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[Page 14]
By the Death of a Sergeant
[See image for sketch of the incident.]
The great victory of Polygon Wood took place on 26 September 1917, but only for the killing of the gallant Sergeant Meadowes, of the 13th Batallion, the afternoon before by one of our own eighteen-pounder shells, it might easily have become one of the most disasterous days in the history of the A.I.F. Meadowes death saved the Fourth Brigade that day.
Three days before the battle the 13th Battalion took over the Fourth Brigade front, its job being too clear No Mans Land and to lay the tape on which Jacka's Mob - the Fourteenth - were to line up at 3 a.m on the 26th, preparatory to advancing through the enemy to the position marked on the map as the Red Line, 1200 yards ahead. Close behind the 14th, the 10th were to follow to this Red Line and then, leap-frogging them, to advance another 600 yards.
After cleaning up No Man's Land, the 13th plotted the tape line some twenty yards in front to their fartherest positions, and running parallel to the objectives; for it was important in advances by night, early morning, or in fogs to start men off facing the proper direction: the white tape of course could not be laid until immediately before the attack. It might be seen by enemy airmen or patrols.
Lt. Joe Westwood, the 13th's Intelligence Officer on this occasion, had everything ready on the night of the 24th, and Jacka expressed his appreciation of the arrangements.
On the 25th, at 3-8pm (15-08) Lt. White, of the 13th, was yarning with his platoon sargeant, Meadows, when he saw his friend decapitated by a dud shell. The platoon was so sure that the dud was an eighteen-pounder that, although informed that our artillery was now so perfect that a dud was most improbable, they set to work to dig it out of the parapet, and, in the meantime, a report was sent by the O.C., Capt. Browning, to Battalion Hqrs., and thence to the Artillery.
The latter denied firing a short, [shot] and informed the front line that the enemy could fire into our backs from their deep salient on our right.
The digging out , however, proved that it was an eighteen-pounder, and the Forward Observation Officer came up to complete enquiries.
"This dropped at 15-08?" he asked and was assured that was the correct time.
"Well, I'm dreadfully sorry for your sargeant, but it is the luckiest shell we' ve ever fired. At 15-08, from the top of a pill-box a quarter of a mile back there, I was observing for our batteries for tomorrow's big shoot. We've got a gun for every yard of front; but of course every one could not fire a trial shot, or Fritz would have guessed something. This one shot was the calibrating shot for the batteries covering the Fourth Brigade front. I saw it lob by the dust, and reported it as correctly ahead of your tape line, which it was, according to my map, and all our guns are now ranged on it".
"But the tape line is twenty yards out there. It is in your barrage", said an officer of the 13th.
"It won't be in our barrage NOW. As I said, I'm sorry for your sargeant, but it's nothing to what would have happened at zero to-morrow".
The artillery line was lifted fifty yards, and, at 4 a.m. the next day, the heaviest barrage ever experienced tore the ground a few yards in front of Jacka and his battalion, and not a chain behind them; and it advanced 25 yards a minute, with the 14th hugging it. Had it come down on the line of the dud that killed Meadows, not one of the 14th would have lived more than a few seconds under such a terrific hail, and the 13th and 16th would also have been chopped about.
Had the calibrating eighteen-pounder not done such an exceptional thing as fire a dud, those near Meadowes would have been killed with him, and the matter taken as a German shell from the salient behind us. Had Meadows not been killed by it, the dud would have been merely a laughing matter for him and the platoon.
Did some Providence send the popular sargeant's death in the only possible way to raise the barrage. and save a thousand lives the next morning? Without doubt, by his death, Meadows saved the Fourth Brigade at Polygon Wood..
"Blanc'
The truth of this story is vouched for by the writer, who was one of the officers concerned in the incident.