OUR FIRST WORLD WAR
In part 46 of his personal testimony series, Peter Hart reaches March 1918 and stories of lucky escapes for some of those repelling the onslaught of Germany’s massive Spring Offensive. Peter is tracing the experiences of 20 people who lived through the Fi
After the Russian revolution, many German divisions had moved from the eastern front and were ready to attack in the west. The German offensives began in the Somme at 4.40am on 21 March. Shells smothered the British positions before elite stormtroopers infiltrated the British lines. Both sides suffered terrible casualties. Corporal Williams found himself ordered forward in a counter attack on the village of Roupy on 22 March. They captured it without resistance, but soon it became obvious they were being encircled. There was a hiss of a bullet and one of the younger recruits fell down and died in the bottom of the trench. I emptied my magazine at a bunch that were coming along the wide-open trench trying to debouch [emerge] from Roupy, but they didn’t make any headway. I had only 25 rounds left. I’d fired the two bandoliers [ammunition belts] – I must have fired that day between 200–300 rounds! I found my fingers burning with the hot oil, oozing from underneath the wood casing – the barrel gets pretty hot! The Lewis gun had jammed. My brother had gone somewhere or other We were an isolated group.
About 5 yards down the trench, there were three other people and Corporal Dick Williams. I heard a clatter and a voice say: “There’s poor old Dick got it!” I looked round and saw that he was lying towards me with the top of his head off. That was my last vision before something hit me between the eyes, like a sledgehammer and I dissolved into unconsciousness.
A ricochet bullet had knocked him senseless.
I came to paralysed, breathing shallowly. There was a little gap in the haze and sunlight. I could see the blood dripping down from the end of my nose into the clay, but I couldn’t move. At the edge of the haze was a pair of boots. He said: “You’re not dead!” He pulled me to my feet and he got a field dressing, put it on me, bound it up, handed me my tin hat and said: “You lucky beggar!” I’d lost my rifle and I staggered down the trench. The concussion had rendered me out of this world. With great reluctance I got out of the trench, the bullet storm going both ways. I got down and was crawling along in the sunshine. It was not long before he was picked up by a German patrol. For him the war was over. They were marched back, joining thousands of other prisoners in captivity. Williams had only one thought on his mind. I kept saying: “Have you seen my brother?” Nobody had found him. I was getting very tired and I lay down and had 40 winks. I was wakened at daylight, the bloke said: “Your brother’s in the next room!” As I came out one door, he came out by the other entrance. We looked at each other and said: “What the hell are you doing here?” It was a feeling of peace; my anxiety was over – he was alive and he was here – what more could I want?
“He said, ‘You’re not dead!’ He got a field dressing, put it on me, handed me my tin hat and said: ‘You lucky beggar!’”