St Eloi, 1915–1916

The battle, stage by stage

1. 15 October 1915 – March 1916

   Below the hill of St Eloi

   After two tours near Messines, the 21st Battalion (Eastern Ontario), 4th Canadian Brigade, 2nd Canadian Division, goes into the line south of St Eloi in mid-October 1915, taking turns with the 20th Battalion, and by McBride's account holds it until the following April. In The Emma Gees he places the sector between the Voormezeele–Wytschaete road and 'the bottom of the hill at the top of which was the village of St. Eloi': the N and O trenches, waterlogged and full of rats, with support in the Vierstraat–Brasserie line and billets back at Dickebusch and La Clytte. Herbert McBride, a 41-year-old Indiana lawyer and rifle champion who enlisted as a private, serves in the battalion's machine-gun section, with guns at farms the men called Captain's Post and Sniper's Barn.

2. December 1915 (night)

   To the German parapet

   The work that won McBride the Military Medal. According to the citation summarized from his service file, he went out on night scouting patrols, twice reached the German parapet, brought back a small flag attached to an explosive canister, and gathered intelligence by listening to the Germans talking in their trench. The Emma Gees tells a similar flag story about a man it calls 'Lucky', dated to a rainy November night, at a road crossing both lines where they were 'only about seventy yards' apart; the patrol is drawn there, at the right of the 21st's sector, but the exact spot is not recorded. The medal was gazetted in June 1916.

3. Winter 1915–16

   Sniper's Barn

   From a hedge in front of Sniper's Barn, about 500 yards from the nearest German trench, McBride kept a sniping nest burrowed under stored tobacco; at Captain's Post, a farm about 1,250 yards from the enemy, he found kittens unhurt in a haymow after a shelling. The guns fired at German transport by night. With .303 Mark VII ammunition, a 400-yard shot takes about six-tenths of a second and drops about five feet, which is why British sniping instructors such as Hesketh-Prichard thought longer shots wasteful and taught men to aim at the teeth. McBride was made sergeant on 26 December 1915. Positions of both farms are estimated from his stated distances.

4. 27 March 1916, 4:15 AM

   The mines go up

   Just north of the 21st's sector, British tunnellers fire six mines under the German salient at St Eloi, the Mound. Four go off close together under the German front and support lines, and two smaller ones on the flanks in no man's land. The 1st Northumberland Fusiliers of the British 3rd Division get across on the right with hardly a loss; the 4th Royal Fusiliers on the left are caught by machine guns firing from their flank. About 200 men of Reserve Jäger Battalion 18 are taken prisoner, and by one German estimate about 300 more are buried by the blasts. Over the next week the British fight for the last craters in water and mud. Crater positions here are approximate.

5. 3/4 – 5 April 1916

   The Canadians take over

   On the night of 3/4 April the 2nd Canadian Division relieves the worn-out 3rd Division before the new ground is consolidated; it is the division's first big action. The 6th Brigade's 27th Battalion takes over in front of the craters and parts of the 31st hold the left, toward the canal. The trenches are waist-deep in water and broken by the craters, relief parties are tied together so no one drowns in a shell hole, and shellfire blocks food and repairs. The landscape is so torn up that the Canadians cannot reliably tell one crater from another.

6. 6 April 1916, about 3:30 AM

   Counter-attack in the dark

   After hours of bombardment, two German battalions of Reserve Infantry Regiments 216 and 214 break into the centre and retake craters 2, 3, 4 and 5. The Canadians hold on in craters 1, 6 and 7; with their bearings lost and many runners killed, some parties report holding craters they are not in, and Canadian bombing counter-attacks fail. On the night of 6/7 April the 21st Battalion comes in to relieve the 27th and 29th, and the 4th Brigade takes over the craters.

7. 8 – 10 April 1916 (nights)

   The 21st goes in

   On the night of 8/9 April the 21st Battalion's bombers attack craters 2 and 3 from the west and are thrown back by rifle and machine-gun fire; a larger attack with the 18th and 19th Battalions the next night also fails, and a German attack is beaten off with grenades. Private Ivan McGill of the 21st is among those killed on 8 April; he is buried at Ridge Wood. McBride was still a sergeant in the battalion's machine-gun section, but his part in this fighting is not recorded in the sources checked. Complaints about the Ross rifle jamming in the mud were reportedly among those that led to its withdrawal later in 1916.

8. 16 April 1916

   The camera does not lie

   Royal Flying Corps photographs finally show what patrols had reported: Germans in craters 2, 3, 4 and 5, with a trench west of them. Planned attacks are cancelled. Between 4 and 16 April the 2nd Canadian Division has lost about 1,373 men; German losses are about 480. The Germans end where they began, and the Canadian Corps commander, Alderson, is replaced by Julian Byng on 28 May. Three days later, on 31 May, McBride gets a temporary commission and leaves the 21st; dismissed by court-martial in February 1917, he goes home to train American troops and write the books that made his name.