The Ypres Times. 215 that no less than a hundred had been simultaneously carried out by our troops the previous night. In the afternoon the School was inspected by H.R.H. the Duke of Connaught, and the march past along the sunlit avenue was very impressive. After a talk with General Plumer my belief in our ultimate victory over the enemy was greatly strengthened. November 4th.Had the pleasure of lecturing on Kiel, the Funk Hole of the German Navy." A little humour goes a long way November 5th.Visited St. Omer, where the motor reserve of the 2nd Army was stationed. The cheeriest little town imaginable. November 6th.Seven disabled French officers, Commandants and Chief Instructors from French Army Schools came to study the Wisques methods, and were greatly impressed. A march past of the School was given in their honour. They afterwards drank, with much enthusiasm, the toast of La Belle Alliance," substituted at my humble request for 1/Entente Cordiale." November 7th.Returned to Cassel and attached to H.Q. Motored to Hazebrouck and admired the ingenuity with which things of the most varied kind, from sniperscopes to cookers, were being made from odds and ends at the Army Workshops. Thence to the Canadian Sniper-Scout School at the Mont des Cats, where the different types of loophole were the last word in ingenuity. At that time the Trappist monastery on the summit was a Casualty Clearing Station. German prisoners working in the fields seemed particularly happy. November 8th.Visited the 2nd Army Signalling and Gas Schools. The Fullerphone, messages by which could not be tapped by the enemy, was the most interesting piece of equipment in the former. As to gas, the Boches were beginning to regret having introduced it, for here, as in many other respects, their initial advantage had been more than wiped out. A lecture given by the chief French expert, Dr. Flandin, at Wisques, foreshadowed the great advances we were to make in this branch of scientific butchery November 9th.Went along the front line of trenches opposite Messines, held by a brigade of South Lancashires and Cheshires. A certain amount of shelling was going on at the time, and aeroplanes on both sides were observing. Along part of the line no parapet was possible, necessitating constant patrolling. For discomfort those trenches would have been hard to beat, but they would appear to have been luxurious in com parison with the shell-hole lines occupied later on during the push towards Passchendaele. Returned by the only way, safe but on the moist side, to lunch at the H. Q. of the Cheshires N. of Ploegsteert Wood. Saw the famous Kangaroo Dug-out, capable of containing three battalions, or even four at a pinch. From the O.P. on Hill 63 had a famous view over the front. There were at that date 14 O.P.'s in four groups along the 2nd Army front. November 10th.Studied the work going on at the Grenade School, distinctly the most efficient and up-to-date centre of its kind. The H.Q. were in the old chateau at Terdeghem, and it was still remembered in the neighbourhood that all the members of the original family were victims of the French Revolution. Distant boomings heard during the night November 10-iith indicated that our monitors were strafing the enemy at Ostend and Zeebrugge. November nth.Reft H.Q. early by the Steenvoorde Road, passed our aerodromes at Abeele, and out through the outskirts of badly shelled Poperinghe to the H.Q. of Gnl. Hunter-Weston at Lovie Chateau and the H.Q. of the Welsh Division at Couvent des Trappistes. Thence back to Pop and on through the scanty remains of Vlamertinghe to the dug-outs on the Yser Canal, in places almost cheek-by-jowl with the Boches. Then a tour through the indescribable wreckage of Ypres. Our own gunning, however, judging from a visit to Lens and Loos after the Armistice, was much more thorough. Left by Menin Gate, and on to Railway Dug-outs and Brigade H.Q. at Bedford House. Four men engaged in mending the railway on road had been killed that morning, and a rifle

HISTORISCHE KRANTEN

The Ypres Times (1921-1936) | 1925 | | pagina 21