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[Page 52]
(46)
Battle of Hindenburg Line
At 6 a.m. on Sunday 29th September 1918 our barrage opened up and the Americans attacked, followed two hours later by we Australians. It was a wonderful sight to see everything (even the baloons) as day was dawning and our barrage opened, going forward. Foch was now in supreme command of the Allied troops and the idea of everything advancing with the Infantry was his strategy. A fog came up and impeded our progress for a short time, but didn't last very long. We advanced 2,000 yards through terrific bombardment and shell fire, but the Americans didn't follow out their instructions and mistook signals, with the result that they were held up after capturing some of the line, and suffered terrible losses. After we started to advance a bullet struck my officer (who was a few yards ahead of me) in the stomach and he fell down. I immediately went to him and took off his equipment and called to a stretcher bearer to come to him. They took him to hospital but he died that night. He was a fine man (Lieut Brown of Toowoomba, Q.) loved and respected by all and was one of the last officers killed in action in our Battalion.
The Americans captured the main Hindenburg trench alright, but didn't "Mop up" (that is look down and explore all the captured dugouts and either take any men in them prisoners or kill them) properly. Consequently when the Americans advanced in front of the Hindenburg Line trench, the Germans came out of their dugouts (hundreds of them) and mowed down the Americans in front of them. This caused great confusion as the enemy was now entrenched between us and the Americans and the line had to be attacked and retaken again. So it was decided that the 44th Australian Battalion should attack and capture the line next morning – it was afterwards changed to that night – which they did with success but great loss. That night we advanced in the pitch darkness to near the front line and lay down in shell holes in company of hundreds of dead soldiers. The dead Americans were piled feet deep here. It was now raining heavily and we experienced a terrible night and I thought we would never see morning. Shells were falling thick amongst us and we were covered with dirt from the shells as they exploded in the mud. We lost a great number of wounded and killed that night. Towards morning we advanced through the outer Hindenburg Line up to near the front line. This trench was the biggest I had seen up till then. It was fully twelve feet wide and twelve feet deep but nothing to what the main Hindenburg Line proved to be. At daylight we crept up and occupied the main Hindenburg Line. Just before we occupied it the Germans had evactuated it and retreated and some of their wounded were still in the trench – they hadn't time to take them with them as they hurriedly retreated. These wounded Germans were looked after by us. Our artillery was now making it too hot for the Germans, and the French had already captured the Western end of the Hindenburg Line in this sector, so the Germans had to retreat or else they would have been in a big salient here.
The Hindenburg Line was indeed a revelation to us. It was a great feat for the Americans and the Australians to capture the sector we were on. The line here was on top of the old St Quentin Canal.