CALL TO ARMS

Otago Daily Times, Issue 23866, 21 July 1939, Page 6

CALL TO ARMS

PROUD TRADITIONS OTAGO AND CANTERBURY REGIMENTS INCIDENTS THAT LIVE V By John A. Lee, D.C.M., M.P. I always have a feeling of respect *s I think of my comrades who marched the cobbled streets of France in the uniform of the New Zealand Ex.peditionary Corps. In one’s mind there lingers a thousand memories o: gallantry amid incredible conditions, Here and there from the thousand incidents one stands out with an eternal vividness. . In the winter of the Messines and Other great Ypres offensives, the New Zealand Division was doing trench duty round about the Ypres Salient, polygon. Zillebecke, Zonnebecke. the Butte, all these names stand in one’s mind as the location of day-to-day hardihood, for it took toughness anc endurance to exist in a battlefield gone q,uiet after an offensive, as well as to advance behind the thunderous barrage during offensive. In the winter of ,916-17, the Otago and Canterbury Regiments were round about the Ypres Salient, that incredible charnel-house where the earth was literally drenched with human blood I had friends in the Otago and Canterbury Regiments and. on a day when One would be at work digging a trench or repairing a road or marching into fatigue or into the trench itself, the Otago and Canterbury men would be going by, moving out to billets, moving up to the line, moving up to engage in fatigue, moving up for the purpose ol salvaging the thousands of tons ol .battlefield equipment that lav about. The Charnel House I remember I was in a pill-box to the right front of the Butte. I think—although I am not sure—that the location had once been Polygon Wood although there was little wood left; only a churned crater field with the craters man-deep and full to the brim with filthy water, so that by staggering off a duck-walk, one could easily have drowned. And yet. about that incredible charnel-house New Zealanders went with courage and fortitude: courage and fortitude hard to understand for spring was coming, and with springy giant offensives. Russia was down and out and the Germans were mobilising on the Western Front, The British offensives for the year had passed away, although there were still attempts to straighten trench lines being made here and there and the line was in a state of nerves. The artillery in the rear positions was literally squatting on a moving morass, and, in all probability, every heavy howitzer she! 1 that was fired from some of the big guns thrust those big guns deeper into the! mire. Mule trains, attempting to bring in ammunition, were bogged Dead horses and mined lumber were everywhere. The Ypres offensives had perished In the mud, the gallantry of men being drowned by invulnerable Conditions rather than having been Sphdued by machine gun fire. "Courage was required, at. zero, when all the guns flashed to a mighty stunt overture, but courage was required to live between the offensives in the char-nel-house and New Zealanders lived and were, all things considered, cheerful. ■ Polderhoek Chateau I lived for a short time in a trench overlooking Polderhoek Chateau. Polderhcek was the grim, reinforced-con-crete remains of a chateau but little except a few concrete foundations could be seen with the naked eye, or even with binoculars. Two or three offensives had swept up to Polderhoek and men. finding it impossible to pierce reinforced concrete with bayonets had been shot down around the walls. So it was that Polderhoek was the centre of a small salient. 1 lived on one angle of the salient looking toward Polderhoek over a valley filthy with churned earth and mud and men. There was no barb wire between the Germdn and the British lines, but barb wire was scarcely necessary. Anyone who had attempted to flounder overland by the direct route would have'been drowned in the bog. With the terrific bombardment that was maintained on Polderhoek and its environs by New Zealand artillery and British howitzers, means of communication did not exist.

Brilliants In the Night

Wires, cables, must have been l cut as rapidly as,they were laid Soldiers will remember how, throughout the night, the German occupants of the trench lines or of shell holes and of Polderhoek itself would signal to their headquarters and to the artillery in the rear with a stream of brilliant rockets. Starting at one end of the sector and passing right on to the other end of the sector, up into the dark sky over-, head, would shoot the German brilliants, brilliants composed of six and seven and eight stars of various colours. For instance, three green and two yellow, or four red and two yellow,. or some combination changed from day to day, so that British troops could not fire identical rockets and scare German artillery into the waste of hundreds of thousands of pounds' worth of shells. What marvellous rockets, as well as flares, the German technicians made for their army. Ip the Orchestral Stalls 'file first time I was in a line facing Polderhoek I was in 4 trench. The next time I had the good fortune, to be one .of those occupying a very large piil-box op the crest of th« hill beside Polderhoek. The British tine turned sharply to the left a little distance from where we were, and ran over the crest of a hill, the line turning away’at a right angle ’While we were :ir that pill-box I. witnessed a tlcrrjonstratioii of the pluck.of men that impressed itself forever on my mind It was decided o> soi e higher command—whether intelligently or stupidly I am not going to say —that the elbow in the line should be straightened out Since advance from where we were was impossible’(the men would nave been compelled to go downhill and through a bog and then up a steep hill), it was decided to launch an attack on the pill-box dow. the spur that ran at angles to where we were Suddenly, the country froze over and advance could be made with comparative ease. Instead of wading neckdeep through an Impassable bog. there was firm, clear footing on which the feet rang But the frozen nature of the country brought its own terrors, for shells detonated rapidly on the frozen earth and spread their destructiveness horizontally whereas when earth was soft they penetrated deeply and tended to throw their fragments perpendicularly The Canterbury and Otago Regiments were selected as the units to make the attack on Polderhoek. The attack was rehearsed The offensive wag planned for broar; daylight, somewhere about mid-day that hour being thought likely to have certain surprise advantages, I suppose We received news of the attack in the trenches in the morning Machine gunners came in to prepare a machine gun barrage to cover the country toward which the OtagP’s and Canterbury’s would be advancing. With another chap I found myself a position at the corner of a concrete pill-box from which I could witness the offensive. The Hawke’s Bay Company had a bird's-eye view'

Bird’s-eye View

Suddenly, at zero hour, on the top of the Canterbury and Otago trencn, I saw men standing, for the crest of the hill was against the skyline Just for a second, as they scrambled across to jump down into 4< no man’s land, I saw them standing there. I can still see • them standing there, _ soft, brittle men, iron only in fortitude, standing on a parapet erect against the skyline about to advance over frozen earth agamst machine gun fire and counter bombardment and bar-

rage. New Zealanders defying the thunder and lightning! I still get a thrill as I see them standing there. And, then, suddenly, the British guns were speaking in unison and the men were advancing Canterbury and Otago men. As they passed on a German counter bombardment came down, a terrific earth-churning affair. A barrage was put across the front occupied by Hawke's Bay men, and the highexplosive shrapnel and shrapnel itself beat down upon the earth like raindrops. From our position we could see the earth all around leaping to the steel pellets, as dry dust after a drought leaps to raindrops, as water in a lake leaps to raindrops. We prayed that Canterbury and Otago bad got through the barrage before it fell, for no human could have lived in such a churning, threshing curtain of steel. A mist came down, and the smoke of bursting explosives seemed to hang heavily about the battlefield, and wc caught only an odd glimpse of Canterbury and Otago men as they swept towards the Chateau. A bird’s-eye view! Yes. My mate had an eye knocked out while he was looking round the corner of the pillbox, although he is still somewhere in New Zealand to tell the tale. I took him inside the pill-box and was so thrilled with the intensity of the drama, lethal and all though it may have been, that I came back to watch, but all that was vouchsafed was. an odd clearing of smoke and the sight of an odd New 'Zealander moving forward. Gallant Otago and Canterbury The gallant Canterbury and Otago men swept right up to the very foundations of concreted and tremendously strong Polderhoek, but what could men with bayonets and rifles and a bomb or two do against such a concrete strongpoint? The slits in the walls were big enough only for the muzzles of rifles and machine guns manned by Germans. The Canterbury and Otago men had done everything that human courage and resourcefulness could do, but with their puny hands they were powerless to smash away ihe concrete, and from the safety of Polderhoek’s concreted loopholes gallant New Zealanders were picked off. I suppose that in war there are many such failures. I suppose in war there are many offensives of the type which the man in the front trench finds it hard to understand. But I am sure that the hardihood and resourcefulness of Canterbury and Otago men were demonstrated that day, even if Polderhoek was not subjugated, as never before. I can still see those New Zealanders for that imperishable instant on the top of the trench, heroic forms silhouetted against the sky, and then they press on to inferno, press on on the heels of mighty barrage. And then, suddenly as those men paused between their own barrage and the German counter-bombardment, came the knowledge that the hands of men Were never in themselves powerful enough to tear away powerful concrete from behind which came a nickel hail. In a hundred such engagements did the men of Otago and Canterbury dis-, tinguish themselves. They had another mighty moment a little later in the war. when with the rest of the division they marched into the gap that had been opened on the Somme in front of Amiens—marched into the gap trying to find and hesitate the German Army. The Canterbury men were the first marched into the line to fill up portion of the gap; the Otago men went in at a later moment. And when Otago and Canterbury men dosed portion of the gap the door to advance closed forever in front of the German forces. The regimental units that participated in the offensive of Polderhoek and of the Somme and Passchendale still exist and to-day the platoons and companies of those regiments seek reinforcement, seek additional strength Not that men might die around Polderhoek, but that men might be ready in emergency to defend New Zealaim Otago and Canterbury men should be proud to serve in the regiments that have upon them the heroic traditions of men who fought at Polderhoek and other places. For men from the Southern Seas, New Zealanders, did all that human hands could do in grim circumstances. Recruits will march in the footsteps of the gallant.