women, these pilgrims. Some of them were accompanied by a husband, or a father, or a son. More often by a sister or a daughter because their husbands and fathers and sons were already here. A whole generation of young men lay buried beneath the Flanders mud.

  Of the million men who had been killed in the Great War, a quarter of a million lay in the few square miles around Ypres. Their graves marked the perimeter of the dreaded salient which, at all costs and for no reason that in hindsight seems good enough, had to be held. It would be more correct to say that the cemeteries marked the perimeter of the salient, for the salient itself is a graveyard. Under its farms and woods and villages lie the unrecovered bodies of more than 40,000 soldiers who died or drowned, wounded in the mud. In spring and autumn their bones are still turned up by ploughs and ditching machines. The salient was a slaughterhouse. Around Ypres the fighting never really stopped, but, from time to time, it intensified. After the war, the Battle Nomenclature Committee, in its wisdom, saw fit to entitle those periods of intense fighting the First, Second and Third Battles of Ypres. In the popular mind all the agony and suffering of the salient became associated with one word. Passchendaele. For ‘Passchendaele’ stood for all that was dismal, all that was futile and, by a strange quirk, all that was glorious in the history of warfare. In all the history of warfare, no campaign was more catastrophic, no ‘victory’ more empty. Passchendaele stands on the summit of the slopes that surround the city of Ypres. The troops called them hills.

  Of course, they weren’t really hills at all. They were folds in the ground sloping gently up from the flat plain of Flanders. In peacetime it is strollers’ countryside, patchworked with fields and copses, farms and hamlets separated by such leisurely gradients that it is hardly worth stopping to admire the view. Hill 60, sixty metres high. Hill 40, forty metres. Hill 35, an insignificant pimple on the landscape. But the ridges surrounded the salient, and it seemed as impossible for the British armies to break out of it as it would be for a canyon to burst free of the Rockies.