Letters from Charles Edwin Gatliff to his family, March - December 1916 - Part 3

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10/9/16

 

about artillery I have now worked up to be Senior

subaltern. Under the old establishment at the outbreak

of war which was 1 Major 1 Captain & 2 Subalterns

(section commander). Hal & Frank would now be majors

& I would be captain. Our two new officers are both

good men which is a great relief to both the

captain & me. One of them is one of our old skylarks

& the other is Hal's ex-sergeant major, whose father is

Mr Jeppeson of Sands & McDougall's. I seem to be

as busy as ever but there is not the worry

there was before when I had to do several officers

jobs at once. I only strike F.O.O. once in 7 days

now - it was every second day a little while ago.

And when there is a stunt on either give the orders

or take charge of one section if its section commander

is away as F.O.O. Before, I had to pass the orders

& see that both sections were firing alright.

There are hundreds of different returns to pip up-

one day we had the record of 45 different

circulars, returns, operations orders, etc from

Headqrs to attend to - do you wonder that

they call this a paper army. In the days gone

by they were generally just glanced at &

forgotten till some urgent message came over

the phone from Hdqrs about them. Now I ^can give

them attention & everything runs smoothly.

Now off to the gunpits for the shoot. Fond

love to all Your loving son Charlie

Char E Gatliff

1        France 8

12/9/16

 

Copies to

Lil & Ern

 

Dear Father & Mother

A few more stray notes. - It is wonderful

here at times - one minute it is deadly quiet with

the sun shining gloriously & it is hard to believe that

there is a war within a thousand miles of us - the

next minute it is pandemonium - hell let loose.

Whenever there is a stunt on all watches throughout

the group or division, as the case maybe, are synchronised

so we all start off together. Up to a few days

ago I ^have always been in the thick of it owing to our

shortage of officers. A couple of nights ago I went up

our O.P.(observation post) tree with the Captain &

watched a bit of a strafe (artillery) on Fritz's wire

& front line trenches. Paris's fireworks were nothing to

it. All night long Fritz sends up flares (rockets) to

see that we are not trying to cross No man's

land (the strip of country between his & our

front line trenches) & occasionally we do

likewise but we do not send up a quarter

of the number he does. As soon as we opened

fire the other night he sent up flares by the

score & lit up No man's land as bright as

day. After the stunt was over I came down the

tree post. I had only got a little way down when I

heard the captain say "By Cripes! that was a nasty

one - it hit the tree" (meaning a rifle bullet). When

I got to the bottom of the tree I found that a

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12/9/16

stray bullet had hit not the tree but a soldier at

the foot of it. The bullet went thro' his head & he

was unconscious breathing heavily. We rang up for an

ambulance & he was taken to the clearing station

but died on the way. He was a fine big fellow 6ft

high (the bullet would have missed me if I had been

there - it is an advantage being small sometimes).

He went thro' the big attack on July 19th & had

been on listening post duty & patrols in No Man's

land at night xxxx a good few times since

that date without a scratch - & then he got

killed by a stray bullet whilst doing fatigue

duty 2000 yds from Fritz's trenches. Next

day I had another grandstand view of an

artillery stunt - this time as observation officer

as I was on duty up the O.P. tree when it was

on. All day it threatened rain but it kept

off until the last 5 minutes of the stunt

when it came down in torrents. I was

perched 70 feet high up in a tree so felt

particularly happy. All the afternoon the wind

was blowing a regular gale & I thought several

times of the old nursery rhyme "Rock-a-by

baby on the tree top." At present our O.P.

is in a tall elm - elms grow tall here like

poplars do in Australia, soon the trees

will all be bare of leaves when we will

no longer be able to use them as O.P's.

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all the batteries are fitting up old houses near the

firing xxx line as winter O.P.'s. Fritz puts a few shells

into most of them every day for luck but hasn't

caught any of our fatigue parties yet. The O.P's

which are called O Pips, are connected by phone

with xxxxx the battery & are used for observation

both of our own & hostile artillery fire & for picking

up opportunity targets for our batteries to fire on.

The F.O.O. (forward observation officer) is a

liaison officer - a connecting link between the

artillery & the infantry & he is attached to the

infantry a tour of duty lasting 24 hours. He

also registers for his battery or others if asked

to do so when they are firing on Fritz's wire

or front line trenches as the only place you

can register properly from for these targets is

from our front line trench. The registering of

Fritz's communication trench & other targets

behind his front line is done from the O.P.

The reason why O.P.'s are called O.Pips is

because that is the way P is pronounced in

the signallers alphabet. So many letters in

the ordinary alphabet sound alike that

errors might be ^made in sending messages if

they were adhered to; therefore B,D,P,T,V are

pronounced Beer, Don, Pip, Toc, Vic respectively

A is Ack to distinguish it from J, M is

Emma & S is Esses.

12/9/16

Hal received a letter a few weeks ago from a

Mrs Nevill Jackson of Oak Lodge, Sideup, Kent, England.

She said she was a Miss Gatliff before her

marriage, that Penrose had visited them& told

them Hal & Frank were in the A.I.F. Knowing

how Hal hates letterwriting I wrote to her &

a few days ago I received a letter from her

& one from her daughter asking the three of us

to visit them whenever we got leave to

England. They had just returned from a

visit to Scotland &Mrs Jackson sent me

a sprig of white heather as an emblem of good

luck. She also sent me a copy of our family

tree asking for particulars of our branch.

I am sending you a copy of it with our family

added to it. Have to get some long envelopes

to send it in so you may not get it by this

mail. Mrs Jackson's family is marked by a

*  on page 6. I suppose Hal has told you about

her letter to him, but in case he hasn't, she

said in it that her son, Lieut. R.N. Jackson, was

badly wounded early in the war & is now

on the General Headquarters Staff at -

Hal called at the battery yesterday & I gave him the

letter & tree to read & pass on to Frank. Hal &

I are both well. Frank I have not seen since his

birthday party. Fond love to all

Your loving son Charlie

Char E Gatliff

13/10/16

 

Dear Father & Mother

I received several nasty shocks

on my return to the battery. First

that Captain Prior had undergone a

severe operation for appendicitis, then

that a chum of mine who was in the

same tent with me at the Officers school

at Broadmeadows had been killed

whilst leading a raid. He wouldn't 

wait for a commission & came away

as a sergeant major with reinforcements.

He got injured on Gallipoli & was

invalided to Australia. He brought

reinforcements to France & I met him

the day after the big stunt at

Fleurbaix. I did not see him again

till a few days before we came here.

A raid was to have been carried out &

I was to have done the artillery work

& he was to have led the raid. It

was postponed owing to our move

but it came off during my absence

with disastrous results. Then I

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heard that Frank was in a rest

camp. As his little mary was again

troubling. Now I have just seen Hal

& he has told me that he is going on

Hdqrs staff for a while as his old

wound & his little mary are bothering

him. My battery seems to be the

unlucky one in this brigade - it got

strafed again by Fritz while I was

away & we had several casualties

owing to the captain falling sick, my

being on leave & the other subalterns

being new to the battery things got

in a nice mess & I am very busy

straightening things out so will

now it conclude with fond love

Your loving son

Charlie

1

France 10

19.10.16

 

Dear Father & Mother

I don't know remember whether I told you

that Fritz did a bit of a strafe our way the day

before I went on leave. He hit one house on the

street between the battery & the officer's billet &

knocked the wall on top of an officer & orderly. The

latter had his leg broken but the officer although

completely buried under the debris was apparently

unhurt. During his strafe on Oct 4th, when I

was away, which I have already written about

he put a shell thro' the roof of this billet

As it is a three storey building & I am

camping on the second storey it has not affcted

my comfort. Since my return he has been

very quiet with his artillery altho' he has

been pretty busy with his mininwerfers on

our front line. I was artillery liaison officer

to General Ivey a few nights ago when our

men carried out a very successful raid. We

killed about 100 Germans (artillery bombardment

& raiding party) brought back 3 prisoners for

identification purposes & captured 2 machine

guns. I am down as liaison officer to O.C. raid

whenever the next raid takes place. At

present it is hard to say when it will

take place as there have been some changes

the last few days which I cannot write

about. It is on the boards that we will

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(10)  19.10.16

 

soon be going where the fun is livelier. The

sooner the better as all leave has been stopped

till after our return from there. I believe we only

stay in the firing line where the fight is

thickest for 2 or 3 weeks. We have heard all

sorts of tales about the fighting there but the

censor (ME) won't let me write about it.

I saw Hal yesterday, his few days spell at

Hdqrs has done him the world of good. We

have had no news of Frank altho' Hal sent

an orderly one day to see if he could find

the rest camp Frank is in - he was unsuccessful.

Still it is only his "tummy" which is

troubling him & anyhow he is safer there

than with his battery.  Things are

looking better with the battery now. One of our

subalterns is at another position about 4

miles away - the other has just returned from

a 3 days gas school & has gone down as

F.O.O. for 6 days. We do 3 days F.O.O. (at -

we only used to do one) but Mac has to

do my turn so as to leave me free to

square matters up.  I think I will

close now. Received several papers

from Mater by the mails which arrived

here when I was away, for which, thanks.

Fond love to all

Your loving son

Charlie

1

France 10

23/10/16

 

Dear Father & Mother,

We have had our first task of winter,

the last three mornings there has been a heavy

frost & the days, altho' clear, have been bitterly

cold. Being the only subaltern available I have

had to go O.P. the last 3 days & have been

nearly frozen to death. Our O.P. is an old

house riddled with shell holes - some of our

other batteries have their O.P's in factory

chimney stacks. It would now be impossible

to use a tree as O.P. like we used to at

-. The leaves are still on the trees but

the air is so cold & when the wind blows

it chills one to the bone. Did I ever tell

you about a lieutenant who went up our

O.P. tree with me one day & the wind was

shaking the tree so much that he was

violently sick? Each battery has its own

O.P. sometimes two or three & the subs take it

in turn to man it during daylight. Then

the brigade uses one of the O.P's at night & the

batteries take it in turn to send an officer to

it. Then there is the F.O.O. there are two of

these & the 4 batteries work the two in

turn sending an officer to one of them for

3 days at a time. When we first went into

the firing line we used to do F.O.O. in

the front line but so many artillery officers