Trench Mortars in Second Army.
The Ypres Times.
69
By UEUT.-COTONET SIR JOHN KEANE, Bt.
It is a task of no small presumption on my part to write to The Ypres Times on a
subject which is especially the province of the fighting soldier. Mine was an organising
and teaching job, and it is from this point of view that I must chiefly speak. Trench
mortars all through the War had to fight for their existence. Nobody liked them. They
were a disturbing element in any part of the line. They drew immediate fire from the
enemy and the great object of most subordinate commanders was to use them only in battles
or general bombardments. Of course we were quite ignorant of these weapons and their
value before the War. It was only when we settled down to trench warfare in early
1915 and the enemy produced their Minenwerfer that we began to think about them
seriously. Then they became the subject of many hazardous experiments in which the
Corps of Engineers were the early participators. In May, 1915, I found myself appointed
to the command of the 2nd Army Trench Mortar Brigade. This so-called Brigade con
sisted of a number of batteries which it was my duty to train and equip and then attach
to various divisions throughout the army. An arrangement of this kind found no
proper part in the Army organisation and it did not last long. But it may claim to have
served in its early stages a useful purpose, because it gave one person at least a close
personal interest in a new arm that was little understood and to which many higher
commanders were too occupied to give close individual attention.
The evolution of the armament was interesting. We began with a great, variety of
types 4-inch, 4-pounder, i |-ineh, 2-inch. The last was the best, but none of them
were very good. During early bombardments in the Salient our fuses were so indifferent
and so rarely functioned that our efforts were often greeted with shouts of derision from the
enemy trenches. When things were especially bad our national power of improvisation
came to the rescue, and first at Armentières and later at Hazebrouck the Second Army
workshops produced a fuse which solved our difficulties and did much to enhance both our
fighting power and moral.
There is nothing more disheartening to troops than bad ammunition. There must
be few who served in the higher ranks of the Second Army who did not come into personal
contact with Colonel Newton, the presiding genius of the Second Army workshops. His
accessibility, readiness to oblige, and inventive genius cheered many a weary fighter. The
sniper-scope, the rifle grenade, the hand grenade, the rifle grenade stand, the quick-acting
trench mortar fuse, and the 6-inch mortar on the Stokes principle, were all the product of
his unceasing energy. Some of them were subsequently replaced by official patterns,
so were superseded altogether, but the recollectionof his work and genius must still be
fresh to many who served in that great army.
Service in trench mortars was severe, but it had the advantageof independence. To
a great extent a trench mortar officer was an expert and in this capacity enjoyed a certain
prestige. But the real hardship was the lack of a sufficient establishment, which made
them very dependent upon the goodwill of adjoining unit commanders or of the divisional
staff. Up to 1917 and, I believe, to the end of the War, trench mortar batteries never
received an authorised allowance of transport.
It used to be my duty to visit all the batteries in the army area. I generally tried to
see the divisional commander and his C.R.A, and (this was in the early days) tried to
impress them with the virtue and power of these new weapons. I found on almost all
B
