Another Bishops Stortford Soldier of the Great War Remembered.
On another of my not infrequent forays into the Old Cemetery in Bishops Stortford I stumbled across this grave near to the rear of the graveyard. It is not a CWGC headstone of Portland stone, but it does commemorate a soldier of The Great war. The black granite headstone marks the plot of the Payne Family of 51 Castle Street within the town, the head of the family John Charles Payne is remembered along with his wife Mary Ann Payne. Also appearing on the stone is their son:
‘John Charles Payne
Killed in Enemy Action
17th February 1917
Aged 30 Years
Reunited’
A cross check with the CWGC website reveals that Private John Charles Payne 43209 was a soldier of the 6th Northamptonshire Regiment who was killed in action on 17th February 1917 as correctly stated on the Bishops Stortford headstone. His name is one of 72, 337 that appear on the Thiepval Memorial raised to commemorate ‘The Missing of The Somme’. The inclusion of his name on Pier and Face 11 A and 11 D means that his remains have yet to be recovered from the battlefield in which he fell. This fact also explains why his name appears beside his parents on the family grave.
In February 1917, the 6th Battalion Northamptonshire Regiment formed part of 54th Brigade which in turn was part of the 18th Infantry Division. The Battle of the Somme had ground to a bloody halt in November of the previous year. However, the British military command demanded more of the troops at this stage in the war. It was decided that rather than hunker down and wait for the weather to improve before the next Spring Offensive was to be launched; the British should continue to harry the enemy in an effort to force their removal back to the Hindenburg Line.
In a conference of the Allied leaders in Chantilly over the 15th and 16th November 1916, a plan was put together that would see the British 5th Army attacking the Germans up the Ancre valley in the direction of Achiet-Le-Grand in aggressive piecemeal actions. It was intended that this plan would draw German troops and armour away from the efforts of the 1st Army (Vimy) and the 3rd Army (Arras) further to the North.
The fighting in which Private Payne lost his life occurred over 17th and 18th February 1917. By virtue of the 1921 deliberations of the Battlefield Nomenclature Committee the action is known to history as ‘The actions of Miraumont’. Elsewhere, the fighting of the 18th Division in the area is known as ‘The Battle of Boom Ravine’.
Boom Ravine was a system of sunken tracks formed roughly in the shape of a ‘T’. It is situated south of the River Ancre between Petit Miraumont and Grandcourt, two villages to the west of the main road between Bapaume and Albert (which bisected the British and German front lines on the Somme).
The ravine itself, formed many millennia ago, consists of a western and eastern arm with a north to south running ‘stem’ and it is these three elements that together form the characteristic ‘T’. But what of the name ‘Boom Ravine’? Well it owes nothing to the majestic war poetry of Private Baldrick, rather it derives from the German troops in the area who described the feature as ‘Baum Mulde’ or to you and I, ‘Tree Ravine’. Corrupt ‘baum’ and bang, you have ‘boom’!
The conditions in the area were appalling prompting the Official History of the War to describe the Valley of the Ancre in December in the following manner ‘Here, in a wilderness of mud, holding water-logged trenches or shell-hole posts, accessible only by night, the infantry abode in conditions which might be likened to earth-worms rather than human kind’. However, the resolve of the combatants was to be further tested when from mid-January a hard frost descended, freezing the earth down to an iron like state such that entrenching tools became useless and the creation of shelter in the earth required explosives. Furthermore a thick covering of snow made navigation of this already featureless landscape even more of a challenge for runners and carriers of rations and munitions.
The ultimate objective of the actions of Miraumont on 17th and 18th February was a feature called Hill 130 which rose between the villages of Petit Miraumont and Pys. Control of this high ground would allow observation over the German artillery positions in the area of Serre. On the right of this part of the line was 54th Brigade, including the men of the 6th Battalion Northants.
The brigade’s boundaries were formed to the west by the West Miraumont Road and to the east by the stem of Boom Ravine.
For the planned attack the principles of the creeping barrage were to be applied once again. This involved an advance behind a curtain of artillery fire that moved at a defined rate across the line of advance. The speed to be used for the 17th February attack was the subject of much discussion. The proposals ranged between 100 yards in 4 minutes to 100 yards in 2 minutes given that the frozen earth would allow a faster rate of advance. The creeping barrage would cease for 30 minutes at each objective to allow the troops to carry out mopping up operations before moving onto the next objective. In addition the artillery was to lay down fixed barrages on each of the objectives.
However, as Robert Burns famously said ‘the best laid plans of mice and men often go awry’ and so they did in this inclement corner of the Somme. The frozen conditions on the ground meant that entrenching was not an option so the attacking formations would have to form up on open ground taking whatever little shelter was available. On top of that, on the night of the 16th a thaw set in such that, with the passage of thousands of men, the ground was once more turned into a morass of liquid mud in which the men had to lie in for several hours prior to the agreed zero hour of 5.45 am. A consequence of the thaw meant that the agreed rate for the creeping barrage was now much too fast as the forward movement of men would inevitably be slowed as they negotiated the mud and the slime. However, no changes to the fire plans were possible in the remaining time available.
The 6th Battalion commenced their preparations on the night of 15th when the forming up lines were taped out and the British wire was sufficiently cut to allow movement through it. At 5 am a German barrage opened up on the line of The Gully (and the area 80 yards north of it), a feature that stretched eastwards from the bottom on the stem of Boom Ravine. This would likely where the bombardment would be concentrated on the night of the 16th so the forming up lines were adjusted accordingly to avoid this area. All assaulting troops of the division were to be in position by 4.45 am, sixty minutes ahead of zero hour.
Progress was good and well ordered for A and C Companies, but congestion caused by the extreme darkness and the effects of the thaw meant that it was not until 3.30 that they were in position. Three platoons of D Company reached their positions even later at 4.30. The remaining platoon of D Company were manoeuvring to their start positions from the area of the Gully when the Germans sent up very lights that preceded a barrage that fell on the Gully and the area to the north of it, exactly as foreseen on the 15th. Many of the men of that last D Company platoon were killed and wounded in this heavy shelling.
Tragically, the British command was to learn from prisoners taken in the battle that followed, that the losses incurred in the Gully were the result of a rare act of treachery. It was confirmed that the Germans had detailed foreknowledge of the imminent assault some six hours in advance and the information had been freely given by one or more British deserter who crossed over in the darkness to the German front line. The Germans were in possession of much information about the British plans, only they had zero hour as 5.15 rather than 5.45. This treachery leading to a significant loss of British lives was another stand out feature of this largely forgotten battle in the icy mud of the Ancre valley.
At 5.45 the British barrage opened up on the German objectives. The hours of waiting in darkness and silence were over and the men rose up from the mud and started the advance. The Germans responded with very light illumination and a desultory barrage which suggested that the British counter-battery actions were being effective that morning.
The men of the 6th Northants reached the first objective of Grandcourt Trench only to find that the enemy wire was insufficiently cut and in their efforts to find gaps through it Company units became mixed up and disorientated. The delays caused by the intact wire gave the Germans time to emerge from their dug outs and inflict heavy casualties by machine gun and rifle fire from Grandcourt Trench. The front waves of A Company in the centre of the Northants line got over the trench with little opposition only to be cut down by machine gun fire from a feature known as the Tongue protruding below the eastern arm of Boom Ravine (visible on the map as a ‘V’ shape under the ‘IN’ of Ravine. This machine gun position had to be cleared before the advance could continue. Later waves of A Company suffered casualties as resistance was maintained from Grandcourt Trench.
C and A Companies on the left flank and centre of the Regimental line respectively ultimately made it into Boom Ravine and Grandcourt Trench but the allocated time for mopping up of thirty minutes was insufficient and the soldiers of these two Companies were help up in these activities for a full hour. At the point that they were able to leave these positions to advance on the next objective of South Miraumont Trench the creeping barrage, intended to shield the next advance, had long moved off and was falling beyond the next objective. With the barrage safety passed over the heads of the defenders, the Germans were able to leave their dugouts and pour machine gun, rifle fire and trench mortars onto the now exposed oncoming waves British attackers. The South Miraumont Trench was occupied along its line, but the concentration of 18th Division troops in the trench was low compared with other sections.
At approximately 8.30 am a determined German counter attack was launched from the north east of the Northants position, from the area of Petit Miraumont. According to German prisoners after the battle, forewarned of the battle plans, the enemy were able to bring up specially trained machine gunners and marksmen who were highly skilled in counter attack tactics. This fact was borne out by the fact that upon recovery many of the British dead had single gunshot wounds to the head. In addition to the physical exhaustion the men were experiencing at this point in the fighting, their ability to resist the counter attack was severely hampered by the fact that their Lewis and Vickers guns as well as their rifles were not functioning, having become clogged whilst the men were prone for hours in the mud at their starting positions.
The troops of the 6th Battalion started to fall back across the entire regimental line. The attack had failed as whilst Boom Ravine had been taken the intended prize of Hill 130 remained in German hands.
In the days that followed the battle the Divisional commanders analysed the reasons for the failure in order to inform the Commander in Chief, amongst the conclusions were the following:
• The fact that the enemy had advance knowledge of the attack allowing them to prepare accordingly
• The fact that the wire in front of both Grandcourt and South Miraumont Trenches remained uncut by the artillery barrage and
• A lack of density of the creeping barrage.
Sadly, it is impossible at this stage to say exactly where or when in the actions in and around Boom Ravine that Private Payne fell. What is clear though is that his final 24 hours were pretty horrific. Moreover, his life could possibly have been spared were it not for a rare instance of treachery that saw detailed battle plans passed over to the German units facing them.
Added to that tragedy is the fact that within a week of the battle, the British would have been in a position to walk unopposed to the heights of Hill 130, as plans were already in place that were to see the German units in the area execute an ordered withdrawal to the deep defences of the Hindenburg Line. Had the British military command analysed available intelligence more effectively and gleaned the fact that a major tactical retreat was to occur within days , the ‘actions of Miraumont’ would not have taken place. The prize of Hill 130 would have become of no importance as there would be no German positions to observe from its peak.
Does anyone else have information about the life and times of this unfortunate soldier?
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