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The Bulletin of the Birmingham Branch of the WFA Compiled by Bob Butcher |
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September 2009 |
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FROMELLES 1916 In view of the interest caused by the exhumation of soldiers killed in that battle, the following points seem relevant. (1) In its final form it was a local attack to deter the enemy from thinning out his line in order to reinforce the Somme. (2) It was a joint battle launched at the junction of the First and Second Armies but controlled by First Army (Monro) and his XI Corps (Haking). Plumer (Second Army) was busy planning his Messines offensive and probably didn't like the scheme in any case. (3) First Army provided the 61st (2nd South Midland) Division (Mackenzie) which had only completed its training in May. Second Army assigned the 5th Australian Division (McCay) which had recently arrived in the theatre and the artillery of the 4th Australian Division. (4) The army commanders were informed that the CinC did not wish the attack to take place unless the commanders on the spot were satisfied that their resources were adequate. Monro was later told that he was authorised to cancel it if he considered it necessary to do so. (5) The attack was to take place approximately over the same ground of the previous year's unsuccessful Aubers Ridge action. It meant a daylight advance across flat water-logged Flanders country under the eyes of the enemy on the Ridge. (6) Haking, who had commanded at Aubers Ridge in 1915, wanted to go for it again but was instructed that the objective was limited to the enemy's front line system. This had been heavily fortified and even if taken would have brought the attackers under even closer enemy observation. Consolidation would have been difficult and entailed building sandbag breastworks. The position would have been difficult to hold. (7) The assault began at 1800 hours on 19 July and suffered heavy losses. Some ground was gained, especially by the 15th Australian Brigade but that brigade and the 184th British Brigade suffered particularly heavy losses. (8) The 61St Division sensibly cancelled a renewed attack set for 2100 hours but by the time that the Australians became aware of this, it was too late to stop one of its battalions going in alone and consequently suffering very heavy losses. (One account says that the 61st 'forgot' to inform the Australians of the cancellation.) (9) Casualties were: British 1547; Australian 5711. The Australian battalions were up to strength but the average trench strength of the British battalions was only about 550. Thus there were twice as many Australians engaged as British. This re-run of the failed Aubers Ridge 1915 battle was ill-conceived, badly planned and inadequately prepared. Haking seemed to be the main driving force for it but Monro could, and should, have stopped it. It did not and could not, serve any useful purpose but soured Australian/British relations. Haking was known as a fighting general'. Bob Butcher
THE SICK NOTE On 27 March 1918 the Birmingham Stipendiary Magistrate, Lord Ilkeston, tried Alfred Aster, aged nineteen, of Balsall Heath, for leaving his job without notice, ie breach of contract. The prosecution counsel explained that Aster had been recruited, by an unnamed Birmingham factory, as a manual worker on one pound, twelve shillings and sixpence a week (about two hundred pounds in our terms). Aster turned up to work on a Monday morning and left at noon. The firm later received a doctor's note and a covering letter saying the work Aster was employed to do would have prejudiced his health. The company advertised the job again but did not include its name in the advert. Aster applied for the job but asked for thirty-five shillings a week. As Lord Ilkeston said in court, '...it was not often that people gave themselves away so completely as the defendant had done'. He ordered Aster to pay the company one pound, twelve shillings and sixpence in lieu of notice, and to pay two shillings and sixpence in costs. Many people throw “sickies” as the saying goes. However there is an old army saying that what you do in life does not matter. What matters is what you are caught doing. Or to put it another way the eleventh commandment is that 'Thou shall not get caught out'. J.P.Lethbridge DUDS Pre-war the army's needs for guns and ammunition were met by the Royal Ordnance Factory (Woolwich) and by the armament manufacturers, Armstrong, Vickers, Beardmore and Coventry Ordnance. However to help meet wartime demands, they sub-contracted extensively and the Ministry of Munitions also established National Shell Factories. During 1916 considerable difficulties were encountered with many types of ammunition supplied as part of the vastly expanded wartime production. For example the bursting of 9.2 inch howitzers and other large guns owing to prematures was traced to defective shells. The fuse of the 8 inch howitzer was responsible for littering the Somme battlefield with duds. There was an average of two prematures for every thousand rounds of shrapnel fired by the 60 pounders and it was expected that one 18 pounder would burst for every thousand rounds fired. The situation regarding 4.5 inch howitzers was so serious that their crews were known as suicide clubs. Most of the problems were traced back to the fuses manufactured by sub contractors not used to the fine tolerances required. These were eventually rectified but a report on the problems submitted to Lloyd George who, as Minister for Munitions, was responsible elicited the following reply from him: The Garrison Artillery in France is entirely untrained, it cannot shoot and is quite unfitted to work the perfect weapons which I [sic] have provided. After the war he dismissed the fuse problem by writing that the fuse had been designed by Army Ordnance thus implying, falsely, that it was a design fault and not a manufacturing one. Bob Butcher
DID YOU KNOW ... that in 1918 the BEF'S ORBAT included four motor mobile pigeon lofts, 124 horse drawn mobile lofts and eight fixed lofts?
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