Lieutenant Lyding's Last Battle (August 1918)
Diary of a Stosstrupp Leader (Part 57)
This post continues the translation of the diary of a German soldier who fought in the First World War. Readers can find links to other installments in this series in the following guide.
1 August 1918
Spengler went to Péronne to serve as a witness.
3 August 1918
Two companies did construction work in the camp. The other two attended classes about combat training.
4 August 1918 (Sunday)
We rested.
6 August 1918
I went with an advanced party to new positions west of Morcourt. It rained.
7 August 1918
Spengler, Bergerhof and I went forward. I/97 became the readiness battalion. The headquarters of the readiness battalion (Bereitschafts Truppen Kommandeur = BTK) had been set up in a large hollow.
While walking through a gravel pit, I was almost hit by heavy artillery shells.
Our bunkers were very nice. Spengler had a room for himself. I shared a room with Bergerhof.
8 August 1918
At five in the morning, I heard intense artillery fire (Trommelfeuer). It subsided gradually.
Suddenly, I heard a noise, like a low-flying airplane. I ran out of my bunker.
A tank stood at the entrance, covered in fog. Infantrymen and artillerymen retreated. I sounded the alarm. I rang up the regimental headquarters. “This is Lieutenant Lyding, orderly officer in the BTK (headquarters of the readiness battalion. There’s a tank in front of my bunker.’
(The voice on the other end replied), ‘Man, you must be dreaming’.
Then the line went dead.
The tank began to move, firing it machine guns and small-caliber cannon in all directions before disappearing in a cloud of fog, both natural and man-made.
Our messengers and telephone operators occupied the little slope, into which our bunker had been built.
In addition to some rifles, we possessed a machine gun, complete with the leader of its crew.
Messengers from the headquarters of the battle battalion (KTK) and the forward companies arrived.
‘The enemy has broken through!’
‘Captain Schöning lies dying.’
First Lieutenant Spengler, in command of I/97, and thus the commander of the readiness battalion (BTK), now realized that we could not hold the slope where we were located. He therefore ordered that the machine gun go into position in the machine gun nest in the gravel pit.
The adjutant, Lieutenant Bergerhof, returned to the bunker in order to burn maps, orders, and the like. He never came out. The Tommies had already entered from the other side.
Spengler, the machine gun crew leader, a messenger, and I found ourselves in the gravel pit. The others (who had been with us) had fallen prey to the machine gun bullets that the enemies who had broken into our position fired at us.
Soon, a captain from a neighboring regiment, with some men and machine guns, joined us. He took command.
The three machine guns went into firing positions, each with its sights set to different distances and each in the charge of a different officer.
At first, we fired upon the many tanks that drove around us at distances of ten to twenty meters. However, as we could not penetrate their armor, we soon left them alone.
They resumed their movement. We aimed our fire at the following Tommies, knocking some down and convincing others to retreat.
For a long while, we took comfort in the expectation of relief. It would, and, indeed, must, arrive.
My machine gun shot up all of its ammunition. Soon thereafter, a new tank appeared on our right flank. Squads of Australians followed. I called to Spengler, who had taken charge of the middle machine gun, and asked him to shift his fire to the right. But he collapsed.
Then the Australians charged him and his machine gun. Our third machine gun, under the captain, went silent.
As I had no more belts for my machine gun, I jumped over the path that ran through the gravel pit and took shelter on the reverse slope.
The enemy overran my machine gun and examined it. I jumped up, and ran, zig-zag fashion, as bullets whizzed around me, to the cliff, northwest of Morcourt, that was occupied by our troops. Here, I took charge of directing fire against the tanks rolling towards us and the Americans who followed them, until a bullet struck my head and I collapsed.
to be continued …
Sources
The text comes from Alwin Lyding Meine Kriegstagbuch (My War Diary), an unpublished manuscript that I found at the Bundesarchiv (German Federal Archive) (Folder N 382/1).
Do we really believe that any of our guys would shoot at a medic or a wounded guy? Maybe they were just tossing bullets and weren't paying attention? They should have been paying attention. A wounded oponnet is more valuable than a dead one - that costs the other side resources.
I notice the tank is name Lusitania. I suppose we were all still really salty over that one.
He must have been so scared and desperate - and so were our guys.