Red Flares and Shell Holes (2 May 1918)
Diary of a Stosstrupp Leader (Part 48)
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 posts in this series in the following gui
2 May 1918
At night, heavy artillery fire, both friendly and enemy, fell. At dawn, Bergner and I pulled a small oven out of the base of a wall.
The sun shone beautifully all day, while aircraft filled the sky. A plane caught fire and fell to the ground. Towards midnight, heavy artillery fire resumed. To our left, our forces repelled a British attack. Along our front, all of our batteries fired an interdiction barrage. It was both a gruesome and an impressive spectacle. I observed the whole thing develop.
After the enemy heavy artillery completed its preparation fire, which was supposed to make our position ripe for attack, quiet reigned for a short time. Then we heard a lot of machine gun fire, and, at the same time, we saw the red flare that called for a protective barrage. The Tommies were attacking for real!
The men who fire the red flares occupy partially fortified shell holes located along the telephone lines in forward areas. Organized into a ‘break’ (Störung) of two or three men, these soldiers serve chiefly to relay requests for the protective barrage.
The barrage began with the fire of the field artillery. Then the heavy shells of the heavy artillery (Fußartillerie), flying in from places far to the rear, began to howl. (The field artillery consisted largely of 77mm field guns and 105mm howitzers, the heavy artillery of 150mm howitzers, 210mm howitzers, and 105mm guns.)
As the command post of the ‘troops in readiness command’ (Bereitschaftstruppen-kommando=BTK) lay but eight hundred to a thousand meters in front of the batteries that fired the protective barrage, the shells, especially those of the field artillery, flew right above us. The heavy artillery made extensive use of high-angle fire.
Towards morning, the artillery fire grew weaker. The British attack had fallen apart in the face of our fire.
The battalion headquarters occupies two shell holes. Captain Kittel (the battalion commander) sits in one, Spengler and I in the other. Our bâtmen huddle in a third. Since the terrain is completely flat and visible to the enemy, we could only gather at night.
The latter owed less to a desire to project ourselves than to the fear of betraying location of the command post of readiness battalion to the enemy, thereby attracting a large number of British shells. At dawn we dug a narrow, shallow trench to connect the shell holes. This allowed us to crawl from one shell hole to another during the day.
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).
Related Reading
“After the enemy heavy artillery completed its preparation fire, which was supposed to make our position ripe for attack, quiet reigned for a short time.”
And there’s the problem! Clearly the fire plan for the attack neglected to shift to suppressive fires on the front line and neutralization and interdiction fires deeper in the German trenches (not to mention counterbattery fires). Surely the British Royal Artillery would have heard of Herr Durchbruchmüller and his fire planning techniques by this point.