The darkest day - October 1917
- jokay031
- Oct 15, 2019
- 9 min read
Updated: Dec 1, 2019
On the 1st of October the 1/Auckland Regiment had 20 officers and 660 ordinary rates. Lieutenant-Colonel Alderman, C.M.G. was in command with Captain Holland, M.C in charge of Lances 6th Hauraki Company. The New Zealand Battalions were involved in the Battle of Broodseinde Ridge, with the purpose of covering the Australian assault and making the objective of Gravenstafel Spur (See maps below). "On that day [the 4th] the New Zealand soldiers overwhelmed German forward positions, captured 1100 prisoners and helped to extend the front line eastwards, as indicated by the thick purple broken line [below]. This was achieved at a cost of 1700 casualties, including 350 deaths." (Battles of Broodseinde and Passchendaele map, Ministry for Culture and Heritage, 2017). Then came the 12th of October. This day saw the largest number of lives lost in New Zealand History, the failed attack on Passchendaele led to 3200 New Zealand casualties included 845 dead. On the 18th of October the Canadian troops relieved the ANZAC troops and eventually occupied the village of Passchendaele on the 6th of November.
1st Monday - Left camp near Poperinge and got motions to near Ypres. Marched to [a] paddock and slept there for the night. Bombs dropped round about, [the] night was very cold and damp. ("All the beautiful woods were dead, horribly dead. There was no green grass or pleasant herb. The villages were heaps of rubble. The streams that once made glad the smiling valleys were horrible bogs. Over all the wide area no bird sang. For mile after mile shell-hole touched shell-hole, with here and there a great, gaping crater torn by a mine explosion. As far as the eye could see was a wide expanse of dull and dreary brown." BURTON, O.E, 1922, p.168)
2nd Tuesday - Got all our fighting kit and left for the line in the evening. Took up position in old trench, more wet and cold and mud, also a few shells but no one hurt. (On this march the 3 Auckland Battalions marched through Ypres which by now was town of ruins. The Regiment diary states that on the night of the 2nd and 3rd the 1st and 3rd Auckland Battalions moved to the frontline.)
3rd Wednesday - Left trench early hours of Thursday and took our places on the tapes. Few wounded there. Wait[ed] for a couple of hours here.
4th Thursday - Hopped over the top in early morning. Reached objective after encountering many machine guns and Hun dug trenches, and took our posts. Rain and slush all night but not much shelling. Germans must have been about to attack us as he was in force just beyond our tapes (?) with machine guns, got one. Some hard fighting here. (The Battalions objective was to reach the Graven-staffel and Abraham Heights section of the Broodseinde Ridge (see map below or above). "For the Gravenstafel action the Division was attacking on a four battalion front, and had orders to penetrate the enemy defence for a distance of about 1700 yards. Crossing the Hannebeek Stream, 1/Auckland, 1/Wellington, 3/Otago and 3/Auckland were to take the enemy system of trenches, pill-boxes and strong points as far as the "Red Line," which ran approximately along the crest of the ridge... 1/Auckland, occupying the ground round Cluster-Houses, were lying very close to the enemy strong points at Winzig and Aviatik Farm, from whence came a considerable volume of machine-gun fire, which caused many casualties throughout the night." (BURTON, 1922, p.173). For further detail on this battle click HERE and read from page 173-179 (identified on the left of the text)).
Dave Gallaher
It was on the 4th at the Battle of Broodseinde that Sergeant Dave Gallaher, captain of the All Black Originals from 1905 to 1906 was mortally wounded. He died a few hours later and is buried at Nine Elms Cemetery, Poperinge.
5th Friday - In trench all day, mud up to our knees, raining nearly all the time. Shells [falling] fairly close to trench. Few casualties. Bitter cold and wet through.
6th Saturday - Relieved from trenches about one A.M. Eight mile tramp over shell holed ground and duck walks to small camp outside Ypres. Spent a very wet and cold night. Everyone plastered in mud. (The 1/Auckland Battalion went to the camp at Salvation Corner. After the last few nights the figures stood as follows 1/Auckland: Killed, 7 officers, 52 O.R.'s; wounded, 4 officers, 185 O.R.'s; missing, 29 O.R.'s. Total, 273.).
7th Sunday - Left camp and came about a mile nearer the line. Pouring rain, pitched tents in rain. Wet through, spent miserable night, inches of mud in tent front in morning.
Only myself and two others left of our section. About sixty percent casualties in our company.
8th Monday - Fatigue near line carrying planks to make roads over the mud. Very deep, few shells round camp in the evening. Poured (rain) all night very cold and miserable.
9th Tuesday - Fatigue near line making roads. Few shells landed fairly close today. Mud everywhere, foot deep. Tommies over the top this morning, a lot of wounded came through. (On this day the British and Australian troops led a failed attack, directed by Haig based on the false assumption that the German Army was weakening. Hindered by the worsening weather conditions and mud, the artillery failed to make way and the German's countered strongly leading to a severe number of casualties. ('1917: Arras, Messines and Passchendaele', Ministry for Culture and Heritage, 2017)).
10th Wednesday - Fatigue digging drains in road to the line. Buried a dead Tommy comrade. Raining and very muddy but not many shells about.
11th Thursday - Fatigue on road to the line carrying planks for roads. Fine day today the strafe is inconceivable here. Good many wounded came through. Reinforcements in camp tonight.
12th Friday - Fatigue carrying planks very wet, got wet through, dry and wet through again coming home. Slept in clothes, wet feet very cold. (It appears that Lance was lucky and didn't go to the front line on this date. The 12th of October is referred to as "New Zealand's blackest day". The great success in the Battle of Broodseinde led to a miscalculation by the British High command. Due to the number of German casualties they believed they had the German Army on the back foot and demoralized. So despite the failed attempt on the 9th the New Zealand Division attacked at zero hour, 5:25AM. As with the 9th there was no real support from the artillery guns as they struggled to move forward, the New Zealanders were stuck, pinned down in shell holes by German Machine gun fire. On this date it is said that there were between 2700-3200 New Zealand casualties, 843-846 of these dead depending on the literature you read. Wright, M. 2017)
Once more in the cold dawn the guns opened, but this time the thunder roll was absent. At the first discharge many of them slipped from the small patch of firm ground on which they had been placed and stuck fast in the mud. Few batteries had half their guns working at any one time. Poor as the barrage was the infantry could not keep with it. They had six hundred yards of bog to cross before they reached the slope and their first objective. This bog was a mass of shellholes, with craters six, eight and twelve feet deep. These craters were full of water. The advancing men floundered along the edges knee-deep, sometimes waist-deep, in mud. German machine-gunners, secure in their undamaged works, looked out, and seeing the opportunity, took heart of grace. They swung their guns with terrible effect on to the struggling men in the black slough. Men slipped, fell and were drowned in the brimming craters, dragged down by the weight of their equipment. Machine-gun bullets claimed their victims by scores and hundreds, yet the stubborn battalions pressed on over the swamp until the survivors were held up by the uncut wire. This could not be passed, and all the while the death hail rained upon them from the pill-boxes. With desperate valour men worked forward into the wire, and tried to cut a way through for their comrades. They were shot down. The Huns kept their nerve, and the result was the inevitable massacre. (BURTON, O.E, 1922, p.180)
13th Saturday - No fatigue today marched to baths and had bath and change of clothes. Roads very muddy.
14th Sunday - Fatigue making path in camp. Morning stretches. Cleaning up line in the afternoon, reorganising company. Bombs dropped during the night.
15th Monday - On Menin Road fatigue digging and carrying planks. Mud over boot fronts in morning but fine day, shelling a little during the day.
16th Tuesday - Left camp at Ypres and then up to the line. Bivied at Schuler Galleries (Schuler Farm/Galleries and the Kansas Farm were both located near to each other and are both Farms mentioned in various Great War references, see the map below). Supposed to be in for 48 hours only, a few shells flying about during the night, fine and cold.
17th Wednesday - Still in the bivvies. Relief indefinite now. Sent out burying party, dead lying in shell holes round about. Got shelled in again.
18th Thursday - On the burial party again but the shelling was too severe so had to desist again . The shelling getting rather severe of late, more so during the night.
19th Friday - Wet today and bitter cold. Going to frontline tonight got picked for Battalion carrying party. Left Galleries and went into a ... dugout at Kansas Farm. 40 Men in small dug out.
20th Saturday - Carried water to Krönprinz Farm Headquarters in the morning. Rations in the evening, very quiet trip both times. Not very comfortable in the dug out all having to sit up the whole night. Awful lot of dead Germans lying in the shell holes killed during our last advance. Also [a] good number of our own poor boys.
21st Sunday - Carried water to Krönprinz in the morning and rations in the evening. Got strafed with coal boxes (this is trench slang for the German howitzer shells. These weighed approximately 41 kgs and got their name supposedly because of the thick black smoke they produced) and whizzbangs (another slang term for the light German shells fired from smaller calibre field guns, the name derived from the noise they make flying through the air and exploding on impact) coming back round trip. Very quiet during the night.
22nd Monday - Carrying party as usual. Direct hit on the dugout during the night [which] blocked up the doorway. Shelling heavy all night, some very close.
23rd Tuesday - Very wet and cold. Went in billeting party to billets and to act as guide to companies coming out of the line tonight. Mud over our boot tops and in an awful mess, also very miserable.
24th Wednesday - Left the line about nine AM. Marched about five miles to 2.M Stores (?) for the night as advance party heard that some of the Hauraki's had been killed by aeroplane bombs. (The relief took place the night of the 23rd-24th, and the Battalions moved back to bivouacs in the St. Jean area, where they were heavily bombed by German aeroplanes. BURTON, 1922, p.181).
25th Thursday - Up 4A.M. Marched [to] station Ypres, loading limbers etc all day. (Limbers were two wheeled carts that was used for transportation). Entrained with last lot to Wizernes, spent night on platform [and] got wet through. Miserable night and very cold. (The next day, entraining at Ypres and Dickebusch, they proceeded to Wizernes. BURTON, 1922, p.181)
26th Friday - Stayed behind at Wizernes as baggage guard, [was] there all day. Very crook [with] dysentery. Limber came up for packs about six P.M. Got to billets at Lumbres about nine P.M. Cold and wet. Billets ... . (...they proceeded to Wizernes, and from there to the villages of the Lumbres training area—1/Auckland to Coulomby. BURTON, 1922, p.181)
27th Saturday - Sanitary fatigue in the morning. Muster parade [in the] afternoon. Pay in the evening. Billets are not very nice but anything is better than the line. Parcel of ... etc from Mum and the girls today. Letters from Uncle and also one from Win.
28th Sunday - Church parade in the morning. March about four miles in the afternoon for bath. Terribly lousy. Got clean clothes [and] back about 3P.M. Rest [of the] afternoon off.
29th Monday - Put into model platoon parade [in the] morning, practicing taking pillboxes. Parade [in the] afternoon for about an hour. Rest of [the] afternoon off. Very cold now and wet. (Up until this point the Regiment Diary states that two things saved the German Army—"first the bad weather, and second the "Pill-box System." There were literally thousands of these concrete forts, which as long as any considerable number of them remained intact, rendered a position impregnable to infantry attack. Before every advance these forts had practically to be blasted to pieces." BURTON, 1922, p.169)
30th Tuesday - Parade in [the] morning for couple of hours, [then again in the] afternoon for about an hour. Rest of the the afternoon off. Very wet and cold all day. NZ mail today.
31st Wednesday - Parades today, same as yesterday. Very quiet here. Just a few fam shops and Estaminets (A French pub/bistro) and a church.
Burton, O.E. (1922). XXIII Ypres. The Auckland Regiment. Retrieved from http://nzetc.victoria.ac.nz/tm/scholarly/tei-WH1Auck-t1-body-d23.html
Wright, M. (2017, April 24). Passchendaele: New Zealand's blackest day in Flanders fields. Retrieved from https://www.noted.co.nz/currently/currently-history/passchendaele-new-zealands-blackest-day-in-flanders-fields
'Battles of Broodseinde and Passchendaele map', URL: https://nzhistory.govt.nz/media/photo/battles-broodseinde-and-passchendaele-map, (Ministry for Culture and Heritage), updated 14-Sep-2017
'Death of All Black Dave Gallaher', URL: https://nzhistory.govt.nz/media/photo/dave-gallaher, (Ministry for Culture and Heritage), updated 22-Mar-2017
'1917: Arras, Messines and Passchendaele', URL: https://nzhistory.govt.nz/war/western-front-1917, (Ministry for Culture and Heritage), updated 14-Sep-2017
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