Primary tabs
Transcription
[page 31]
59
(4)
opening for exit which opened onto a road whereon ran a tram way line by which the wounded could be taked from the very door of the dressing station back behind the lines.
Both before and since I have seen a good deal of ruin but nothing to compare with Ovillers and La Boisselle which are more utterly destroyed that any other villages in this battle area. I passed through Ovillers towards the crest of the hill (it was impossible to tell when you had left the fillage any more than when you entered it) from which a view of the coveted lands ahead could be obtained. Pozieres the xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx nearest town was marked by a black smoke cloud, the smoke from xxxxxxxxx bursting German shells, nothing else was visible. To the left Thiepval could just be distinguished and was at that time not included in the fighting, and straight ahead perhaps a little on the right was Mouquot Farm, another of our objectives. The atmosphere here was rather too liberally mixed with metal so we beat a hasty retreat by way of the mine crater the explosion of which on 1st. July at 7.30 p.m. was the signal for the great offensive to begin. Some 80 tons of high explosives were used and the crater must be over 150 feet deep and some 200 yards across. The reason for it was not solely as a signal to the whole line to hop over the parapet but also to blow up an important part of the German defense works at that spot.
About midday on the day following the night of our arrival we were moved up in support of one of our Battalions then in the front line. There were no support trenches for us to occupy, so we scattered ourselves amongst the shell holes in a field just to the left and bordering on Contalmaison. The field was in a bit of a gully up which all troops going to that part of the line had to move in addition to supplies and the returning wounded. The enemy having