Chapter 7: FRANCE AND THE TRENCHES

In 1918 after brief embarkation leave, and rather tearful farewells, we were all face to face with realities and I reported to Victoria Station in London. While at one platform a train had pulled in filled with stretcher case wounded, being transferred to ambulances, nearby platforms were boarding the new recruits bound for Folkstone and France. The air was heavy with the smell of smoke, dampness, assorted humanity, plus a strong flavor of horses and horse feed.

We arrived at Folkstone in the middle of the night, rather somberly marched on board our cross channel troop ship and after an uneventful crossing, found ourselves at LeHavre in the morning. A three-mile march to a transit camp on the high ground beyond the port served to wake us all up.

The Transit Camp for Reinforcements and wounded men now healed and returning to duty, was a beehive of activity. While we newcomers were willing to go wherever we were sent the vets were intent on rejoining their previous regiments. I was posted to the 25th Divisional Artillery, part of the 5th British Army that was seeing action somewhere in the vicinity of Bapaume.

For our first stage, we were loaded into large lorries headed for Rouen, where we spent the night in huts.

The nest day I headed for the front reached Achiet le Petit, eight miles north of Bapaume. As we headed to our huts for the night, we noticed a fifteen-inch gun, mounted on a railway flat car. It was so big I'm sure it could fire shells deep into German occupied areas. During the night we awakened to tremendous explosions from what I thought was the big railway gun. I remember wishing the blighter would stop and let a fellow get some sleep. Upon daylight, we discovered huge shell holes, many quite close to our hut. The Germans had been trying to disable our big gun that had steamed away, under cover of darkness to a less conspicuous location.