THE SOMME
In October, 1915 after several months of preparation in England, men of the 36th
(Ulster) Division sailed across the channel and began to disembark in France. he
soldiers, drawn from all parts of the nine counties of Ulster, had previously trained at
Finner Camp in Donegal, Ballykinlar in County Down, and the Clandeboye Estate
near Bangor. All were volunteers with an overwhelming majority of them, in their late
teens and early twentiesand, while many perhaps sought adventure and a chanceto
see some of the world beyond the confines of their own home towns and villages, they
believed absolutely that their cause in going to war to free France and Belguim from
German oppression and invasion was just and honourable.
During the next winter and spring they learnt their combat and trench skills in the
quietier regions of the Western Front before moving in June, 1916, to take over their
allotted areas on either side of the River Ancre and west of the village of Thiepval in
preparation for the forthcoming Battle of the Somme which started on 1st July, 1916.
For the British, Commonwealth, and Empire soldiers the outcome of that day was
little short of a massacre. The Uster Division, which gained a few hundred yards of
groung from Theipval Wood up the hill towards the daunting fortified Schwaben
Redoubt, suffered some five and a half thousand casualties - out of a total divisional
compliment of ten or eleven thousandmen. ( In writing of "casualties" it is a generally
accepted assumption that one out of every three was killed or died of wounds later ).
Unable to advance or retreat, and impossible to reinforce because of unrelenting
German Shell, and machine-gun fire, those soldiers in the redoubt and elsewhere in
no-mans-land held on until night gave them cover to slip back to the precarios safety
of their own lines. The next day the division was withdrawn from the front and moved
to the area around St. Omer where it regrouped, received large numbers of fresh
soldiers to replace those killed or wounded, and made ready for it`s nextengagement -
the Battle of Messines.
The small town of Messines lies at the southern end of a low, rounded ridge which
stretches eight kilometres northwards towards Ypres. The ridge overlooks the flat
Flanders Plain and, in 1917 in the hands of Germans, it dominated the southern
sector of the Ypres Sailent held by the British. \its capture was vital if the
commander-in-chiefs (Field Marshal Haig) strategic attack eastwards out of the
Sailent was to succeed.
The 36th Division joined Second Army under General Plumer - a senior officer
old-fashioned in appearance, but with the deseverd reputation both for meticulous
battle preparation, and in what had becime a war of attririon, a keen regard for the
saving of lives of the men under his command. On a frontage of about 1,2000 yards
the Ulstermen took position south-west of the heavily fortified villageof Wytschaete
and with the 16th (Irish) Division on it`s left, prepared for the day of attack - 7th June.
At 3.10 a.m., with a roar clearly heard in London, nineteen monstrous British mines
containing a toatl of 600 tons of high explosives were detonated under the defenders
on the ridge. Beneath an intence artillery barrage the men of the Second Army attacked
the dazed and demoralised Germans and, by mid-afternoon, the entire ridge was in
British hands. Wytschaete had held out for some time but after a fierce struggleit was
captured by the combined efforts of the Irish and Ulster Divisions.
After its success at Messines the 36th was withdrawn for rest and to prepare for its
next battle.
Perhaps even more than "The Somme" , "Ypres" is a name which recalls all the
waste of life, honour, and squalor of the Great War. The old walled Belguim town of
Ypres is stituated about forty miles east of Calais and throughout World War One it
was defended by the indefatigable bravery of British soldires and the obstinancy of
their high command. On a shallow plain which barely rises above sea level, the clay
soil of the land was drained by an intricate network of ditshes; while to the eats
north and south a sreies of low ridges overloked and commanded the town. From
November 1914 the Germans held the ridges and by July, 1917 the British "Salien"
extended eastwards in and arc of about two to three miles in depth. Able to see almost
every movement in the Salient and the town it`self, the Germans had shelled the area
continuously for years until all buildings were reduced to unrecognisable rubble and
every field into an impassable quagmire pitted with millions of overlapping shell
ho;es always filled with stinking liquid mud and often the decomposing remains of
animals and the occasional bodies of dead soldiers.
It was through, and then out of this area that Haig intended to make a massive and
war-winning attack striking eastwards from Belguim and towards Germany. The
implementation of the plan was given to Fifth Army, commanded by General Gough
who, unlike Plumer, had a reputation for poor staff work and a lesser regard for the
care and safety of his men. In early July the Ulster Division moved near to St. Omer
again and into the command of Fifth Army.
The Battle of Third Ypres started on 22nd July when 3,091 British guns begab a
bombardment of the German positions which lasted until 31st July by which time
some four and a quarter million shells had been fired. Then, at 3.50 a.m., in torrential
rain twelve divisions made their attack on an eleven mile front. Initially, on the
left, some gains were made but on the right the attack slithered quickly to a halt. Thus things remained, for in the rain, which continued unabated day after day, neither man
nor animal nor tank cold move.
The 36th had been kept back from the original assault so that it could be used at a
later date.But in the area north-eastof Ypres and near the village St.Julien the
division there was so badly battered and its soldiers so tired that it was decided to
withdraw them and replace them much earlier than expected with the Ulster Division.
This was accomplished in the rain and mud of the night of 2nd August and completed
by the early hours of the next morning. There they existed for another fourteen days
where all were soaked by continual rain and suffered from lack of food, of heating and drinkable water. Lying in trenches which were little more than watery scratches scooped out of the morass and feebly protected by snadbags filled with mud,the soldiers endured perpetual shelling
and small arms fire. it was out of these conditions that, with the 16th (Irish) Division on its right, they were ordered to make an attack on 16th August in what has become known as the Battle of Langemarck. The Ulster Division was to advance about two and a quarter miles to reach its
objective - an imaginary "Red Line". At 4.45 a.m. the men left their trenches but:
pounded by high-explosives, shrapnel, and gas shells ravaged pitilessly by machine-
gun fire from impregnable concrete pill boxes protected by barbed wire
entanglements; saturated by the rain; lost in a featureless landscape; and encumbered
by the clinging mud; only a little groud on the left was gained, and by nightfall most
of those still alive were back where they had started. That any progress at all was
made is a tribute to the bravery and determination of the men, for the ambitious plan
conceived in the comfort of a distant headquarters, defied reality and was fatally
flawed. In the dreadful conditions of the battlefield the British artillery`s preliminary
barrage and it`s subsequent "creeping" covering fire, which went far ahead of the
attackers, were ineffective; and a few supporting tanks, bogged down in the
impassable mire, never appeared. Furthermore, a weary division which had already
sustained some 2,000 casualties due to enemy action during the previous two weeks,
should never have been ordered to attack i the face of such overwhelming adverse
odds.
For the capture of a few worthless yards of mud the attack resulted in 58 officers and
1278 men being gasses or wounded. During its sixteen days in the line, from2nd to
18th August, the Division suffered the total loss of 144 officers and 3,441 men either
killed, wounded or missing.
The 16th (Irish) Division suffered grievously also, and together the two divisions
suffered about 7,800 casualties - amounting to perhaps 50% of their original numbers.
However, the efforts and sacrifices of the men were not enough for 5th Army`s
Commanding General; for Haig confided to his diary that Gough, was not pleased
with the actions of the Irish Divisions..... They seemed to have gone forward but failed
to keep what they had won.... The men are Irish and apperently did not like the
enemy`s shelling.
The pitiful tragedy of "Third Ypres" continued ots bloody course until, on 4th
November, the battle ended when the Canadians captured the muddy mound which
had once been the vilage of Passchendaele - a name now associated irrevocably with
the battle and which, perhaps, recalls more poignantly the sorrows of the men who
fought there.
After Langemarck the division was withdrawn to rest and to receice reinforcements.
It did not, however have the same character agaun for most of its orifinal men
had been lost in the everyday hazards of war, and in the Battles of The Somme,
Messines, and Passchendaele. Many of the recruits which filled the empty ranks were
from diverse other parts of the British Isles - often young conscripts aged about
nineteen or twenty. Nevertheless, the division still had a significant part to play in
many of the remaining battles and campaigns of the War such as; The Battle of Cambrai in November, 1917 the Germans Spring Offensive of 1918, and its advance
through Belguim during the War`s final hundred days.
Everywhere it fought it acquitted itself with courage and fortitude and by 11th
November, 1918, nine Victoria Crosses and a multitude of other gallantry medals had
been awarded to the doughty men of the 36th (Ulster) Division.
AT THE GOING DOWN OF THE SUN AND IN THE MORNING