72nd Seaforth Highlanders of Canada - waughfamily.ca

IN THE HINDENBURG LINE."D"Companies, not waitingfor the assault to reach theirstand, advanced to meet the enemy. These aggressive tactics somewhat damped the ardour of the Germans, as theymade no determined effort to reach our trenches. Afterthis last effort, the enemy quieted down, and it became possible to proceed with the interrupted plans for the mainoperation.The difficulties which had arisen out of the bitter fighting of the 1st will be apparent even to the lay reader.Casualties had been incurred, and reorganization wastherefore necessary.Seven officers were out of the fighting,and the N. C. O. s had suffered proportionately. When itisconsidered that there were but eleven hours in which toaccomplish the necessary changes, some idea of the taskmay be gained. But the chain of responsibility was highly developed, and non-commissioned officers and men stepped almost automatically into the blanks. Dawn on September 2nd found the Battalion ready for the historic attack on the Drocourt-Queant trenches, the famous northernswitch of the Hindenburg Line itself.As the men atood in the hush which always seems toprecede the opening bombardment of a big attack, it waswith an indescribable feeling of expectancy that theylooked towards the dawn and realized that within a fewhundred yards lay the trenches of a line which, accordingto the German boast, was impregnable. In the \vest, theHindenburg Line was the Alpha and Omega of the Fatherland s defence. Openly the Germans had told the worldof the consequences that would ensue to troops attemptingto storm it ;of its belts of barbed w T ire defenses, of its dugouts, its machine gun emplacements, and its admirable supporting trenches. The validity of these assertions was nowto be ascertained.In silence along the trench the men slipped out theirmagazine "cut-outs." Officers checked over their final instructions to their men in short, tense sentences ;in a word,i 129