Читать книгу The War History of the 1st/ 4th Battalion, 1914-1918. The Loyal North Lancashire Regiment онлайн

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In the afternoon of June 25th, orders were received to move to the trenches the same night. The Battalion marched to the trenches via LAVENTIE, which had been heavily shelled by the enemy, but most of the damage centred on the church, as in other villages where we had been. Here the church, and the two roads which crossed near the church, as well as the adjoining streets for a length of about 200 yards, were in ruins; the nearer you got to the church centre the more intensive was the damage. The inhabitants, however, were living in the village and carrying on their business outside this shelled ring.

The trenches were reached at 8 30, and relief was completed by 9 p.m. The Battalion we relieved was the 1/1st London Regiment (T.F.).

JUNE 26th–JULY 4th.

We spent eight days in these new trenches. They are known as “E 2 Lines, FAUQUISSART,” and were of the breastwork type, a shallow trench first being dug to a little above the water level and a high parapet of sandbags placed in front of this. The line we occupied was practically, when allowances are made for the fact that it was a fire trench, the equivalent of the reserve trenches which we held about June 10th. It was the same line. The British here had been able to make no headway. The parapet was very good and very thick as a rule, but much of the parados was shaky and had to be rebuilt. The long grass in front had already been partly cut by the previous trench holders, and there was a fair amount of wire in front, but not too much. The enemy was about 300 yards off, but the lines were not exactly parallel, and at one point the enemy must have been nearly five hundred yards away. There was very much less shell fire than in the previous trenches we had held, and very much more rifle shooting. There was a number of fixed rifle batteries with which the enemy tried to break the sandbags. There were also snipers normally to be found firing from a flank. The telescopic-sighted rifle, which had been issued to the Battalion just before entering the trenches, proved very useful for sniping in return. These rifles were the short rifles, fitted with telescopic sights, with a crossed hair-line on the object lens and a range dial. One ran to 600 yards and the other 1,200 yards in range.