Friday, February 29, 2024
Last night I returned from a ten-day trip to Europe. We had this trip planned for while Alex still lived in Germany, but he took his new job offer and returned early, so the trip got postponed. We did it now, but we modified it a bit. The trip had two purposes, one was to see the battle sights where Lisa’s great grandfather (James Shaw) fought and to visit some of the places I served on my mission and visit old friends from my mission days. These overlap somewhat because one of my areas was in Flanders on the very ground where James fought. For the next few days, I’m going to call great grandpa Shaw, “James” in the interest of saving my fingers.
On February 18th we landed in Brussels. Alex had flown to Germany a few days earlier to visit some friends and took a train to Brussels, so we rented a car, picked him up from the train station, and promptly drove to Normandy to see the D-Day Beaches. Our intent was to get to Normandy and start touring north from there but on the way down we stopped at two places.
Lochnagar Mine Crater
One of the tricks played by both the Allies and the Germans during WW1 was to dig tunnels right up to the enemy’s trenches and then run up out of the ground and attack the enemy by surprise. At one point someone figured that since they were already there, why not plant some explosives under the enemy’s trench and kill some Germans while we’re at it. I can’t find anywhere that talks about how successful this strategy was, but they kept doing it, so it must have worked somewhat well.
On July 1st, 1916, the British went overboard and planted a LOT of explosives and created the largest human made sound in the history of mankind. They also created the largest crater made in WW1. Unfortunately, they somehow set it off a half hour early so when the troops came 30 minutes later, the remaining Germans had found cover and were prepared to meet the British when they finally did show up.
The Battle of Amiens
Nearby the Lochnagar crater, we stopped by the La Quesnel war memorial. It commemorates the Canadian Soldiers who died in the Battle of Amiens. The battle was the beginning of the 100 day offensive which lead to the end of WW1 and so was James’ last battle. It may make more sense if I talked about this battle at the end of our trip but we saw it first so I will talk about it now.
By now the Canadians had performed remarkably well in every one of their battles and had made a name for themselves and so they had a seat at the table when this battle was planned. This came towards the end of the German Spring offensive made possible by their treaty with Russia. This treaty allowed Germany to move 50 German divisions to the Western Front.
Everyone knew that the Canadians had the most difficult job in this battle. In fact, three days before the attack General Rawlinson is quoted as saying, “My chief anxiety [is the Canadians] as they have the most difficult job."
This was the first battle where the allies didn’t lead with a lot of shelling. They wanted to take the Germans by surprise. The allies sneaked into position and the battle started in the fog at 4:20 in the morning on a moonless night, August 8, 1918. The surprise was so great that a bunch of German officers were captured while eating breakfast.
Canada’s four divisions were involved, and James was in the 3rd division. The Australians were to their left and the French on their right. The attack moved so fast that the Germans didn’t even start responding until five minutes after the attack and even then, they were firing on positions already behind the Canadians.
The Germans were so surprised that many immediately surrendered. The allies took more prisoners of war in this battle than in any other battle up to this point. They pushed the line back 12 km on that first day. Far beyond their goal. This is significant in a war where the line is typically pushed back by a few meters. The Canadians advanced the line more than any other group and they did it on their first day. No one had expected this.
The official battle of Amiens ended on Aug 11 but as I mentioned earlier, this battle marked the beginning of the 100-day offensive, so a lot of fighting remained. James was wounded early in the 100-day offensive on Aug 18, 1918. According to the report, he suffered bullet wounds in his shoulder and foot. He was shipped back to England, but his wife was told that he had died. It wasn’t until much later that she learned he was still alive. In the end, Canada lost 1,036 soldiers on the first day of the battle of Amiens, much better than in earlier battles. In the hundred-day offensive 45,000 Canadians were killed or wounded. That is about one fifth of all those lost in the entire war. About 6,800 were killed. At this time the Canadians had about 100,000 troops so they lost about 6.8% of their soldiers.
1 comment:
Grandpa Shaw was wounded by an air bust bomb which was designed to explode in the and cover more area with shrapnel. I was told by Grandma that he layed in the mud for two days, considered dead. A passing soldier heard him groan and called a medic over. He was to a field hospital treated as best they could, then sent to England. I was told by Grandma that she had been told he was killed in action. I can’t even imagine what she went through until she told that Grandpa had survived and was in England and would be sent when he was able.
Grandpa never spoke of the war. He along with a number of others always stood at attention during the Remembrance Day services.
I could never understand that until I read a number of books on WW1 and the hell they went through during the shelling and horrible winter weather. They never had the protective clothing we had when I served
All I could think of was the mental and physical strength the survivors had and the nightmares they must had.
The way I found out about Grandpa serving was when I lived with them. My bedroom was upstairs and there was a door that went into the attic storage space, an area I was told never to go into. Well—- you don’t tell a young teenager not to something. I did go and there was a helmet and bayonet. I told Grandma what I had done and she explained Grandpa’s service. I just couldn’t believe that Grandpa, almost a head shorter than me survived and did not show any visible effects of his experience.
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