Saturday 1st January 1916

Billeted in huts near Rue Marle

At 1.25am the Battalion was placed on high alert as the planned raids against the German lines (see 31^st December) were launched. Conditions were described as ‘still and starlit. The enemy appeared very alert. Flares were rising continuously from all along the hostile line, and three searchlights, sweeping No Man’s Land, added to the difficulties of the raiders”.

The raiding party from 10th Northumberland Fusiliers, went out into No Man’s Land opposite Farm Grande Flamengrie at 12.35 am and approached the German lines over the next half hour. However, at 1.10 they were spotted by the Germans, who were using powerful searchlights to sweep the area.  Under intense fire the raiding party had to abandon any attempt to advance and withdrew to their own lines. The raid by 9^th Yorkshires against German House proved more successful. Having cleared a path through the German wire the raiding party approached the German lines until, at 1.33 am, under cover of a British artillery barrage against the German support trenches, the men rushed the front line. For the next fifteen minutes the men worked through the front line trenches, meeting varying degrees of resistance, and killing around twenty Germans, before retiring under the cover of the British barrage.

Immediate casualties to the raiding party were slight, with just seven man wounded. The raids did, however, produce a sustained and ferocious response from the German artillery in retaliation, which, in turn, was met by artillery, rifle and machine-gun fire from the British lines. This barrage fell upon the British front lines but also on the communication, support and reserve trenches. Not only did this prevent the raiding party from returning to the British lines for some time, but it also resulted in one officer and three men being killed in the British trenches, with twenty others wounded.

At last, at 4am, the Battalion was ordered to stand down, and the remainder of the day passed quietly.

CQMS Henry Briley (see 25^th December 1915) produced a master-stroke of understatement in a letter home; he commented that, “New Year’s Day was spent under circumstances which did not permit of merry making”.

In the midst of the German bombardment Pte. Job Kayley (see 29^th December 1915) had written a letter home to his family which gives some sense of the situation: “I was put on guard at Headquarters … and something is going to happen in the morning. All our lot are standing to and we shall have to stop at our posts if we get our heads blown off.  I am in the Guard Room and there are two prisoners in bed, and I shall have to look after them when the boys go over the top. This room had the top blown off with shells and the Germans could send another in any minute”.

J.B. Priestley also reflected on the day in a letter written during the evening:

“We came into the trenches (an emergency call) the day before yesterday, but we are in the reserve trenches, not the firing line. I am writing this in my dugout (about two feet high and five feet long) by the miserable light of a guttering bit of candle. Soon it will go out, and then (for its only 5.30 and a wild night) come the long, long dark hours until ‘stand to’ in the morning.

Last night, old year’s night, was a nightmare evening. At 1 o’clock the troops in the front line made two bomb attacks on the German front line, and we’d to support them. For an hour it was literally hell upon earth. I had to spend most of the time crouched in the mud by the side of a machine gun. It was going nearly all the time and the noise nearly stunned me, then the sickly smell of cordite and the dense masses of steam from the water cooler didn’t improve matters. Both our artillery and theirs were going for all they were worth, and they lit up the sky. You could see some of the shells going through the air, swift, red streaks. Then an incessant stream of bullets from both sides. Bombs, trench mortars, making a hellish din, and the sky lit up with a mad medley of shells, searchlights, star lights, the green and red rockets (used for signalling purposes), just about an hour of hell, and that was our introduction to the year of 1916.

This morning I learned that we had lost about 80 men and several officers (the official casualty figures would indicate that this estimate proved to be somewhat exaggerated), so it cost us pretty dearly. I’m afraid that you would hardly recognise me if you saw me now. It is three days since I had a shave and two since I had a wash. I’m a mask of mud. My hair is matted and I resemble an Australian beachcomber”.

In the evening orders were received for the Battalion next day to relieve 9^th Yorkshires in the front line trenches.

Pte. Joseph Harry Poole (see 27^th September 1915) was transferred back to England; the exact reason for his transfer has not been established but it is most likely that he had been taken ill. 

The administrative dealings with CSM Harry Dewhirst (see 29^th December 1915) rumbled on. It was now requested that confirmation be issued as to whether, having been reported as unfit for certain duties at a Base Depot, he should be sent home to England.