ARTICLES FROM TOWN AND COUNTRY JOURNAL (SYDNEY)
March 20, 1916
REGIMENTAL COMFORTS COMMITTEES
The following is a complete list of the Regimental Comforts Committees established to date, with the names of the respective secretaries and addresses of depots: -
Mining Corps—E. S. Royle, Robson’s, Canberra House, Elizabeth and Liverpool-streets.
(Abridged for Mining Corps only)
Through the courtesy of the Deputy Chief Commissioner, country and suburban branches may forward parcels intended for dispatch to the troops free of charge on all railways, provided they are properly addressed and endorsed: “Regimental Comforts.”
(Abridged for Mining Corps only)
May 3, 1916
SKILLED MINERS WANTED
The War Office asks for 10,000 skilled miners to do tunnelling work on the various fronts.
May 24, 1916
THE MINING CORPS
At the Sydney Stock Exchange, Mr E. L. Davis, chairman, presented, on behalf of the members, a battalion flag to the officers and men of the Australian Mining Corps. Lieutenant and Adjutant J. MacD. Royle responded on behalf of the men.
Jun 14, 1916
Questions Answered Column
ENLISTMENT OF MINERS
G. W. (Pilliga); The military authorities point out that youths between the ages of 18 and 19 years whose parents, guardians, or other persons acting in loco parents, consent to their enlistment on the condition that they are not required to embark for service abroad until they have reached the age of 19 years, may be enlisted on this condition, but the condition must be made in writing, and form part of the written consent to enlistment.
October 25 1916
PROFESSOR DAVID WOUNDED
A cable message has been received in Sydney Stating that Major David had been wounded. The injuries received by the much-esteemed Professor of Sydney University are reported to be a scalp wound, fractured ribs, and internal injuries. (Photo by Swiss Studios, Sydney)
November 8, 1916
Advertisement is now given:
Mining Corps (Royal purple)—E. S. Royle, Robson’s, Canberra House, Elizabeth and Liverpool-streets.
November 22, 1916
RECENT APPOINTMENTS
The following appointments in the A.I.F. were granted last week.
Mining Corps: — Lieutenant-Colonel A.C. Fewtrell, to command.
October 3, 1917
SAPPERS AND MINERS
FAME OF THE ROYAL ENGINEERS
In more ways than one the extraordinary mining feat by which the Tunnelling Companies of the Royal Engineers so splendidly paved the way for the glorious victory of Messines Ridge, on June 7, was unquestionably one of the very biggest achievements of the war, and very naturally attracted considerable attention to the doughty heroes who were responsible for such a truly great accomplishment (says the “Weekly Scotsman”). The Royal Engineers have won them glory and honour in every part of the globe; their proud mottoes are “Ubique” (everywhere), and “Quo Fas et Gloria Ducunt” (where right and glory lead).
“Ubique” is rather a curious coincidence in the cast of the Tunnelling Companies, for the men are really recruited from “everywhere.” These now renowned companies are a product of trench warfare, and the fine type of men composing them hail from the mining districts of the United Kingdom—England, Wales and Scotland—as well as from Australia and New Zealand. They are not miners of mushroom growth, but expert, practical men, familiar with the whole business of underground work from A to Z, and who have “joined up” for the duration of the war, with the very special object of giving the Huns a “blowing up” whenever General Headquarters say the word.
A BIG BLOW UP
It is unnecessary to point out that a gigantic mining affair like that of Messines Ridge necessitates many months of the most painstaking and careful preparation; is honeycombed with perils seen and unseen, and fraught with difficulties and obstacles that to even the initiated at times appears to be almost insurmountable. The cost in money, too, is enormous, no less than 447 tons of high explosives were used (figure out the £ s. d. of that, if you can), while the woodwork utilised for supporting galleries cost £80,000. But rarely has money on the battlefield been better spent, for it was the means of giving the British arms the least costly (in precious human lives) victory of the war.
The record of the Royal Engineers, to which as already stated, the Tunnelling Companies are attached, is not one which tells of fame and distinction won mainly in the firing line—that is not their forte; but chiefly consists of the performance of a multifarious number of duties which demand skill, practical knowledge, initiative, and enterprise, to carry out which, under certain conditions and circumstances calls for the display of very high courage, coolness and resource.
A BRAINY CROWD
It is not too much to say that there is absolutely no limit to the many peculiarly brainy and ingenious jobs which a special Providence seems to have cunningly pre-ordained for the benefit of the great corps, whom ever readiness and ubiquitousness is an understood thing in the British Army.
The “R.E.’s” are really the brains of the Army, and are at all times indispensable to a fighting force, whether it is advancing or retreating. Enormous responsibilities always devolve upon the engineers and sappers. To their lot falls a big percentage of hard and dangerous work; they must harass and hamper movements of the enemy by all the ingenious devices and cunning contrivances that brains can suggest, and on their defensive works the safety and security of their own army, to a very great extent, also depends.
On the march it is the men of the Royal Engineers—“the handy men of the Army”—who are with the advance guards, clearing away obstructions on the road, repairing devastated railways, and even making them, so that the marching of the main body may be unimpeded. In the retreat the place of the engineers is with the rearguard, accomplishing such demolition or preparing such obstacles as will hinder the pursuing hosts.
Then, when things begin to get busy right up in the fire-trenches, he designs the defences, the dugouts, and entanglements. He plots and lays the mines and counter-mines; he links up the trenches with one another, with the artillery; and with the commanding officer by a complicated system of telegraphs and telephones; he works the searchlights which protect against night attacks; he builds new roads and paths to provide for easy transit between the advance troops and the supports.
It is he who designs and constructs the shelter hutments and barracks where the men rest from their dose of danger in the trenches; it is he who attends to the water supply for man and beast—in a word, anything from a telegraph line to a roadway-falls by common consent to the lot of the engineer to provide. And, what is better still, he is not likely to disappoint.
IMPERTURBABLE
The imperturbability of this much sought after soldier artisan has often been commented upon. Nothing, as a matter of fact, upsets his equanimity. Under the most deadly shell-fire he carries out his instructions with amazing sang-froid.
In the art of bridge-making he is a master. Did not Sir Douglas Haig in a recent despatch pay a special word of praise to the splendid work of the Royal Engineers in the devastated areas of the Somme and the Ancre, outstanding being their feat in the bridging of the Somme at Brie?
The British infantrymen, at a pinch, may sometimes construct bridges which no engineers could possibly regard with indifference, but the practical skill and celerity which the ingenious sapper, as the engineer is popularly termed, applies to this task puts him in a class quite by himself.
Bridging is one of the most important jobs of the “R.E.s.” There is the pontoon bridge. The pontoons are carried in wagons and when a river has to be crossed they are brought to the bank and launched one by one, each being kept in place by an anchor. As soon as the river has been spanned, a roadway is laid across the pontoons. The army having crossed, the sappers remain behind, take the bridge to pieces, and pack it up.
There are many other types of bridges, such as the trestle, the double lock, the single lock, the cantilever, the cask, and the flying bridge, but it often happens on service that the sapper has to rely on his inventive genius, and to make at very short notice a bridge out of any materials that may be handy. Something of the power of the magician’s wand evidently belongs to the wonderful sapper. With a few barrels planks, and ropes, for example, he can construct a raft capable of carry men or horses from one side of a stream to another with surprising promptitude and with the smallest possible risk.
Another thing in which the sapper excels is the art of fortifying mills, churches, sheds, and courtyards. The manner and speed with which he can loophole even the most formidable of walls amounts to something like an inspiration, while the expedition and wholesale style in which he can wreck a railroad, block a canal, demolish a railway embankment, or ruin the parapets of a bridge, would win the admiration of the finest guerrilla warriors who ever put foot in stirrup.
THE “HELL GATE” OF SOISSONS
How the Royal Engineers blew up the “Hell Gate of Soissons will ever stand out in letters of gold. It is one of the most superbly sublime feats in a war which has been resplendent with epic deeds. The story has been dramatically told by Private Gaston Bossier of the 6th Cuirassiers.
“We were together, the Cuirassiers of France and the Royal Engineers of Great Britain, and we had retreated across the Aisne at Soissons. The Germans were advancing rapidly and were trying to rush their masses across the bridge after us. The bridge had to be blown up. German sharpshooters were firing at us from a clump of trees, and their mitrailleuses were working havoc among the Allies. Into this “Gate of Hell” your Royal Engineers suddenly went. A party of them dashed towards the bridge, and, although losing heavily, managed to lay a charge sufficient to destroy it, but before they could light the fuse they were all killed.”
With anguished eyes the French saw the rapid approach of the great army in hot pursuit, and knew that if the bridge could be blown up they would be safe. The fuse was laid. It had only to be lit, yet the khaki figures which dotted the roadway across the flowing river lay still and quiet. Once again, however, British bulldog tenacity was to be displayed. But let Private Bossier speak: —
“Then we waited. Another body of these brave fellows had crept near the bridge and had taken cover, but the German sharpshooters had somehow got their range, and were pouring a deadly fire upon them.
“In the next few minutes we saw something which we shall remember to our dying day. One of the Engineers made a rush alone towards the fuse. He was killed before he got half-way, but immediately he was down another man dashed up and ran on until he, too fell dead, almost over the body of his comrade. A third, a fourth, a fifth attempted to run the gauntlet of German rifle fire, and all of them met their deaths in the same way. Others dashed out after them, one by one, until the death total numbered eleven. Then for an instant the German rifle fire slackened, and in that instant the bridge was blown up, for the twelfth man, racing across the space where the dead bodies of his comrades lay, lit the fuse and set the bridge up with a roar; but a German rifleman brought him down dead.
But his duty was done. The bridge was down. The advance of the invading hosts was stemmed. The French army was saved.”
That is but one of the many thrilling incidents in the history of the Royal Engineers.