Sniping in France/Chapter 4
CHAPTER IV. THE FIRST ARMY SCHOOL OF SCOUTING, OBSERVATION AND SNIPING THE First Army Sniping School was formed for the purpose of training officers, who might act as Instructors in the various Corps Schools, Brigades and Battalions throughout the Army.
The system of Corps Schools was, as I have said, peculiar to the First Army, who, for the next year and a half, turned out three snipers to any other Army's one. Further, the First Army School became recognized throughout the B.E.F. as the training place of observers with the telescope. Indeed, at a later date, we were overwhelmed with applications from Corps and Divisions in other Armies who wished to send observers for a course. This was especially the case before any big movement, and we might almost have guessed where an advance was contemplated by the applications for the training of observers by the units concerned.
However, all this occurred at a later date, and I must pick up my narrative when we left the nth Corps School in the lorry. Those who were to start the First Army School got aboard after an early breakfast. They were only six in number, Lieut. Gray, Armourer Staff-Sergeant Carr, Private Fen-some (an extremely capable and skilled carpenter), myself and two batmen. We took with us all the spares we could obtain from the nth Corps School as well as a lot of sniping kit belonging to Gray and myself.
As we rode through the country in the direction of Aire we passed a huge desolate camp which, I believe, had once been inhabited by Australians. No doubt it had boasted a guard at one time, but it had now fallen into sad disrepair, the Flemish peasantry having appropriated all the stoves and most of the wooden walls. A little further on we came upon two or three Armstrong huts standing in a field adjacent to the deserted camp, and as these were in better preservation, and we had no Armstrong hut of our own, it seemed a pity to leave them for the French, so we set to and took one down and loaded it on the lorry. This was, no doubt, a very wrong thing to do, but when you have no " establishment," you can have no conscience either, or, at least, if you allow yourself such a luxury you will find that your job becomes impossible.
First Army School S.O.S.
Presently we rolled into Aire over the canal bridge, which was afterwards destroyed by long-range guns, and in Aire we made the little purchases which are necessary for the formation of officers' and men's messes. We then passed through the old town by the Cathedral. Army Headquarters had moved away, and there was now only the Town Major and one or two A.S.C. columns in possession. On the far side of Aire we took the Lambres and St. Hilaire Road, and passed on through the level country. As we turned off through Lambres, we saw, rising in front of us, the high ridge which formed the plateau on which our school was to be situated, and not long afterwards we rode into the village of Linghem. The lorry then went round and disembarked our Armstrong hut upon the plateau, where we at once erected it, and a fortunate thing it was that we did so, for that night there were some heavy showers of rain which would have destroyed a good deal of our kit, and more especially our target-paper and dummy heads, had we not put them under proper shelter.
And now, I think, began one of the most interesting periods which I spent in France. Various fatigue men were added to the Staff, and a working party from the Army Service Corps was sent up. We were rather amused to see that the men of this working party, who had been well behind the line for at least a year previously, thought it quite an adventure to come up to the school. When they rolled up their sleeves for digging, we noticed, too, that their arms were white, forming in this a great contrast to our fatigue men. It was necessary to dig trenches, make stop-butts, build snipers' posts and observation posts, and all this hard work the A.S.C. working party tackled with extraordinary energy. We put up goal-posts, and they had a game of football each evening. Several of the A.S.C. party, I believe, were professional football players of repute.
But it would be tedious to describe the growth of the school step by step. Suffice it to say that, beginning with a class of a dozen to fifteen officers, who were dealt with by two officer instructors, our classes grew until we had twenty-five officers and forty or fifty N.C.O.'s at each course. But the actual teaching was only one side of the work of the school, for it was soon thoroughly known throughout the Army that if any Division, Brigade or Battalion wanted its telescopic sights tested, or if any individual sniper found himself shooting incorrectly, all that had to be done was to apply to the First Army Sniping School. The divisional snipers came up in 'bus-loads, and single snipers often came on foot. This continual testing of rifles kept Armourer Staff-Sergeant Carr busy both on the range and in his armourer's shop. Fortunately, as well as being an excellent armourer, Sergeant Carr was also a shot of no mean order, having shot in the King's Hundred at Bisley.
No. 1. Flat Parapet. The easiest possible form of parapet to spot movement behind—practically a death-trap.
The school had not been long in existence before the Canadian Corps came into the Army. They were then holding the line which they afterwards immortalized opposite the Vimy Ridge, and we were at once struck at the school by their great energy and keenness. There is no doubt that as a sniper, scout or intelligence officer, the Canadian shows the greatest initiative, and during the long period, well over a year, which they remained in the Army, our school was voluntarily visited by two Canadians for every one Britisher. They were most extra¬ordinarily helpful, too, and if ever I wanted the services of some Canadian officer for a particular purpose, they were almost always granted, and not only that, but he was on the spot within a few hours of my application.
At first the greater part of our teaching dealt with sniping, but as time went on the curriculum was much extended. Map reading, intelligence work, the prismatic compass, the range-finder, instruction on crawling, ju-jitsu and physical drill were all added. In addition to these, we had continual demonstrations of the effect of all kinds of bullets, both British and German, on the armoured steel plates used by us and by the enemy. We formed a museum, which became quite famous, and in which were various exhibits of German and British sniping paraphernalia. We also had many photographs, and again and again officers who had been through the course at the school sent up contributions. It was said that anyone going through the museum could really gain a very good idea of the development of sniping during the war, and this was by no means an exaggeration.
I soon found that the officers and men who came to the school were really in need of a clear mental change, and this we attempted to provide by giving long hours to games.
For many months the School was " unofficial," but at last, on the 24th November, 1916, more than fifteen months after I had begun serving as a sniping officer, we were granted a " provisional establishment." Up to this time, it was terribly hard to keep the school running, not to speak of the Corps Schools, which were its offshoots. The real difficulty was that when each division moved, all its personnel moved with it, and thus it came about that, seven weeks after the First Army School was started, Lieut. Gray's division moved out of the Army, and he was recalled to it ; in spite of applications from Headquarters that he might be allowed to remain and continue the good work he was doing, this was refused, and he went down to the Somme to be made officer in charge of trolleys, or sports, or some such appointment. The mere fact that he was a King's Prizeman and perhaps the best shot and the most capable sniper in the B.E.F. made not one whit of difference. All these qualities are, no doubt, of the highest use in an officer in charge of trolleys!
No. 2. Same parapet as in No. 1 after five minutes' alteration. Sandbags have been thrown on top. A man in a sandbag-covered helmet is looking over at A. and a man in a cap is looking between the sandbags at B. N.B. - Bags must be filled with broken stone of shingle to be bullet-proof; but should be sparsely used in case of bombardment.
On Gray's departure there set in for me a very strenuous time, for at the same moment the Commandant of the nth Corps School was also spirited away. I found an officer who had been through the course at the First Army School to take his place, and at the same time it became necessary to find a Commandant for the 1st Corps Sniping School. I had at this time no assistant myself, and was dealing with a class of fifteen officers, as well as sometimes as many as fifty snipers, who came up from the line for a day's instruction. My N.C.O.'s, however, stepped nobly into the breach, and Armourer Staff-Sergeant Carr took over the explanation of telescopic sights—work which lay entirely outside his duties. At that time there were ten or fifteen patterns of these sights in the Army, and each officer on the course had to learn to manipulate every one of them. In fact, the course was a pretty stiff one, and, overworked as I was, it was difficult to be certain how much knowledge the officer students carried away with them, so I started an examination paper on the last day, which was of a very searching nature. The full marks were a hundred, and this paper was continued until the school closed down after the Armistice. Again and again we had classes, the least successful member of which obtained seventy-five of the hundred marks.
During the period in which I was alone after Lieut. Gray's departure, an officer attended the school who became my assistant, Lieut. N. Hands, of the nth Warwickshire Regiment. I had great difficulty in obtaining his services, but finally his General exchanged a month of them for some lectures on Sniping by me. As I was taken in a car to and from the lectures—and as they were to be given after parade hours, it did not interfere with my work— this was a very pleasant arrangement, but Hands had not been with me long when there was another upheaval at the nth Corps School. The 6ist Division left, and Lieut. Benoy, who was in charge of the school, left with it. So Hands went across and took over the nth Corps School. He afterwards proceeded with the nth Corps to Italy, where he was awarded the Military Cross, and did fine work.
However, after another period of running the school alone on Hands' departure, Army Headquarters sent me Second Lieut. Underhill, of the ist K.S.L.I. Underhill had been wounded at Ypres, and came out for instructional duties. The story of his being sent to the school is an amusing one, in the light of after experience, for he was the most tremendous worker that I have ever known. He arrived at Army Head¬quarters at eight o'clock in the morning, and two hours later, feeling unhappy at still having nothing to do, he went to the G.S.O.i, and asked if he could not be put to work. The G.S.O.i, who was my very good friend, seeing from his papers that Under-hill had passed through Hythe, and was stated to be competent as an instructor, sent him out to me, and thus it was that I at last obtained a permanent assistant, and a better no man could have had. Our establishment was still only a tentative one, and it was not until some months later that we were allowed the two extra officers and four extra N.C.O.'s, and the dozen scouts and fatigue-men, who made up our staff.
Underhill had, by that time, been promoted to Temporary Captain, for good services, and became Adjutant, and Captain Kendall, of the 4th Warwick¬shire Regiment, who, after a course at the School, had become attached to the Royal Flying Corps as Intelligence Officer, took over the intelligence duties and map reading at the school. Lieut. W. B. Curtis, of the 31st Canadian Infantry, became scouting officer : he had had nearly two years' experience between the lines, and had been decorated on three occasions.
Our N.C.O.'s, too, were the very pick of the Army. There was Armourer-Staff Sergeant Carr, Sergeant Slade, of the Essex Yeomanry, Sergeant Hicks, of the 1st Rifle Brigade, and Sergeant Blaikley, of the Artists' Rifles. All these N.C.O.'s became in time amazingly proficient at their work. I have never heard a more clear exposition of the compass than that given by Sergeant Hicks, who, while one squad was firing, would sit down under the bank with the other, and explain to them all the mysteries of the magnetic North.
The physical training of the school was in the hands of Sergeant-Major Betts (Coldstream Guards), one of Colonel Campbell's magnificent gymnastic staff.
Sergeant Blaikley, who had drawn for Punch from time to time, was invaluable as an artist, and it was he who drew our Christmas card—" Der Sportsmann " —depicting a German gassing stags on a Scottish deer forest. This picture, which was very widely circulated, certainly obtained the flattery of imitation, as the same idea was used in most of our comic papers a month or two afterwards.
Captain Kendall was a trained surveyor, and an artist of no ordinary merit. Whatever conundrum was brought up by officers—and a great many were brought up—Kendall, in his own department, was certainly unassailable.
Christmas Card (1917) of the First Army School of S.O.S.
Besides the officers and sergeants, we had another member of the staff who did splendid work. This was Corporal Donald Cameron of the Lovat Scouts. Lord Lovat had visited the school, and had expressed his satisfaction at the way in which we were teaching observation and the use of the telescope. I asked him if he could get me a really good stalker to assist me, and he very kindly promised to do so. As one of his own men could not come, he sent me Corporal Cameron, who showed the greatest keenness, and had, I think, a peculiar affection for the last man over\ the stile. If ever there was a weak member in learning the compass, Cameron would seek him out and explain it. The results were wonderful, and certainly saved several privates from failure. Cameron, when I asked him his age on his joining, gave it as " offeecially forty-one." He was a very skilful glassman, and as such was of continual assistance to me. I remember one day when we were trying some aspirant reinforcements for Lovat Scouts Sharpshooters, and were looking through our glasses at some troops in blue uniforms about six thousand yards away, most of the observers reported them as " troops in blue uniform ; " but Cameron pointed out that they were Portuguese. His reasoning was simple. " They must be either Portuguese or French," said he, " and as they are wearing the British steel helmet, they must be Portuguese."
On my establishment, when it finally came along, there were apportioned to me three scouts among the eleven privates to the services of whom the school was entitled. I remember these eleven privates parading for the first time, and I remember also attempting to pick out, with Capt. Underhill, the three " scouts." One of the scouts was a Salvation Army musician, an excellent fellow, but quite unfit for his duties. Another was an ex-barber of the White Star line, and the third had for years been unable to break into a double. As the work of scouts with an Army School is of supreme importance, since one uses them to personate the enemy in scouting schemes, the employment of such men as these was quite impossible. Good fortune here, however, came to our aid, for some performing scouts from G.H.Q., who were giving demonstrations, came to demonstrate to us, and were afterwards attached to the school. These were boys under nineteen, and the three I kept ended up as past masters of their work. By Armistice Day they had been at the school for some eighteen months, were first-class shots, knew every detail of the course, and could pass an examination equal to any officer. At the physical training and ju-jitsu, which they had almost every day, they were really young terrors. In fact, I remember a commercial joy-rider who was visiting the school, and whom I was showing round, on seeing two of the boys doing ju-jitsu, saying with infinite tact : " 'Ere, where do you live when you are at home ? I'll keep clear o' your street on a dark night."
I might add that all three boys were accomplished Association football players, so that we always had a really first-class centre forward, left wing and half-back upon the premises. Our Association team, for so small a unit, was thus a very strong one, though it might have been much stronger had not so many of the older members of the staff been wounded.
I think the only other member of the staff that I need mention is Sergeant Foster of the Canadians. At a later date, it became our duty to train the Portuguese Army in sniping and shooting, and Sergeant Foster spoke a kind of Portuguese.
I have given at full length this account of the officers and N.C.O.'s of the school, because whatever efficiency the school obtained was founded upon their selection. Whenever it was possible to do so, it was always a standing order that between courses, when we sometimes had from two days to a week free, all instructors should go to the line. For this purpose, arrangements were made with different battalions to receive them. This kept the school in touch with the progress of events.
I have often regretted that I did not keep a Visitors' Book at the First Army Sniping School, for certainly enormous numbers of visitors came to us. Outside the officers of the B.E.F., of whom several hundred visited the school, we had attaches and missions of various allied and neutral powers—Japanese, Roumanian, Dutch, Spanish, American, Italian, Portuguese, Siamese and Polish officers, as well as large numbers of journalists, from whom, when they were not our own accredited correspondents, I used to conceal a good deal of the more secret parts of our work. One day, however, on being informed by the officer-in-charge of the correspondents that they were perfectly safe, and that I could show them anything, I showed them a small new invention by which we were able to spot the position of German snipers. I carefully warned them that it was not to be written about, but about three months later I saw a large and glaring article describing the visit of one of these journalists to the school. The description of the invention could have been of little interest to the great public which he served, but it was there, carefully set out. This was the only case of a definitely-broken promise of this nature which I came across during the war. Our own correspondents, Valentine Williams (afterwards Captain Valentine Williams, M.C.), Philip Gibbs, Beach Thomas, Perry Robinson, H. M. Tomlinson, Prevost Battersby, Percival Phillips, and others who came after I left G.H.Q., were welcome and trusted throughout the whole Army.
The feeling in the Army against the Press—for there certainly was, at one period, such a feeling—is really very often a rather stupid pose adopted by the younger officers, who usually copy some downright senior ; but it will always remain as long as journalistic mistakes are made—and that will be as long as wars last.
Outside the members of the staff, we had help from time to time from various officers who were attached for short periods of duty. Among these was Major A. Buxton, D.S.O., of the Essex Yeomanry, who took two classes of Lovat Scouts in observation. He was, I believe, the only officer who was habitually successful in catching trout in the French streams. Second Lieut. C. B. Macpherson of Balavil, a true expert with the telescope and map, was also attached to the school for a time. He came out at the age of sixty-two with his splendidly trained group of Lovat Scouts Sharpshooters. Another officer who was temporarily attached to the staff was Capt. T. B. Barrie of the Canadian Highlanders. He first came to the school on a course, and was afterwards lent to me by the Canadian 4th Division. Shortly after his first visit to the school he gained two M.C.'s in a fortnight, both in raids, in one of which he penetrated six hundred yards behind the German line. There can have been few more gallant officers in France, and his death later in the war was a matter of deep regret to all who knew him.
One day Major-General the Hon. W. Lambton, commanding the 4th Division with which I had begun my sniping duties in 1915, came to the school. His division was then in one of the other armies, but he wished to have observers trained, and sent up a party under Lieut. Kingsley Conan Doyle, of the Hampshire Regiment, the son of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, and one of the best observation officers we had at any time. Conan Doyle possessed an extraordinary facility for teaching and was most successful with one or two classes of Lovat Scouts which he took. He went back to his Division, was promoted to Captain, and acted in charge of the Divisional Battle Observers in the big battles of 1917. It is tragic to think that when the order came out for all medical students to return to complete their studies Capt. Conan Doyle went back to England ; there he contracted influenza and died. This has always seemed to me one of the saddest things in the war—to have gone through so much, to have rendered such good service, and finally to be struck down by the horrible influenza germ instead of the German shells among which he had walked about so unconcernedly.
I have now given you a somewhat rambling account of the formation, and of those who were chiefly connected with the early days, of the First Army Sniping School. On the very day on which it was founded, Sir Charles Monro left France to take up his appointment as Commander-in-Chief of the Forces in India. Sir Richard Haking succeeded to the temporary command of the Army, and as it happened was the very first visitor who ever came to First Army School. He told us that the King was coming almost at once into the Army area, and that he wished Gray and myself to go back to the nth Corps School to prepare for a Royal Inspection. This we did, but unfortunately the King was held up in Bethune by shelling, so that there was no time for him to visit us. We greatly regretted this, as a Royal visit would have been of enormous value to sniping at that time.
One visitor who came to the school was of peculiar interest to me. This was mv old friend Sir Arthur Pearson, who arrived accompanied by his son, whom I had last seen at the Boys' Cricket classes at Lord's when he was first in the running for the Eton Eleven, of which he was afterwards Captain. He was now an officer in the R.H.A. Sir Arthur Pearson went over the whole school and asked me many questions. Though he could not, of course, see the loopholes and all the rather technical work which I explained to him, it was perfectly amazing to realize the way in which he gripped it in its essentials. I think that he knew more about sniping, scouting and observation after the hour or two he spent at the school than I have known other men gather in a week.
The only ladies who visited us were Mrs. Humphry Ward and her daughter. It was terrible weather when they came and the little path which led up to the range, and which was really more or less the bed of a stream, had become a glacier of ice several feet in thickness. On the range the wind was blowing exceedingly cold, and few worse days could have been picked for a visit.
Sniper's robe on a 6ft. 4in. man in the open, Hawkins position. Distance from camera, 8 yards.
I remember Mrs. Ward saying to me that she thought sniping—the terrible and ruthless killing of men with weapons of precision —one of the most dreadful sides of the war. I pointed out to her the life-saving side of sniping, and how many hundreds and probably thousands of British officers and men were alive at that moment who, if it were not for our snipers, would have been killed by the Germans. Mrs. Ward quite saw the force of this argument and wrote a most admirable account of her visit to the school. I saw this in proof, but when it appeared the censors had clearly cut out a certain amount. Why they had cut it out no one could ever tell. We had at that time a good number of snipers' robes of painted canvas at the school. The Germans had somewhat similar robes and both sides knew that the other was using them ; but the British Censorship would never allow any mention of these robes. You might mention something really important, some new invention, or the effect of some new bullet, or any other matter which would be of real assistance to the Germans, but these robes were the one thing which seemed to interest the Press Censorship. Speaking as an Officer-in-charge of a very technical branch of work, I can only say that the Censorship was at times just like an ostrich hiding its head in the sand.
Mrs. Humphry Ward went over the whole school, and I must say that her questions probed our work more deeply than those of the average sight-seeing officer who visited us.
Apart from visitors who came for various purposes to see the school, we had also several officers who came on duty. Among these was Col. the Hon. T. F. Fremantle, now Lord Cottesloe. Lord Cottesloe knew more of telescopic sights and rifle shooting than did any of us at the school, and there can be no doubt whatever that his visit was of the greatest assistance to us. With him came Lieut.-Col. Robinson, who was in charge of the manufacture of telescopic sights at Enfield, and who did so much to assist us in a hundred different ways. I never had the opportunity of visiting the school in England of which Lord Cottesloe was the Commandant, but I had many officers and men who had received a sound grounding there.
Lieut.-Col. P. W. Richardson, the well-known Bisley shot, also visited the school. He was interested in sniping from the very earliest days, and was probably the first officer to advocate schools for the teaching of shooting with telescopic sights.
One evening after the school had been running well over a year I was sitting by the mess-room fire when a couple of officers were shown in. Both were wearing Burberrys, so that I was not able to see their rank, but both were very young-looking. One of them said : " We looked in to have a talk to you about schools, for we are going to start one. What we want to know is, how this school manages to get everyone who comes to it so damned keen on their job ? "
I pointed out that we had a really interesting subject to teach, and enlarged upon the great theory that I always used to hold that you did not want to have officers on a course too near a big town. If you have a good subject to teach, and can teach it intelligently, you ought to be able to interest them enough in the course to keep their minds at work, especially if you have at least two hours' games for those who want them every afternoon. If you are near a big town, it means dinners and sweet champagne, and other things which do not conduce to accurate shooting. Our school was rather more than four kilometres from Aire, and no one was allowed to go there without a pass. A pass could be had by any officer for the asking, but I found that, once the course got its grip, except on Sunday, Aire was very little visited.
My two visitors then ran through the curriculum of the school with me, and as the room was hot, removed their Burberrys. I then realized how great a compliment had been paid to the School, for both were regular soldiers of long service—as I could tell from their decorations and medals—and high rank. Presently, they went, and I never saw them again, nor did I learn their names, but we always thought that their visit was about the highest compliment ever paid to the First Army School of S.O.S.
One point that certainly struck us in our first coming to Linghem was the delight of the inhabitants in getting a permanent school quartered in their village. This, of course, meant prosperity to them. They had previously had one or two battalions, and there was still a large notice affixed on one of the houses, " Billet Officer," but when we came they had had no British soldiers for the last six months. We were welcomed with open arms. White wine which started the war at 90 centimes was 1.50 a bottle. Eggs, fruit, and everything else were cheap. When we left in 1918, that same white wine was 10 francs a bottle, and even a potato was hard indeed to come by.
We owed much to the courtesy of the Secretary to the Maire, M. Huart, who smoothed away every kind of difficulty. That occasional difficulties should arise is natural enough, but the French were for the most part extraordinarily kind. Here and there, of course, one came across difficult people, as for instance, the determined lady who, when a Portuguese class was quartered in the village, finding that they drank no beer at her estaminet—for the Portuguese do not drink beer, and the 10-franc vin blanc was rather beyond them—refused to allow them to draw water at her well, although it was the only decent one in the village. I had an interview with the lady, at which she wept copious floods of tears, and said that the Sergeant who had reported the matter to me was a diable, who had always disliked her from the first day that he saw her. But she ultimately, of course, had to give in, under threat of having a permanent guard placed upon the well.
FIND THE SNIPER. (The flat cap gives him away.)
I have often marvelled how little friction there really was between us and the French. If a French Army were quartered in England in the same way that we were quartered in France, I do not for a moment believe that our people would show towards them the same kindness and consideration which we received from the French.
When Gray and I had spent seven very strenuous weeks at the Army School we were both granted eight days' leave. Immediately on our return we were inspected by Sir Henry Home, the new Army Commander, who came out many times afterwards. It was always a matter of pride to the School to have some new thing to show to the Army Commander. On one occasion Lord Home inspected some Lovat Scouts whom we were training as reinforcements for our Army Groups, and after this an order came through to us to hold ourselves ready to train all reinforcements for Lovat Scouts throughout the B.E.F. How much Lord Home did to encourage and help the School no words can describe.
At this time also, or a little later, Major-General Hastings Anderson was appointed Chief of Staff at First Army Headquarters.