Letters from Charles Edwin Gatliff to his family and a condolence letter, June 1916 - c. September 1918 - Part 20

25. 2  8  15.11.17 
none from Lil or Ern altho' I received two
from the latter a few days ago. Hal's letters
were dated about the same time as those I
received. Wilf's letter contained some very
welcome snapshots. I could see Hal wired me
them Wilf might have also sent him a
print of each. Only a short time ago I wrote
mentioning the fact that it was 3 years ago

since Hal last saw you & 2 years since I

left & asking you to send us snaps of you all.
By the mail today Hal received a letter
from J.B. enclosing snaps of Ern & Wilf.
J.B. said he knew how we boys over here would 
appreciate snaps of home & the folk there however
uninteresting the snaps were to you. We were
in Hal's officers' mess at the time of reading it
& we all agreed with J.B. As one officer said
it would be more pleasing to us if we received
a few snaps each week & a letter once a month
as a snapshot seems more tangible than a
lot of writing. I have always thought so; that
is why I have tried to send you two or three
snaps of us as often as possible. Hal is O.K.
altho' he has not yet recovered his voice. I am
also quite well altho' I had a bad "tummy"
for a couple of days. This is a personal letter —
will write about "The Great War" tomorrow.
Fond love to all from
Your loving son
Charlie 

N^o.26  1   Belgium 9  16.11.17

Dear Father & Mother 

It seems almost too good to be true

that a few days ago we were in that hell

for artillery near Ypres & are now in a

"haven of rest" altho' still in the line. During

my last trip up at the gunpits I had rather too

much excitement. I left the wagonlines at 4 a.m.

& rode up to the pits by moonlight. Fritz had

kindly awakened me at 3 a.m. by dropping bombs

close to the horse lines. On the way up to the

guns the road goes between two ridges where

most of the heavies are — consequently Fritz is

strafing these almost continuously. As the track

is corduroy it is too severe on the horses if

they move faster than a walk on it. However

Fritz was doing a gentle strafe with 5.9s

on one particular part of it so I made the

horses trot until the danger zone was

passed. The worst of it was both my

horses are rather skittish, & as both sides

of the track were strewn with dead horses

& mules & overturned wagons & limbers

which threw fantastic shadows in the 

moonlight, we had hard work to urge

them on. On arriving at the guns I sent

the horses back & shortly after daybreak

set off on foot, with two telephonists, for

the front line as F.O.O. The tracks there

are of duck walks just laid on top of

N^o.26  2  9  16.11.17

the shell torn ground. It is rather funny here,

where everything is quiet, we have shell proof

gunpits, trenches for communications, & traffic

is not allowed past certain points during the

hours of daylight; whilst up there, where the

fight is thickest, the guns are out in the open,

the communications are duckwalk tracks, &

nearly all day the roads were packed

with traffic of all sorts with Fritz having

direct observation on them with his planes

& balloons. To continue my story - we got

safely past our first tickilish bit, the

ridge in front of our position where our

foremost guns were — fortunately for us they

were not firing so Fritz was not retaliating.

It was a glorious sunny day, splendid for

observation, consequently the air was

alive with planes. Fritz was doing as he

liked, he was flying over our front line &

as far back as the supports. Three of his

planes were flying low trying to bring

down one of our "contact" planes. He was

too smart for them altho' they got close

enough a couple of times to fire their machine

guns at him. Disappointed of their prey they

fired at some of our men in the supports &

then one of them calmly swooped over

towards us & fired a few rounds at my

little F.O.O. party trudging along the duck

N^o.26  3   9  16.11.17

walks. I am satisfied Fritz is not a sport nor

a gentleman — we had no means of retaliation

& no chance of taking cover as on either side

of the duckwalk were large shell holes full

of water. However he did us no damage so

we continued on our way keeping a watchful

eye on the three planes which were still flying

low. We still had one of the worst parts of

our journey to negotiate — our side of the famous

Broodseinde ridge, our O.P. was on the crest &

our front line the other side. When about 200

yds from the O.P. (which is one of Fritz's old strong

posts, so he knew its location to a pin point)

one of his planes flying over it dropped a

light — I can tell you we felt far from

happy as we knew it meant trouble. The

duckwalk track swings off to the left about

50 yds from the O.P. We had just got off the

duckwalk when over came a 4.2 right on the

track behind us. Altho' we had done a tiring

journey with all our gear on I can tell you

we did that 50 yds (altho' it was over by

shell holes) in record time & managed to

tumble into the dugout at the O.P. without

getting hit by one of  the 8 shells he got over

before we could reach cover. He then rained

shells (5.9, 4.2, & .77) round the O.P. for an hour

& three quarters. We then laid a new wire

from the O.P. to the cablehead from where the

N^o.26  4   9  16.11.17

buried cables run back to the batteries & hdqrs.

the old wire was cut to pieces beyond all hope of

repair. All day Fritz strafed round the O.P., he

knew it was used as such, & as observation

was so good, he wanted "to keep our heads down".

The F.O.O. has to stay at the O.P. all night to take

bearings to any of Fritz's guns he sees flashing.

I had no difficulty in keeping awake as

there were six of us (three trench mortar ^men besides

my party) camped on a landing about 4ft by 8ft

halfway down the steps into one of Fritz's

deep dugouts — the dugout itself had fallen in

& was full of water. Generally from 4.30 a.m.

to 5.30 a.m., the hour about dawn, the night

firing increases in intensity & then practically

stops for a couple of hours. I had decided

to leave the O.P. for the guns as soon after

6 A.M. as it was quiet. From 5 a.m. there

was very little firing so a couple of

minutes to 6 I told my two men to get

ready when suddenly at 6 a.m. our

batteries opened up with an Army barrage.

for half an hour. Needless to say, Fritz

retaliated & I was very thankful that we

had not started on our return journey.

("To be continued in our next").

Hal is well & so am I & we trust that

you are all the same. Fond love to all

Your loving son

Charlie

N^o.27 (26 cont.) 1    Belgium 10    18.11.17

Dear Father & Mother

To continue my story from N^o.26. — Shortly

after 7 a.m. fire on both sides had slackened

so we crawled out of the Crater O.P. & did a

dash down the back slope of the ridge. He (FRITZ)

was throwing a few .77s to the right of us but

nothing eventuated until we were near his

59 barrage line. He then opened fire about

500 yds in front & to the right of us — we

walked along watching where each shell burst

when suddenly he shortened his range &

dropped one parallel to us. We decided to

quicken our pace but his next shell dropped

50 yds in front, right alongside the duckwalk

We momentarily halted — when bang! another

one landed in nearly the same place but

on the other side of the duckwalk. That set

us thinking hard for a couple of seconds but

as you never know where the next shell is

going to land - he might shorten or lengthen his

range or sweep to right or left — we decided

to run for dear life to an old pillbox

about 200 yds ahead. We got there absolutely

exhausted but had no need to take cover

as he swung back on to his original target

about 500 yds to the right. We reached our

pillbox at the gunpits about 8 a.m. without

further incident. As the other subaltern

had to go forward next day as liasion

N^o.27  2   10   18.11.17

officer I stayed at the pits to shoot the battery.

A little after 9 a.m. Fritz started landing

5.9's all round our dugout (pillbox I should

say) & kept going all day with occasional

spells of 10 mins or ¼ of an hour. He also

put a lot near the men's pillbox in rear

of us & near our guns in front. He put

shells into two of the gunpits but did no

damage to the two guns — only shifted them

& knocked over the ammunition. Fortunately,

we had no firing to do, as he had us

nicely bottled up in our pillboxes. We

rang up the adjt. & told him he would

have to send us up some matches unless

he got our heavies to silence Fritz's battery

as he was putting our candles out by concussion

as fast as we lit them. During

one of the lulls we heard machine guns

firing overhead so Taylor & I went outside

to see the airfight. We were intently

watching it when we heard a shell

coming towards us. We hadn't time to get

into the pillbox so dropped behind a

barricade in front of the door (which faces

towards Fritz). The shell burst right at

the foot of the barricade composed of

ammunition boxes & sandbags piled with earth.

I was covered with broken boxes & earth -

the other officer was near the door & got very

N^o.27  3   10   18.11.17

little over him but we were both deafened by

the concussion. I thought I had got a nice

"Blighty" out of it as a fleshy part of me was

stinging rather smartly. However, on investigation,

I found that I had been hit by a piece that

was "spent" — it had evidently penetrated thro'

the barricade — & I had nothing worse than a

bruise. After that Taylor & I were content

to stay inside & have bets as to how many

candles (we had 4 alight) Fritz would put

out each time a shell burst. During the

afternoon there was a lull, so we started

straightening the guns. Fritz again got nasty

so we adjourned to the pillboxes. Shortly

after our men were all under cover, two

Tommies came in - one had been hit by a

fragment of a 5.9 in the fleshy part of the

shoulder. We bandaged it up & got him

away to the dressing station during a lull.

It was a lovely "Blighty" & I thought what

hard luck I had for the piece which hit

me not to go in. Our men were camped

in a big pillbox containing several compartments.

Only the previous day they had vacated

one of the rooms to let some Tommy gunners of

the "heavies" get in. Fritz continued his

strafing most of the night - about 8 P.M. he

put a 5.9 right thro' the doorway of the

Tommies pillbox (they had no barricade in front)

N^o.27 4   10   18.11.17

with disastrous results. As our men were busy

taking the wounded Tommies back to the dressing

station & Fritz was still rather lively we were

given no night firing to do as everything was

quiet on the front of our sector - there was plenty

doing on our right tho' We only had to be ready

for an S.O.S which mercifully was not sent up.

Next morning Fritz "continued the movement" —

about 9 a.m. a gunner of another division

came into our pillbox & casually announced

"my mates' been killed". We asked what

battery he belonged to & he told us. He then

told us how his mate was killed by a 5.9

close to our pillbox. After a while, he mentioned

that he had a message for us. The captain

quietly opened it not dreaming what its

contents were - you can imagine what a

lovely surprise we got when we read

that the other battery was relieving us - one

section that afternoon & the other two next

day It was our first notification. The

captain wanted me to "push off" for the

wagonlines to get things ready for the move

but I had a touch of colic (altho' the glad

news eased my pain a lot) so I decided

to wait until the afternoon. We had to

do a "shoot" in the afternoon so I fired it

before I left — I wanted to pay Fritz back

a little "in his own coin" before leaving.

N^o.27 5   10   18.11.17

I didn't waste any time over it & as soon as I

had issued him his iron rations I departed

for the wagonlines taking a gunner with me in

case of "accidents". He ∧FRITZ was doing a desultory shoot

at one corner of the road but we got xxxx past

without an "accident". Down on the main road

we climbed into a motor lorry — I don't know

when I have enjoyed a motor ride so much —

it was better than being in a Rolls-Royce

car in peace time — each minute took us

further away from that artillery and hell,

not to return for some time (never, we hope)

This is the first sequence of events at the

gunpits that I have written you — you can

take it as a fair sample of what we went

thru' all the time up north — those that

came thru' without a scratch wonder

how they did — nearly everybody had

several marvellous escapes from death

or being wounded. Anyhow, it is a 

thing of the past now & altho' we are

still "in the line" it is as good as "a

rest cure" being here — it is quite "a good war"

in these parts. Will write about local

events next letter. Hal is well & so am I.

Fond love to all

Your loving son

Charlie