VICTORY AT MESSINES
The NZ Division moved to Flanders in late February 1917 when they took over responsibility for Hill 63 and the trench formations of the Ploegsteert-to-Le-Bizet sector of the Western Front opposite the German held village of Messines.
​
Ormond Burton says Hill 63 was the buttress of the British line in these parts. It covered the railhead at Steenwerck, the town of Bailleul and the main road running between Bailleul and Armentieres. Behind it, as far as the eye could see, stretched level country, which would offer little natural difficulty to an advancing enemy. Le Bizet lay just behind the hill, next to the canalised River Lys and was actually a suburb of Armentieres, connected by a bridge - the soldiers visited the town when they could.
​
Hill 63 consisted of a series of deep dug tunnels, known by the troops as the Catacombs. Burton says of it: “On this sector the Aucklanders first met that peculiar type of atrocity, the deep dug-out, built for the accommodation not of a few officers or a company headquarters, but as a home for 300 men ... deep down in the bowels of the earth. [They were] wet, steaming, dimly lighted and badly ventilated and the air was an unspeakable pollution.”
​
When the Aucklanders took over this sector of the front they found the trenches “shockingly neglected and tumbling to pieces. The Germans in the line opposite had gained a decided ascendancy.”
A British Ordnance map from 1917 showing the trench system in the Kiwi sector, including Hill 63. I have marked Hill 63 on the map. You can see from the topographic lines that it is an area of sharply rising high ground. These Ordnance maps are a marvelous resource. You can find the original, interactive map here.
Burton is worth a quick note. A teacher before he joined the army aged 21, he sailed with the third reinforcements initially serving in the medical corps at Gallipoli before transferring to the Auckland Infantry. After the war he became a Methodist clergyman and leading pacifist. He founded the New Zealand Christian Pacifist Society in 1936 which was in existence until 2002. He writes his regimental history for the Auckland infantry with flair, and as a sergeant, later promoted to lieutenant, who was decorated for bravery, he often brings pointed and poignant first person observation to what he writes, so he is both a secondary and primary source for material on the Auckland battalion.
It was in the Ploegsteert-to-Le-Bizet sector that Bert joined 1st Auckland and 3rd Company, on April 20, getting his first taste of life at the front. In his diary he notes
Friday April 20: “Within range of big guns.”
​
Saturday April 21: “Shells continually whipping overhead and anti aircraft guns firing at aeroplanes above us.”
Sunday April 22: “Digging trenches at night. Firing line ahead of us, illuminated by flares. Returned at midnight.”
Within four days he found himself in that ‘firing line’ trench, the most forward trench directly facing the Germans, and getting used to the harsh routines of having to be on guard even in the dead of night – he went on duty at 11:30pm and was stood down at 2am, then up again for another stint at 4:30am. He records in his diary “slept all day till about 6pm, when our trench mortars began to send over a few ‘puddings’” and repeated it all again the next night. It was also a sector where the fighting between the two armies was not confined to distant artillery pounding. It got up close and personal at times:
Sat 5: Heavy bombardment of our trenches in early morning. Fritz raided trenches on our left.
In a letter home to his sister Nellie after this first experience in the trenches he wrote: “While I was in the front line, I was on night duty, and I had to look over the parapet to watch any movement of the enemy. One has to detect the slightest movement or sounds, as it may be Fritz coming over for a raid, or his patrol scouting out to find information. Now and then up go flares and shows no mans’ land, and sometimes a party of the Bosches mending their wire entanglements which our shells have destroyed, and then the machine guns rattle.”
​
Bert and 1st Auckland were rotated in and out of the front line throughout the next few weeks, pulled back to support trenches or reserve camps for a few days, then returned to the firing line trenches. The weather at this time was warmer than the cold of December, but varied between snow, rain, hail and sleet. The rest of the time there was just a miserable drizzle.
This photo from the Auckland War Memorial Museum archive, taken by Henry Armytage Sanders (the main wartime photographer for the NZ division), has a hand written note saying these are Kiwis in the firing trenches on Hill 63.
Burton says: “Hill 63 faced the famous Hill of Messines and the British line ran along the Valley of the Douve, in front of Ploegsteert Wood and between the two hills. The village of Messines itself, crowning the heights, showed plainly out. It seemed very little damaged, its church towering over the lesser buildings, a most conspicuous landmark. The slope from the hilltop to the valley below was green and not greatly torn. The outline of the German trenches were clearly visible. The Hill of Messines rose up before the New Zealanders as a perpetual challenge.”
By June they would have their chance to take up that challenge.
The man tasked with seizing Messines was General Plumer. He knew capturing the Messines ridge would relieve some pressure on the Ypres Salient and the assault he planned stands out among the battles up until then for showing innovative thinking. As far back as January 1916 Plumer had ordered the digging of huge tunnels to plant mines. By June 1917 they had 500,000kgs of explosive in 20 bombs laid in 8kms of mine galleries riddling the ridge above. The Germans suspected what was happening, but not the scale of the plans. They had countermined and often came close to discovering the whole plot. In early 1917 Germans actually found one of the bombs, but had not realised the other 19 existed.
On 1 June 1917 it began - with a seven-day artillery barrage. The green slope up to the ridgeline disappeared into brown mud and the village of Messines became a ruin. Then, early on the morning of 7 June, the mines were blown simultaneously. It was one of the biggest man-made, non-nuclear explosions in history. Following the explosion, at 3.15am, 80,000 men went over the top across the whole sector. Tanks were also brought in.
The assault on the Messines village itself was left to the New Zealanders. The Rifle Brigade and 2nd Brigade took the village swiftly. The Auckland Battalions of 1st Brigade then charged in, tasked to push over the Messines Hill, beyond the village into the German backlines and stake out a new British front line. This they did and held on despite heavy counter attacks and barrages. The entire Messines Offensive saw 3,700 New Zealand casualties.
Bert however was not part of the actual Messines assault, though he was involved in the intensive follow-up action. By now, eager to be involved, he had volunteered to become a specialist Lewis Machine Gunner, which would have seen him play a critical part in the assault - only to find that decision saw him pulled out of the Messines attack. He was instead selected to be part of a reserve force well behind the front lines – detached from 3rd Coy and assigned to the NZ Wing 2nd Anzac Reinforcement Camp.
The only surviving photo we have of Bert taken in the field - this is him in the detachment camp of reserves for the Messines assault. He is the fourth from the right.
1st Auckland was eventually pulled back to recover, and the New Zealand Division was relieved from the Messines sector, shifting around to the east slightly to take over the section of the line named after the two villages La Basse-Ville and Warneton. The villages were held by the Germans and the new front line stretched from the villages’ outskirts, in front of Ploegsteert Wood and back toward Hill 63, covering an almost level expanse of torn fields.
Bert was still stuck in camp with the reserve force, where he was chaffing to rejoin his mates in 3rd Company:
Friday June 15: “I am heartily sick of this camp. I hear that our battalion is stationed at Romarin.”
On 18 June Bert finally rejoined 3rd Company, as 1st Auckland Battalion went into the front-line trenches again, this time at Prowse Point where Burton says “the newly-won ground was ill-defined and only very roughly organised” and the Germans only 400 yards away.
Bert was quickly in the thick of it:
Tues 19: German dead lying about near their shattered dug out.
Wed 20: Our trench muddy and uncomfortable. We are about a 1000 yards ahead of our old front line.
Thurs 21: Huns putting shells all along our trench.
It was decided to raid the German lines and destroy their strong posts. The 16th company (Waikato) and two platoons of the 3rd, including Bert, were chosen to go over the top on 23 June at 1.30am.
This was at last Bert’s first real ‘action’ that he had wanted.
This map is adapted from a field map in Ormond Burton’s regimental history. It shows Prowse Point, the German lines and the rail lines just behind them that Bert helped to raid on June 23.
Bert writes in his diary:
Friday June 22: “In the evening we were warned that we were to make a raid. We assembled in our front-line trench awaiting the word to go over. Our artillery is putting over gas shells.”
Saturday June 23: “Our barrage opened out at 1am and we hopped the bags at 1.30am. Raided party of Huns working on railway line and a few prisoners taken. Came back through German barrage which was terrific. A good few of our chaps wounded, who were carried back about two miles to dressing station. Two of our chaps missing.”
In a letter to Frank about the raid he says:
“High explosives, shrapnel, whiz-bangs and machine gun fire made things pretty lively and it was liketh unto a thousand 5th of Novembers rolled into one and flames were going up like Roman candles. What struck me most was the hundreds of shells and bullets flying around that hit nobody”
He says in another letter he “received not a scratch” though “a bullet just glanced off my steel helmet.” And he comments:
​
“One of the square heads captured was only a boy of about 15 and he was crying like a kid.”After regaining their trenches, the raiding party had to continue holding them for another 20 hours, till 10pm and were finally allowed to go back to lines further in the rear.
But as he records in his diary, the pull back to rear lines was not without incidence:
​
Saturday June 23: “We were shelled heavily with tear and asphyxiating gas shells while coming back. Terrible mix-up. Chaps staggering along road half blinded.”
Sunday June 24: “Arrived at the catacomb on Hill 63 early morning. Some fellows laid out by gas. I slept with my helmet on. More gas shells fell at night.”
And in one of his letters:
​
“It was no joke to be staggering along a dark road blocked with transport wagons heavily loaded and hampered with a gas helmet and with shells bursting every few yards. I managed to reach our dug-outs alright, but I slept with my gas mask on that night. Some of our chaps were gassed while others were made very ill. I have still got the rotten taste of the gas in my mouth when I think of that night.”
Ormond Burton confirms in the official regimental history that throughout this time the area was being heavily shelled by regular and gas explosives and in the Catacombs of Hill 63 “the atmosphere in the long, stuffy galleries reeked with the pungent odour” of gas.