An Incident in the Second Battle of Ypres.
152
The Ypres Times.
As told by Lieut-Colonel (Hon. Brig.-General) P. de S. Burney.
It was, I think, on the 23rd of April, 1915, that the Germans delivered their first gas
attack. It was delivered on the Zonnebeke-Poelcappelle-Langemarck line. I was then
commanding the 9th Brigade of Heavy Artillery, consisting of the 71st Heavy Battery
(four 4.7 in. guns) and the 121st Batten-, also 4.7 in. guns, commanded respectively by
Major W. B. G. Barne and Major C. H. W. Owen. The 121st Batten- was in action at
Wittepoert Farm E.9 (1.40,000 map), firing in a southerly direction. It was in the fore
noon that I got a message by telephone to say that masses of Germans were advancing
up the Paschendaele-St. Julien road. I had always expected an attack fom this direction,
as we held such a very unfavourably placed line just below the crest, and so I kept Owen's
gun teams near his farm billet, to the rear and towards the railway, and had arranged
with him for his line of retreat in case of emergency. Just about 11 a.m. my Adjutant
(Captain Pask) came up to say that numbers of Canadians were coming back from
Zonnebeke and that they were not wounded, but he could not get them to turn back,
although he had threatened to shoot them. I went down and in the hall of my billet
I found about half-a-dozen Canadians looking very pale, having choking fits and asking
for water many others were in the road outside, and none could explain what had
happened to them except that the French were falling back rapidly from Poelcappelle.
I went back to my telephone room and called up Owen. After telling him the situation,
I asked him to turn his guns end for end (no easy job with 4.7 in. deep in mud), get on
top of his billet at the farm, where he would probably get a view of the Poelcappelle-St.
Julien road, and keep up a heavy shrapnel fire on the advancing Germans and as soon
as he had expended all his shrapnel he was to report to me on the telephone, or if that
was cut, to use his own discretion about retiring along our pre-arranged route. My
billet was just outside the Menin Gate and around us were two other Field Artillery
Brigade Headquarters, and one Belgian. The enemy were subjecting Ypres to its first
serious shelling with 17 in. howitzers and mostly on the Menin Gate. All the other
Artillery Brigade Headquarters had evacuated, some of them having been entirely
demolished. Both my horses in a stable across the road had been killed and the stable
set on fire, and my Adjutant wanted to know whether we had not better shift. I told him
to have everything packed and put into the wagon and to warn the Belgian woman and
her daughters and son, who were in the cellar, to be ready to move at once.
About 2 p.m. I heard that the Germans had taken St. Julien and were pressing on to
Wieltje. Just at that moment Owen called ine on the telephone. He said that he had got
a good view of the enemy on the Poelcappelle-St. Julien road and had kept a heavy
shrapnel fire on them until all his shells were expended that two London 4.7 in. batteries
had been captured, but that the Canadians had recaptured them and sent up to him for
some breach blocks which he had supplied. He also said that the enemy were now round
his left rear and asked if he was to retire. I ordered him to move to his wagon lines, the
other side of Ypres, as arranged, for 17 in. shells had been working havoc at the Menin Gate
and our billet was being badly shaken by* the explosions. The telephone room, which
was an outbuilt room of glass used by the former owner as a dentistry, was tumbling to
pieces, so I ordered my Adjutant to move to the other side of Ypres and wait at the
Vlamertinghe cross-roads until I joined him. The Belgian woman and her family were
going to a family close to there. About 4 o'clock I heard that General Gay's telephones
had all been cut (my own linesmen had been out for hours trying to re-establish my
line to Headquarters) and he had lost touch with all his artillery in consequence also
that a British Infantry Brigade under General Geddes was moving up to fill the gap
made by the French retirement and that the Canadian left had been forced back almost
to Railway Wood. I then decided to leave the billet with the two telephone operators
