A direct hit
27 November 1916 (diary): 'This evening was the most exciting of any since I came over... we were told that a mine on our left would be set off that night. Presently on the given time... we heard a dull thud, felt the ground shake, and with a noise more like a hiss than anything, a great sheet of white flame poured towards the sky, accompanied by smoke and great volumes of earth which seemed to rise 300 feet [about 90 metres] in the air. It lasted only a few seconds, but before it subsided our batteries opened up in all force. The noise was awful, nothing seemed coherent, it seemed to me our heavy and light artillery, trench mortars, stokes guns and machine guns made a ceiling of rushing steel above our heads. Flares of all sorts were thrown up, making with the various explosions a strange and weird light.
'...we thought that Fritz had set off a counter-mine almost under us...'
'The enemy did not return fire for some minutes, but when they did the tumult increased and above all could be heard the crash of the explosions of their 'Minnies'. They somehow got a direct hit on one of our explosive dumps which exploded with a detonation louder than anything I ever heard. It seemed to rock the very earth and we thought that Fritz had set off a counter-mine almost under us. Debris of all kinds fell about us and on us, but none near me was hit, tho' when Mr Mitchell, our acting OC was killed, he was just up the trench a short piece. The bombardment lasted about 40 minutes and ceased and things resumed the semi-activity of previous nights.
1 December 1916 (diary): 'While in the dug-out I felt and heard a shell or Minnie light close by and on coming out to go back to my post I found it had struck just outside the officers' cook house and killed two batmen. They were badly smashed up and the sight of them was not nice and made me feel shaky going back on duty.'
Published: 2002-03-01
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