The road down from Anzac Ridge was a sight that I dont suppose you could see anywhere else in the world. For three miles you could hardly find a space to step off the road without stepping on at least one dead horse. That is a literal fact. In places there were half a dozen deep, muddled up with them were smashed & whole waggons, ammunition waggons, every assortment of gun from 18prs to 9.2 hows. All more or less smashed & pushed off the road. Millions of rounds of every sort of ammunition. Motor engines, all kinds of stores. Everything smashed to pieces. In the wh Thousands of dead Fritz & plenty of dead Tommies but not one Australian body. Over the whole battlefield I never once saw an Australian killed & left. The Tommies seemed never to care. They were renowned for running away and leaving wounded but they made absolutely no attempt to bury their killed. Practically every Australian who was killed forward were taken to a rear cemetry but every one with whom that was impossible was buried decently & a nice cross erected by his mates. The English appear to have no feelings in matters like that. It was most noticeable. When under the worst fire on Anzac Ridge I got a letter from Bruce saying that his unit – the 58th Brigade R.F.A. who had only been in a fortnight were pulled out to enable all the officers to attend a big sports meeting at Poperinghe. (Poperinghe was a major logistics and recreation hub behind the Ypres Salient, where various sports meetings and divisional horse shows were regularly organized to maintain troop morale and physical fitness. These events were a common feature of life behind the lines, encouraged by military authorities as a break from the front-line horrors) One of our battalions had done 8 days in the line & had a severe time. They were compelled to stay in another day to enable a certain battalion of the 29th Division to attend these races. I believe there were Tommy officers from every part of the front there, come out of action, left their jobs, – deserted to attend these wretched sports – and then we wonder why the English are hungry because the Germans still have the channel ports. These English think of nothing but sport, racing hunting cricket etc. It seems to me that Australia is the only country that habitually puts work before sport.
When we got into action I went up to the posy. We had a rather rough walk up but got there all right. For the next week the Canadians were going for Passchendaele. It is a great pity that we couldnt do it but the Australian Corps was done. In spite of that we would have done it but the Canadians were fresher, and there are some rather kind people somewhere who thought that it was the complete annilation of the A.I.F. should not be carried out at that time, in spite of that happening being the highest ambition of the English staff. The Australian Corps were on the right of the Canadian Corps and were advancing each day to support and conform to the Canadian advances.
For about a week there was a scrap nearly every day. The Artillery barrages used to be good to listen too. On Anzac Ridge we were in front of practically all the guns and to hear a barrage you should be in front of it. We has a lovely view of the country from our battery position. We could see Broodsiende, Zennebec, Passchendaele, Holhurst Forest (Houthulst Forest), Proven, Poperinghe, Ypres and Pologon Wood. The whole country was shellholes and in every shellhole there was a gun. Flashes seemed almost continuous. The noise was so great that it was almost impossible when controlling the battery to hear your own guns go off. But you have seen good descriptions of all this. The other side was not so nice. That is when the Germans did the shelling. Every night for the whole hours of darkness we were shelled with 77mm gas shells, plentifully mixed with 4.2 H.E. At dusk regularly you would hear the pop pop pop of the Yellow Cross gas shells – Mustard gas, probably the worst of the lot, sometimes near, some times well away – 100 yards -.
Occasionally he treated us to 8in & 11in but most of the bigger stuff went back behind Westhoec. For a few hours during the day he wouldnt shell us but not often. In those days if he wasnt putting the shells right in your dugout you didnt take much notice of them. But still the continual bombardment & the continual atmosphere of gas told of on everyone. The road of course had a standing barrage always. Still it was hardly a job to be hankered after and you didnt find anyone – expect our Colonel going there for a picnic. I only took a small party – two of our telephonists up with me as people taking larger parties had had heavy casualties at times. We just took a phone, a lamp & something to eat. We left at about 4 in the afternoon because although we had to go some distance in the open to about 300 yards in the read of our front posts it was better to risk that than to walk along the duckboards in the dark & it was always considered the proper thing to do, to arrive at any place in time to let the person you were releiving get right home before dark.
We got up all right & let the nex other people get home. There wasnt much shelling on the way up. One 77 was rather close, so close in fact that I put my foot into the hole it made in the duck board before I could stop but buried deep in the mud and did no damage to anyone.
Right past out dugout ran the Helles Track a rough track of duck boards & planks just laid on the mud which supplied the whole Broodseinde front. At night there never stopped the continual shuffling beat of the passing parties, mostly carrying up rations & stores or going to or returning from work. No one could have lived in the country if it had not been for the mud. It deadened the force of most of the shells. The old tin hat was a great protection there as most of the pieces fell blew up in the air & fell nearly vertically. You always had a shell hole handy to get down into & you could always (?) on 50% of the shells going into a hole full of water.
One day I went right forward to the crater in Broodseinde Ridge for divisional O.P. As we were being As the whole division was being worked as a unit only one O.P. was necessary. A great many casualties were caused getting to & from this place although when you got there we had a pill box at least 6 feet thick of solid concrete to live in.
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