G's. had all their guns but one put out of
action, and almost all their officers and men became casualties. They
had pluckily worked their weapons in the hastily sited positions until
knocked out--not before, however, they had carried out savage execution
amongst the more venturesome Huns, and they certainly had the effect of
making the remainder hesitate. The nature of the ground made it
difficult also for the battalion observers to work, for it was evident
the enemy F.O.O's. were specially searching for such people, and the
moment they fixed up a telescope down came a hurricane of shelling, the
close proximity of the Boche guns making their fire extremely accurate
and deadly. The result was that after the first day's fighting, of the
observers only two, Cpl. Maguire and Pte. Wilmer, remained. Not to be
daunted by the fate of their comrades they clung to their task, and
when shelled out of one spot immediately found another. They kept the
enemy under close watch and strung together most valuable chains of
evidence as to their movements, gallant work for which both received the
M.M.
The signallers also suffered heavily. Wires were difficult to keep in
repair but the linesmen continued to go out during the heaviest
shelling, while others maintained a system of lamp signalling to the
brigade behind a pile of ammunition boxes until a 5.9 dropped plumb
amongst them with dire results. Other signallers at once found a new
spot and kept communication going.
Pages:
109
110
111
112
113
114
115
116
117
118
119
120
121
122
123
124
125
126
127
128
129
130
131
132
133