Whose Name We Share

13 Ypres On the first day of September 1916 the recon party would move forward to select Battery positions for the preparations of moving further into the front line. They selected a spot in the vicinity of Ouderdom, Belgium. All Batteries of the Brigade would do this independently and make their own preparations to ready themselves to move into the frontline. Once the batteries were firm it was time to register. Registration firing began on the 3 rd September, continuing through until the 8 th . The details were then passed onto the wider brigade, but there was the constant threat of counter battery fire. The 103 rd Battery fired back at an enemy gun position on the 11 th of September, silencing them in the process. With small victories littered throughout, the battery would be relieved by the 105 th Battery before falling back to Ouderdom on the 14 th of September. During their short stay on the front lines they would end up firing 446 HE rounds. The arrival of October saw the Germans step up their retaliations. The war so far had been brutal and unforgiving, constant shelling happening on both sides as well as the constant charges made by the British and Australians. It was a war of attrition littered with barrages and often pyrrhic victories, which had little to show in terms of ground gained. On the 8 th of October the Germans fired a heavy mission consisting of 36 4.2” shells and the 103 rd Battery retaliated with 21 rounds. There was a constant back and forth like this as the once beautiful greenery of France turned to fields of mud and debris. The following day the Brigade itself would retaliate with several missions. This was to suppress the intermittent and erratic firing coming from the German lines. The German’s didn’t seem to target any one area in particular as their missions fell onto scattered areas of the Brigade’s lines. On each and every occasion the Brigade retaliated it suppressed the firing, almost as if it were a reminder of who was in charge. The Germans were clearly feeling out the area, but every mission they fired seemed to be received with quick and effective reactions from the Brigade. Once satisfied that the German’s were suppressed, the Brigade ordered all Batteries to fire at pre-determined locations so they could stir the Germans into life. They attempted to create movement in the enemy lines so that they could be more easily observed, opening the way to more effective fire. Once the ground work was laid, the 103 rd Battery would once again rotate with the 105 th Battery back into the wagon lines at Ouderdom on the 16 th October. This constant shift was required to keep the Batteries effective and fresh, so to speak. They would return to the frontline in a new position in Eles, the Somme, on the 26 th where they’d fire 151 HE rounds as a part of a normal barrage, if you could even consider it normal. This was a Brigade wide effort as they continued to sap the German line, but they would face heavy counter-battery fire late that afternoon. The constant shelling continuously shifted the landscape around the soldiers of the 103 rd Battery. Throughout the remainder of the month they’d continue firing registration of barrage lines, now only receiving light intermittent fire in return.