The best place to get an overall view of the Royal Naval Division attack is from the Ulster Tower on the ridge overlooking the Ancre on the south. In the season (approximately mid-May to end September) the Ulster Tower is open, and so there is the advantage of the view from the top. However, even if the Tower is closed, the line of the attack is clearly visible from the area of the entrance. From west to east may be seen Mesnil, Hamel, Beaumont Hamel snuggled away in a valley and across to the area of Beaucourt. In 1916 most of the vegetation surrounding the Ancre would have been destroyed, and the banks of the river had been so shelled, and the weather so bad, that there was a great swathe of ground that was flooded or utterly boggy. The Ancre cemetery was more or less in No Man’s Land on November 13th, though the British front had advanced very close The ground between the cemetery and the track running north from the road was in No Man’s Land for the first few hundred yards of the track’s progress northwards. The German line crossed the Hamel — Beaucourt road just to the east of its junction with the track. The site of the Redoubt, that caused so much trouble, was in the area where the track climbs notably less steeply. The ground to the west of the cemetery rises quite sharply up a ridge; it was along here that men of the Naval Division waited to follow up the attacking battalions in the front line and those who were already lying waiting for Zero in No Man’s Land.
See Map 11
Beaucourt Station still stands, though it has recently effectively been closed. Much of the fighting took place in the siding that is to the west of the main building and platforms. Beaucourt Redoubt stood to the north of that village, at a crossroads. The church was originally closer to the Ancre; its replacement is now near the Royal Naval Division Memorial.
The Royal Naval Division was probably the most eccentric formation under British arms in the Great War. It had its origins in the realisation by the prewar Committee of Imperial Defence that there were well over twenty thousand men in the Naval Reserve who could not be found ships in time of war. They wanted to have a force that would be capable of seizing and holding temporary naval bases which might be needed overseas. This is how some eight thousand of these reservists found themselves training as infantry, retaining all their naval ranks and traditions, with battalion names such as Drake, Nelson, Collingwood, Hood, Hawke and so forth. These men were put in two brigades, the third brigade of the division being formed by the Royal Marine Light Infantry. To make matters even more confusing, the men retained their naval ranks and the Royal Navy cap badge. The Royal Naval Division at this stage in the war came under the Admiralty, and this explains why Winston Churchill played such a prominent part in its early history.
Winston Churchill was the First Lord of the Admiralty, a political appointment making him the head of naval matters, With Cabinet rank; the job should not be confused with that of the First Sea Lord, who was the Admiral who was the Service head of the Royal Navy. The Naval division saw action in two of Churchill’s pet interventions in the war — in the failed attempt to save Antwerp, and in the fiasco that was to be the Dardanelles, or Gallipoli, campaign. Antwerp was to have a considerable impact on the fledgling force — for example the Hawke Battalion was reduced to an officer and two men, the rest being casualties, most of whom were interned in Holland.
The end of the Gallipoli campaign left the Naval Division acting as sentries on a number of Aegean Islands, whilst its fate was decided in the corridors of power in a dispute between the War Office and the Admiralty. Already the ill-will between Army and Navy that was to mar the history of the division had set in, but at least it had been decided to retain it as a fighting force and to use the potential of its force on the Western Front rather than frittering itself away in utter tedium.
Panoramic view across British and German lines north of the Ancre from close to the Ulster Tower near an old extant German machine gun position.
In late May the Division arrived on a number of trains at Abbeville, one of the great rail centres of the British Army, well to the rear of what was to become the Somme battlefield. The historian of the Hawke Battalion records the event: ‘Never had a stranger spectacle burst upon the orthodox military eye. The battalions, the engineers, the divisional train (this refers to the supporting elements of the division), all alike had come without stores of any kind: with rifles that would only take ammunition obsolete long before the war, with all the “old soldiers” tricks and none of his experiences of the very different conditions. The material was there, no doubt, but the appearance had somehow worn off. The reports from the base camp commandant at Marseilles were hostile to a degree; the faces of the hordes of Generals and staff officers in the area of concentration were a study.’
For the next months the Naval Division was in the Souchez sector, in the shadow of Vimy Ridge. It had now been transferred from the authority of the Admiralty to that of the War Office, and had been numbered the 63rd Division, whilst retaining its distinctive subtitle of Royal Naval Division. In early October it was transferred to the Somme, and although nothing definite in the ways of orders had been given, it was clear to all that it would be engaged in the attack on either Serre or Beaumont-Hamel.
Officers of the Royal Naval Division soon after their arrival in France.
At this early stage on the Somme, with the naval brigades in billets at Varennes and Forceville, the Division suffered the grievous blow of losing their commander, Major General Paris, who was wounded whilst on a reconnaissance. He was universally popular and respected throughout the division, had been with them from its earliest days, and perhaps most importantly was the man best able to retain the traditions of the division without antagonising its new army masters. He had an unshakeable confidence in his men and, whilst not uncritical, he had been able to keep its identity by having the confidence to promote men from within its ranks. His successor was Major General Shute, whose name could, by the simple change of a vowel, adequately sum up the opinion that most felt of him. This brought the whole business of the inefficiency, the unmilitariness and the general sloppiness that was the current opinion of the divison amongst military men to the fore; Haig in any case had an aversion to troops from Gallipoli, a prejudice discussed earlier when referring to the 29th Division.
The Divisional history is caustic about the consequences of the change in commander as the men were preparing for the forthcoming battle. The change in accustomed routine, in the manner of dress, in the mounting of guards, in the discipline of sentries, which followed on General Paris’s departure, engaged much of the attention of subalterns and gave Colonels and Brigadiers not a moment’s peace. A little later, ill-concealed rumours of a growing dissatisfaction on the part of the new Divisional Commander (which led in turn to even wilder rumours of wholesale suppressions, ending in transfer to the Army) distracted the fighting spirit of the Division still further from the matter in hand.’ The Divisional history was written by Douglas Jerrold, and he also wrote the more intimate history of the Hawke Battalion; he does say that Shute became in later times a friend, and even an admirer, of the division’. But the early days were fraught, with the occasional moment of modest humour that could emerge from the strained relations. ‘Our only triumph was when a formal complaint was lodged on one occasion by the General himself that the guard had not turned out at all. It was explained, at first gently and then firmly, that there was no guard there, but only one sentry, who as far as could be ascertained, had done everything that the drill book required for these difficult occasions.
Yet our triumph was shortlived, for General Shute, equal to any emergency, visited us in the line the next day. This time we had no answer, for it had been raining at least a fortnight, and the General’s statement that the trenches were in a disgracefully muddy condition could not be denied.’
The casualties of the Battle of the Ancre were to give the army their chance to alter the character of the division, but they failed. Shute moved on to command the 32nd Division, then the 19th, then the 32nd again, and finally he was promoted and commanded V Corps. Whatever personal antipathy between Shute and the Division existed was to be resolved in later years when Shute became a Patron of the RND Officers’ Association.
And so to the attack itself. The Divisional Boundary between the 63rd and the 39th was the Ancre River, such a distinguishing feature being made possible because it ran more or less in an east-west direction, and made practically necessary by the fact that the whole area around the Ancre, particularly sluggish at this stage in its course, had become a vile swamp and with the banks obliterated the river itself had considerably extended across neighbouring ground. In such circumstances difficult communications would have become impossible. This was to be the Division’s first offensive on the Western Front, and most particular care had been taken with the instructions for the attack, with all ranks kept fully informed of what was expected of them. The method of attack was to use troops in bounds, a battalion passing through another once an objective had been captured. The first battalion would reorganise and secure the position (the failure to clear German dugouts was a cause of many of the reverses earlier in the Somme battle), and pass through the next objective in turn after its capture. The division had as its objective Beaucourt and a line just beyond it, whilst the reserve brigade was to give that extra impetus in the last stages of the battle.
Flooded section of the Ancre Valley, November 1916.
Shute decided, with some justification, that the assault line needed to be straightened on the slopes above the Ancre, his aim being to ensure that attacking troops did not lose direction. This happened all too often in big attacks, a consequence of confusion, the mayhem of exploding shells, the confusion caused by trench lines when they were reached and often because of poor weather conditions; it is all the more easy to understand when one looks across the battlefield and mentally removes all vegetation, buildings and other points of reference. The concept was understandable; the problem lay in its execution, as the men from attacking battalions were the only labour available for this task. Jerrold writes in his history of the Hawke Battalion: The triple role of the infantry, sappers, beasts of burden, and fighting troops never pressed more heavily than it did at this place and at this time. The villages behind the line, which we of the Hawke must always associate with the rather weary period of waiting before the attack of November 13th, were Mesnil and Englebelmer. Both were entirely deserted by the civilian inhabitants, (what a surprise!) and Mesnil was only a heap of ruins covering insecurely a handful of cellars, where, when in support, we sat and shivered underground by day and night alike. Englebelmer provided at least a little comfort, though very little safety. Here by day men could walk about or sit down above ground with at least a roof over their heads. When at Englebelmer, however, we were required to supply working and digging parties to our total available strength, and a good deal beyond it every night. These parties began with a march of three miles or more to the trenches at Hamel. From there would be an impossible progress through slime and mud, either to dig assembly trenches in the open or, worse still, carrying up trench mortar ammunition. This routine was punctually carried out, but the only possible result was a high wastage from sickness directly due to over-exertion and exposure (it was late October and November when all this was going on). From this cause alone the Hawke battalion lost nearly one hundred and fifty men before the time came for it to go into action.’
One of the curious points about the 63rd Division is that one man wrote so much about it, on each occasion wearing a different hat. Douglas Jerrold wrote the Divisional history, his battalion history and his autobiography. Hence he describes the same scenario in his autobiography in a rather more bitterly personal way, in particular the carrying up of trench mortar bombs. The physical strain imposed on the men was far too great, largely owing to the condition of the ground and the craze for firing, from some position close to the front line, endless quantities of a peculiar kind of shell fired from trench mortars which I only remember as “toffee apples.” One of these things was a strong man’s load, and it took a man of quite exceptional physique to carry one from the dump up the deep slopes of the communication trenches six inches deep in sticky mud to the Trench Mortar Battery position just behind the front line.’ Jerrold goes on to say that, in his opinion, and despite the weight and satsifying explosion that they produced, they seemed to be ineffectual in their task of destroying German dugouts. ‘It was indeed only when I ran into a party carrying these infernal machines that I ever heard the British soldier deliberately and filthily blasphemous — a well known danger signal incidentally, for ordinary “language” means nothing.’
The attack was to be launched at 5.45 am, with a creeping barrage, the main weight of heavy artillery to fall on the German front line at that time, and a barrage of field artillery to fire fifty yards short to give cover to the advancing infantry. The artillery war, so far as the British were concerned, was being fought with a new professionalism and a new confidence, so that a creeping barrage — that is artillery fire which comes down along a pre-determined line at fixed times, thereby providing the infantry with a wall of explosive protection — had a far better chance of success. The greater professionalism of the gunners meant that this had a better chance of achieving its aim, although the artillery were still bedevilled with the problem that was one of the principal causes of chaos during the war, that is poor communications. In November this was made even worse by the weather conditions.
The German line was seized, with some difficulty, but the multitude of trenches and the plethora of shell craters led to chaos amongst the attacking forces almost from the beginning. It is at times like these that a great soldier on the ground can make all the difference, and this man existed in Bernard Freyberg, whose exploits over the next days culminated in the award of a VC. His role will be discussed elsewhere.
The casualties were high, particularly amongst officers; pockets of enemy resistance continued to hold out. But the Germans were hampered by the weather as much as the British; their light signals could not be seen, and the German artillery, aware that parts of the front had been lost, were so unsighted that they were unsure where to put their own barrage. The Germans had made good use of many of the subterranean refuges that had been created during the sixteenth century French Wars of Religion; they could be turned into good dugouts where they coincided with trench systems. By afternoon the right of the attack had made progress, but things were less clear on the left, although contact was established with the neighbouring 51st Division. The following day the assault was repeated, Freyberg being assisted by elements of the Honourable Artillery Company, the HAC. Beaucourt was captured at 10.30 am; a threatened German counter attack from Baillescourt Farm, about a mile to the east of Beaucourt, was supressed by artillery fire. By the evening Freyberg had come out of the fight severely wounded, and on the morning of the 15th November the elements of the 63rd Division were withdrawn, handing over to the 37th Division.
The success of the Hood and Drake Battalions was undoubtedly considerable — and decisive; the attack on the right was particularly successful, which can in part be explained by the lie of the ground, besides the effectiveness of the men attacking. The Divisional history summarises the achievement of their attack at 7.45 am on the 14th as follows: ‘the redoubt had been captured, the 188th Brigade were on the Green Line, and there was a road through to the Yellow Line to the right as well as the Yellow Line on the left of the attack. Colonel Freyberg’s brilliant and gallant leadership will remain the outstanding achievement of the Battle of the Ancre but, as ever, it was the patient, the unbelievable, obstinacy, courage and endurance of the private soldier along the whole line of battle that turned the scale.’ As it was, the whole division won in this battle not only a reputation, but a confidence in its own fighting capacity which contributed much to its future fighting efficiency. Such confidence is not bred of a vicarious success.’
Douglas Jerrold
Jerrold’s own part in the battle was to be limited. He was the Adjutant of the Hawke Battalion, and with another officer, Leslie Wilson, he was waiting for a message to report progress, so that they could go forward and establish a Report Centre. Eventually they just set off. “I had laboriously acquired a revolver for the battle, but in my right hand I carried all the documents adjutants are supposed to carry, including even the orders for the battle, in case we ever arrived there. We knew enough by now, however, to realise that if we got anywhere at all it would be by luck, and if we got anywhere near our destination it would be by using our wits. Then suddenly, as I was trying to think if I had forgotten anything, I felt a blow and realised that my left arm had been shot off. I remembered the story of the Duke of Wellington and Lord Uxbridge. Lord Uxbridge: ‘They’ve shot off my leg, sir.” The Duke: “By Gad, sir, they have.” So, like the Duke, I looked round and found my arm hanging somewhere around my back, but, alas, no revolver. Indeed I walked on a few yards looking for my arm, and was really only overcome with the pleasure of finding that it was still there. Then I subsided into a shell-hole, and Wilson relieved me of such papers as he wanted, while one of our own orderlies stayed with me and bandaged my arm, with very great skill, incidentally.’
‘So that was the end of my dream. No heroic exploits, no triumphs, not even a “triumph of organisation.” Just three miles of retreat in Gallipoli and thirty yards of advance in France — net gain to the enemy, 5,250 yards!’
This was the end of Jerrold’s war for some time to come.
Sergeant Will Meatyard was the Signal Sergeant, 2nd Royal Marine Light Infantry (RMLI) and was with HQ Company of the battalion. The battalion was in the same brigade as the Howe, Anson and 1/RMLI, 188th Brigade. His own battalion was not going to begin their advance until fifteen minutes after the initial attack. ‘About 3 am on the morning of the 13th certain platoons crawled out in No Man’s Land and got close up to the German’s barbed wire — there lying flat and still, patiently waiting for zero. At 5.45 am we were ready and waiting, the morning light just beginning to show itself. All watches had been synchronised. At five minutes to six the CO announced five minutes to go. What a time it seemed going. There was not a sound to be heard. The question was (and our success depended on it) was Fritz in the know — as it was nothing new for him to get wind of an attack and the time that it was coming off — but this time he was apparently taken by surprise. Each morning at dawn for the last few days our guns had been giving him pepper, and no infantry attack took place… I expect he got fed up with these false alarms.’
Many of the casualties of the RMLI came in the muddied, shell infested No Man’s Land from heavy machine gun fire and before they got to the first line. Beyond this line there was a redoubt of which the British were unaware. It was this strongpoint that had caaused so many of the casualties in the Hawke and Nelson battalions, and was to cost the latter their CO, Lt Col Norman Burge. Eventually this position was by-passed and the six hundred or so Germans that were there surrendered quite happily, given their circumstances, to a tank that was brought up against them early the folowing morning.
Sergeant Meatyard’s job was to try and maintain communications as best he could, he and his signallers unravelling great coils of signal wire for the telephones. The carrying and the unravelling were the easy part of the job; the great difficulty and danger lay in repairing wire which all too frequently was broken by shell fire. When one realises that this meant finding the break, and then finding the other end which might have been blown some way away, all this in appalling conditions and hindered by enemy fire — not to mention the occasional short (ie a ‘friendly’ shell that fell short of its target, often on its own men) of the British, then some inkling of the perils of the task might be appreciated. ‘…I received orders to lay wire to a certain position ahead and with Pte Peach proceeded to lay the wire forward. We unreeled it as we went along. Almost everything had been hit by shells, and it was one continual mass of debris and mud pools. Some were half-filled with water and many had badly wounded men lying helpless in them — ghastly sights.’
With the encouragement of their CO, “Come on, Royal Marines”, the 2/RMLI proceeded on their objective, Station Road. Meatyard left his recently established telephone point and prepared to move on: ‘I joined on another reel of wire. Having passed a stick through the centre hole of the reel and slung my own telephone, I ran forward and the reel unwound as I went along the surface of the ground. I apparently drew the attention of machine gunners at the strongpoint (mentioned above), and also some snipers who were lurking in that direction. At about fifteen yards I dropped into a shell hole and took a breather. Then I got my legs free from the mud and made the wire ready to unreel easily. Then I made another dash and so on. As I did so each time the machine gunners opened up, but each time I dropped I think it rather deceived them as they did not know whether I was hit or not. By this means I escaped all their bullets and got to the point I was aiming at.’
Communications with the rear were in working order, and he ordered the aeroplane shutter — a means for communicating with a plane from the ground — to be brought up ready for signalling the following morning; this so called Communicator Plane in fact only used the shutter successfully with Meatyard’s battalion; otherwise it was a washout. During the morning of the 14th November Meatyard was hit. ‘When I woke up I found myself in a dugout, head and arm bound up. Hadn’t the slightest idea how I got there. One of the stretcher bearers of the Howe Battalion had bound me up. After a while I thought I could walk and with the assistance of one of the staff I was taken to the rear. With two other walking wounded we toddled off all together. An incident I remember was, as we passed a battery of artillery, one of the crew came up with a basin of hot cocoa and asked us to partake of it. It was a Godsend, and showed the kindness one can get at the hands of a soldier.’ From here he proceeded to a Dressing Station. They soon got to work. I had several pieces of shell extracted from my arm, and the head wound dressed — I can’t recommend the razor that was used to get the hair off!’ Meatyard won a Military Medal for his part in this battle; whilst his wound turned out not only to be a ‘blighty’ but kept him out of France for the rest of the war.
A remnant of Beaucourt Hamel station.
The 1st Battalion the Honourable Artillery Company was a relatively new member of the Division, joining 190 Brigade in July 1916. 2/Lt R. Spicer was to be the first man into Beaucourt, and also had the honour to win an MC for his conduct during the battle. In his report on the battle for A Company, which he ended up commanding, he notes that the thick mist made keeping direction difficult. Snipers were a problem, but were dealt with by bombing and advancing on their positions under the cover of the weather conditions. These Germans were in the ‘Hun Reserve Line’, where the same old problem of dugouts which had not been mopped up provided real problems for attacking forces following on. They got through to the Green Line and commenced digging in, making contact with their neighbouring right hand battalion from a different division on the far side of the Ancre. They held their position, but came under fire from the ridge in front of Beaucourt (most likely from the redoubt of that name). Half the company took shelter under the bank of Station Road until the night came, when forward positions were once more occupied in readiness for the attack on Beaucourt and the Red Line. German machine gunners surrendered when the HAC came within some fifty yards of their position, at this stage being supported by the Hoods. The Company went straight through Beaucourt, sentries were posted at entrances to dugouts and prisoners escorted back by men from other units whilst the machine gunners opened fire on Germans now exposed in the valley in front. Eventually, at 2.30 pm on the 15th, the Company was relieved. B Company’s story, from their holding position in Roberts Trench followed a similar line. Once more the bank of Station Road provided some protection against German fire; once more the company lost nearly all of its officers. The last, apart from 2/Lt A Hawes, had to be evacuated with shell shock in the early hours of the 14th to Battalion HQ. B Company too advanced through Beaucourt, with it holding the left of the battalion position, resting on the Beaucourt-Miraumont road, whilst a new strong point was being constructed near Ancre Trench. At about 2 am on the 15th the company withdrew to their original trenches in Hamel. Hawes commented: ‘The stretcher bearers of the battalion did excellent work in first aid, but the stretcher and bearer parties were totally inadequate and many wounded suffered more than was necessary by being left exposed for such a long time.’ 2/Lt Rowcliffe commanded D Company whose task it was to guard the extreme right flank of the attack, along the marshy parts of the Ancre. Most of the company occupied the ground from the railway line to where the ground starts its steep upwards rise; a platoon, a bombing section and the Company Lewis Gun teams, plus a couple of Lewis Gun teams from the 14th Worcesters set off from the Crow’s Nest. This latter part on the extreme right lined up under cover of the Mound, and more or less lost contact with the rest of the company. This right group found the extreme left of the German position, and worked their way up it to the railway embankment, helping the advance of their own men by wiping out a party of German bombers on top of the embankment. They knocked out a German machine gun firing from a dugout which was then bombed and sentries posted; all these junior officers seem particularly keen to ensure that it is made clear that they did guard these potentially very dangerous dugouts, where Germans could still be in a position to take a part in the battle. At this point men from other companies were drifting down to D Company’s left, having been pushed off course by the withering fire from the redoubt. Men from D Company were then ordered to mop up the German first system of trenches, and throughout German snipers made the area around Beaucourt Station particularly unhealthy. The men had been on the go for some twenty four hours now; orders were changed at the last minute as the situation developed, under the direction, by this stage, of Freyberg. Existing orders were cancelled by 2/Lt O’Brien at 5.05 am, and the men were immediately led to assembly trenches by this latter officer. The men were exhausted and could scarcely keep awake.’ Within fifteen minutes their objectives were outlined and the attack commenced — time was that short. As they set off towards Beaucourt the attack came under intense fire, from Beaucourt Redoubt, which kept the attackers pinned down, but the situation was salvaged by an attack that took Beaucourt from the south and an artillery barrage that provided effective cover. The enemy offered scarcely any resistance’.
The Mill at Beaucourt-sur-Ancre where the Naval Division fought in November 1916.
Soldiers attempting to clean the worst of the mud from weapons and equipment, using the waters of the Ancre in the winter of 1916.
This battle is a clear indication of how much can depend on seizing the initiative at the vital moment, on the spirit and determination of a local commander, on weather conditions (the fog served the attackers far better than the defenders) and on luck. One instance serves to illustrate this; soon after Beaucourt was captured, it was found that the British heavy artillery was shelling the north east corner of the village still, risking British lives and the consolidation of the position. Carrier pigeons were sent to inform the artillery of the new situation on the ground, all other means of communication having failed, and runners being far too slow. Almost immediately the gunners lengthened their range. Where does luck come into this? The HAC history tells us that, ‘for the first time in action, as far as the Battalion was concerned, messages were successfully forwarded by carrier pigeon to Brigade HQ.’