Charles E W Bean, Diaries, AWM38 3DRL 606/87/1 - August 1917 - Part 2

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tower - for development. 

Wilkins is to be attached to 

me. 

Numbers of men & 

N.C.Os of our Flying Corps were 

on the boat today coming 

across. The only A.F.C. 

officer I saw was Wilkins, who was 

found colourblind & 

so became photographer. It 

is curious that as Hurley has 

spent the last 5 years 

almost entirely in the South 

Polar region, Wilkins 

has spent the last 3 with 

Stefanssons Expedition 

exploring for the Canadian 

Govt the known continent 

on the N. side of Bass Baffin's Strait.

MacGregor, who was    

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Birdwood's A.D.C. in Imbros

& Anzac kam came over 

yesty to take Dr Crespigny's 

place & came from Boulogne 

with me.

Aug 22.  The Italians & French 

have made started offensives in wh the 

Italians have captured 7000 

prisoners & the French abt 

4000 (?)^^figures.

The British made an 

attack at Inverness 

Copse wh failed.

The German aeroplane 

raids are getting serious - 

almost every night they 

raid somewhere abt, & / latest 

thing is that a labour camp of 

a British Labour Bn, near Borre, or Merris, ws 

bombed & 40k & 60 wd

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Ones bed is to be sunk

still further so as to

bring it abt on a level

w the ground.

 

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2nd army has sent out 

an edict that all tents 

in their area must have 

a sandbag parapet round 

them 18 inches high. This is 

clearly because the present 

low spread of the fragments, 

when a bomb bursts, is 

so deadly. Churchill is going 

to have all our tents slightly 

dug in, & then a low parapet 

put round just between the

flies & the tenrope. 

Unless a bomb [Diagram- see original scan.]

falls on you it ought 

to keep you safe.

Officers & men are 

going to cellars much 

more readily - & very wise 

to do so. The Germans 

took up this cellar life long

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ago on the Somme. In 

Vaulx "Grand Place" there is 

a notice that on appearance 

of "feindliche flieger" - enemy 

fliers - a whistle or 

something wd go, & troops 

were to take to the 

cellars. at once I suppose 

it has come to stay now - 

the war is going more & 

more into the air & we 

must expect a raid 

somewhere about every 

possible night.

Butler came back 

tonight - good chap. He 

had heard one shell go, the

other day, & was going 

from his room to look for 

George, his Melbourne 

batman, when the

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second one burst next 

door, blew the big passage 

window at his side in tiny 

fragments into the opposite 

passage wall & flung him 

agst the wall half stunned 

& simply peppered w glass 

chips. He says that the 

crash of the falling 

house was almost louder 

than that of the shell.

After dinner the guns 

began to go. Chernside 

got up & said very sensibly 

"To the cellars, now, all of 

you." We were going there 

when Churchill called me. 

We went out to the 

front door; & there, high 

up in the blue black sky, 

in the crossed beams of

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two searchlights, was a 

little misty grey moth - 

the German. He wheeled 

round towards the North like 

a hunted thing, the planes trying to shake off 

the searchlights; trying to but 

they followed him for perhaps five minutes. 

Then they had a lost him. Later 

we (in the cellar we heard 

a hum closer & closer, & 

shrapnel pinpoint flashes 

appeared in the sky overhead. 

From the cellar we heard 

4 or 5 bombs drop somewhere.

No civilian has bn killed

in Hazebrouck owing to their

going to cellars.

Half of Salonica has been

burnt down but theres very little 

about it in the papers probably

owing to the Greek censorship.

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Aug 23.    Took Hurley & Wilkins 

up to Hill 60. There 

was not a shell fell near 

us all the way, either 

going or returning. They 

arranged with Col. Shellshear 

& Blake to go up & stay a 

few days.

Later Hurley met Blake, Lieut Blake of the 

105th Bty, who ws with 

him in the Antarctic; 

- a scientist by interest 

& profession, not a gunner; 

& he told him there wd be 

a "straf" on in 8 days 

time wh he cd go up & 

photograph. Hurley arranged 

to go up & live w them 

two or three days, returning 

in time for the big a

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review of the 2nd Divn 

which Haig is to told in 

3 or 4 days time.

Reviews are generally 

the forerunners of something 

more; but it may only 

mean that they are ready.

Shellshear^x told me that

[*^xhe lives in the old 

Hill 60 mine tunnels*] 

he was the son of a Sydney 

University lecturer - & his 

brother, who was in England 

at the outset of the war, is 

doing the most delicate 

scientific work for the Govt British 

army. He saw him in the 

Arras region the day before 

where he is experimenting 

with wireless.  He has been 

noticing that we have 

a good deal of information 

from German wireless lately

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Intelligence gets reports 

"German wireless message 

states that such & such 

division must rehabilitate 

its honour by attacking & retaking 

the trenches wh it relinquished

to the enemy..." & so forth. 

Shellshear says that we 

now know whenever 

a German aeroplane goes 

up to observe for a 

German battery - we know 

what battery it observes 

for & talks to; & that 

we know that it is up the 

moment it leaves its 

aerodrome. The arty 

gets messages that the 

German guns battery at

such-& such a map location 

are going to shell open

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fire, & is ordered 

to shell them before they 

begin!

The Germans don't 

know qee probably 

quite how much we know; 

but they when one of our 

planes goes up to observe 

for a big gun shoot & 

the guns are getting ready, 

we have sometimes noticed 

that the Germans crash down 

upon those guns ten 

minutes before they are 

due to fire the first shot. 

So they evidently have 

some thing means of the same sort 

themselves.

On our way back 

we had just reached the 

car at Vormezeele when