Days 7 & 8 Friday and Saturday 7 & 8 April 2017

A bit of bad news folks, due to the wi fi in the hotel being unavailable yesterday I wrote a magnificent piece in Word with the intention of doing a cut and paste to the blog once the wi fi was available again.  The blog for those days is full of interesting information and historical facts about TGW battles and deeds of daring and darstadlyness (is that a word?), however I have been unable to cut and paste it from word onto this site........ don't give up hope I am determined to make it work, even if only for your benefit.  Good news folk, I have managed to copy the blog as below, formatting and pics to follow.

Days 7 & 8 Friday & Saturday 7 & 8 April 2017

The hotel wi fi appears to be playing up so this is being typed in word in the off chance I can cut and paste it later into the blog.  The other weakness in my plan of attack this afternoon is that I am doing the blog in the hotel bar whilst drinking large Heinekens,  thirsty work out in the field, what.

Friday and Saturday have been beautiful spring days, 10 degrees earlier in the morning getting up to 18 – 19 degrees in the afternoon, blue skies although a bit hazy.
First of all I will get the people who have irritated me over the last two days out of the way.  First up the Canadians, or at least the half of the Canadian population that appears to be travelling around the Western front at the moment.  You see it is currently the 100th anniversary of the battle of Arras, now the Canadians fought a big battle as part of Arras called Vimy Ridge.  Vimy Ridge is a bit like our Gallipoli and the Canadians take it very seriously.  So they are here in there droves (or whatever Canadians travel around in) for their various commemorations and services.  There are bus loads of Canadian students, bus loads of Canadian pensioners and bus loads of everything in between.  The roads have been closed off so they can park their stupid buses and so they can wander around without fear of being run over.

I went to the Newfoundland memorial at Beaumont Hamel, this was packed with buses and school students.  The Newfies suffered terrible losses on 1st July 1916, the first day of the Somme battle.  (They also fought with us at Gallipoli, but that’s a different story).   The funny thing is that although the Canadians are keen to claim the Newfies as their own, Newfoundland was still a British dominion during TGW and didn’t become part of Canada until 1946 or thereabouts.

The second national group to irritate me was the Northern Irish, or the one woman that I had some dealings with.  I decided to visit the Ulster tower memorial which also has a tea room attached.  The gate was open so naturally I drove up the driveway towards the tower and tea rooms, and then this woman rushed out at me shouting in French.  I patiently explained to her that I didn’t speak French, so then she rudely told me in Irish accented English that I couldn’t park there and the gates were only open for the gardeners etc.  So after telling me to nick off she then said as an afterthought that I could come back once I had parked the car, of course that wasn’t going to happen.

Friday was spent covering the 1st day of the Somme, as much and as well as I could.  Warning Will Robinson, warning Will Robinson, history content coming up.  On the 1st of July 1916 the British opened their big battle to the north of the Somme river, it was originally intended to be a joint operation with the French but due to the French being heavily involved in the fighting around the fortress city of Verdun to the south they had to reduce their involvement in the battle of the Somme.  So the Somme became predominately a British battle and by the time it wound down in November 1916 it had included the British, Australians, New Zealanders, Canadians and South Africans.  The British casualties on the 1st day were around 50,000, dead, wounded and missing.  The worst day in British military history.  These losses were incurred for virtually no gains, although the limited French involvement to the South of the battlefield was slightly more successful.

The British Memorial to the Missing at Thiepval

In the past, I like most Australians have tended to focus on the Australian involvement in the battle, namely Pozieres, Moquet Farm (moo cow farm) and later Flers.  But of course the Somme battles were far larger than the Australian involvement.  So driving the whole battlefield from North (Gommecourt) to South (Metz & Fricourt) gave me the opportunity to develop an understanding of the bigger picture of the overall battle.

Fricourt German Cemetery - Southern end of the Somme battlefield

In contrast Saturday’s expedition was revisiting the 40th battalion’s involvement in the defence of Amiens on and around the 28th March 1918.  The 40th battalion was raised in Tasmania and was the only purely Tasmanian battalion in the TGW.  It was part of the 10th Brigade which was part of the 3rd Division commanded at the time by John Monash who went on to command the Australian Corp.

My grandfather Allan Sutton enlisted in the AIF in March 1917 as a 17 year old, under age but with a letter from his mother saying he was old enough to enlist.  He arrived in France as a reinforcement for the 40th battalion in February 1918.

On 21 March 1918 the Germans started their last great push of the war and part of that was to seize the  city of Amiens, split the British and French armies and seize the channel ports.  Who was between them and victory I hear you ask?  The answer……. my grandfather, private Allan Edwin Sutton.  Well, to his credit he did his duty and the Germans never did take Amiens and they didn’t win the war.

Part of the battle of the defence of Amiens was around the town of Morlancourt on the Ancre river and this is where the 40th battalion were involved.  Each time I have visited here I have looked at another aspect of the battle and today was looking at their advance from Heilly and also part of the German aspect of the battle.

I located the copse where the German machine gunners had been firing on the 40th battalion positions and I could see the craters left by the British 4.5in howitzer shells.

4.5in Howitzer Shell Craters (take pot shots at my grandfather at your own peril)

That will teach them to fire at and wound my grandfather!

So I am still drinking Heineken and the Wi Fi is still down so hopefully I can post this and some pics shortly.




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