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THE FIFE AND FORFAR YEOMANRY

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THE FIFE AND FORFAR YEOMANRY

And 14th (F. & F. YEO.) BATTN. R.H.
1914-1919

BY MAJOR D.D. OGILVIE

WITH A PREFACE BY
MAJOR-GENERAL E.S. GIRDWOOD, C.B., C.M.G.
Lately G.O.C. 74th (Yeomanry) Division

ILLUSTRATIONS AND MAPS

LONDON
JOHN MURRAY, ALBEMARLE STREET
1921

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All rights reserved

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FOREWORD

Major Ogilvie has done me the honour of asking me to write a short preface to a work which to me is of peculiar interest.

To write a preface—and especially a short one—is a somewhat difficult task, but my intense pride in, and admiration for, the part played by the Battalion with which the gallant author was so long and honourably associated must be my excuse for undertaking to do my best.

From his stout record as a soldier the author's qualifications to write this history are undoubted. His readers will be able to follow from start to glorious finish of the Great War the fortunes of that gallant little band of Fife and Forfar Yeomen who ultimately became the 14th (Fife and Forfar Yeomanry) Battalion The Royal Highlanders.

There was little of moment in the operations of the Egyptian Expeditionary Force in which this unit did not take part. In divers theatres of war they answered the call of Empire—from Gallipoli to Jerusalem, from Jerusalem to France—ever upholding the honour of their King and Country and the best traditions of the British Army.

No matter what by-path of the Great War they trod they bore themselves with the undaunted spirit of their forefathers.

The experiences of the Battalion were so full of interest as to seem well worth placing on record—quite apart from the military importance of the operations in which they were concerned.

The ordinary reader must consider the conditions under which the work of this unit was carried out—often under a burning sun and again in bitter cold, mud and torrential rain—conditions which might well appal the stoutest heart, but here I note that the gallant author, as I expected, makes light of the many hardships and vicissitudes that he and his comrades were called upon to endure.

Again, when we consider how these heroes first entered the lists as cavalry, were then called upon to serve as dismounted cavalry, and finally as infantrymen, it surely speaks highly for that "will to win" that they had not long before the cessation of hostilities died of a broken heart!

Many a time during the two years that I had the honour to command the 74th (Yeomanry) Division both in Palestine and France, I noted—not without a feeling of intense pride—the cheery "never-say-die" spirit which pervaded all ranks of this splendid Battalion.

No matter what task was set them—no matter what the difficulties and privations to be encountered—all was overcome by that unfaltering determination and unswerving loyalty which carried them triumphant wherever the fates called them.

In conclusion of these few poor remarks of mine, let me congratulate the author on his story. If others read it with the same interest and enjoyment with which it has filled me, I can only think that the author's labours have not been in vain.

Further, may these remarks go forth, not only as a token to my old friends of the 14th Battalion The Royal Highlanders, of the admiration, affection, and gratitude of their old Commander, but to the whole of Scotland as a tribute to the memory of those good and gallant comrades of the "Broken Spur" whom we left behind in foreign lands.

ERIC S. GIRDWOOD,

(late) Major-General,
Commanding 74th (Yeomanry) Division.

Portsmouth,
20th August 1921.

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INTRODUCTION

This short history, written by request, was started shortly after the Regiment was disbanded. For the delay in publishing it, I must plead the great mass of inaccuracies which had to be corrected and verified, entailing a considerable amount of correspondence and consequent lapse of time. It has been compiled from Official Diaries and Forms, and from a Diary kept by Lieut.-Colonel J. Younger, D.S.O., without whose assistance it would never have been completed.

It will, however, recall to the reader's mind the strenuous and eventful days we spent together in a regiment of whose history we are all so justly proud, and whose career now as a Yeomanry Regiment is ended, and it will recall the gallant fellows with whom we served and many a gallant deed.

To the glorious memory of those whose graves lie in a foreign land, I humbly dedicate this book.

D. DOUGLAS OGILVIE.

April 1920.

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CONTENTS

tag="{http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml}a">Egypt—1916 30   List of Officers 40 IV. Egypt and Palestine—1917 41 V. Palestine—1918 107 VI. France—1918 119 VII. Some Personalities 143 VIII. The Predecessors of the Fife and Forfar Yeomanry 159   Honours and Awards 165   List of Casualties 168   Index 204

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LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

  "C" Company Officers' Mess, Wadi Asher 58   Turkish Trench, with dead Turks, Hill 1070, Beersheba 62   Bathing, Regent's Park 62   Battalion Bivouac near Suffa 110   The Irish Road crossing the Wadi Ain Arik 110   The Battalion Football Team 140   The Fife and Forfar Imperial Yeomanry at Annsmuir 158   Detachment at H.M. The King's Visit to Edinburgh 160   Regimental Drill at Annsmuir, with Skeleton Enemy 160   Group showing Six successive Commanding Officers 164   The Cadre on arrival at Kirkcaldy 164

MAPS

  Our Trenches in the Front Line at Suvla 20   Battle of Sheria 68   Operations in Palestine, 1917-1918 106   Trench System on the Somme 134   The Lys Sector 142

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THE FIFE AND FORFAR YEOMANRY

CHAPTER IToC

AT HOME—1914-1915

August 4th, 1914, marks the end and also the beginning of two great epochs in the history of every Territorial Unit. It marked the close of our peace training and the beginning of thirteen months' strenuous war training for the thirty-seven months which we were to spend on active service abroad.

The Fiery Cross which blazed across the entire Continent caught most people unawares and unprepared—but not so our headquarters. Our mobilization papers had already been made out and were despatched immediately on the outbreak of war. Each one of us was bidden to report forthwith to his Squadron Headquarters, and while we kicked our heels there, officers were scouring the country for horses. Soon these came in of every sort and shape, and in a week's time the Regiment was concentrated at Blairgowrie.

The headquarters of the Regiment was at Kirkcaldy, the four Squadrons A, B, C, and D having their headquarters respectively at Cupar, Dunfermline, Dundee, and Forfar. The recruiting area comprised the counties of Fife, Forfar, Kinross, and Clackmannan, and there was also a troop in Stirlingshire within a few miles of Loch Lomond. The rest of the Highland Mounted Brigade, to which the Regiment belonged, was pure Highland, consisting of two regiments of Lovat's Scouts, the Inverness Battery, R.H.A., and a T. and S. Column and Field Ambulance hailing also from Inverness. On changing to War Establishment, D Squadron dropped out and was divided amongst A, B, and C, with the exception of Lieut.-Colonel King who went to Remounts, and Captain Jackson who became Staff Captain on the newly formed Brigade Staff.

The Regiment was fortunate in having about a week at Squadron Mobilization Centres before uniting at Blairgowrie, and a pretty hectic week it was for most of us. The most rapid bit of work must have been that of D Squadron, whose men were distributed amongst the other squadrons, fully equipped, in about three days. This squadron was also called upon to provide the various details, such as mounted police, who were required on mobilization to report to the Highland Territorial Infantry Division, the famous 51st.

class="x-ebookmaker-pageno" title="[3]"/>During this first week squadrons had to arrange for their own billeting, forage, and rations; take over, shoe, brand, and number the horses as they were sent up in twos and threes by the buyers; mark all articles of equipment with the man's regimental number; fit saddlery; see that all ranks had brought with them and were in possession of the prescribed underclothing, boots, and necessaries; take on charge all articles on the Mobilization Store Table as they arrived in odd lots from Stirling; and, beyond the above duties, which were all according to regulation, to make unofficial arrangements to beg, borrow, or steal clothing of sorts to cover those who had enlisted, or re-enlisted, to complete to War Establishment, and to provide for deficiencies in the saddlery and clothing already on charge.

The result of all the hard work was that it was practically a complete unit which came together at Blairgowrie about the 12th of August. Our Mobilization Orders had been thoroughly thought out and the general outline made known to all ranks, so that no time was lost in getting a move on. At Blairgowrie we were billeted in a school, and would have been very comfortable if we had been older campaigners, in spite of the fact that our horses were about half a mile away, up a steep hill, in a field which looked as if it had been especially selected so that we might trample to pieces a heavy clover crop, and at the same time be as far as possible from any possible watering place for the horses. It meant also about as stiff a hill as possible up which to cart all our forage from the station below. Here our adjutant, Captain M.E. Lindsay, who knew the whole business of regimental interior economy from A to Z, started to get things into proper form and to see that orderly officers, orderly sergeants, and orderly corporals performed as many of their proper duties as, with their inexperience, could be fitted into the twenty-four hours. By the end of three days order was beginning to spring out of chaos, and the adjutant never did a better bit of work—and that is saying a great deal—than he did in hunting all and sundry during those first few days.

A depot for recruiting was formed at Kirkcaldy and men quickly swelled our reinforcements there. After a few days at Blairgowrie, the Regiment entrained for the Brigade Concentration at Huntingdon; but as it was found there was insufficient space for a whole brigade, we were moved to St Ives, about six miles off, where there was a splendid common for drilling and good billets for the men. Very strenuous training occupied our two months there, and the expectation of going abroad at a moment's notice kept us up to concert pitch. An inspection by H.M. the King of the whole Brigade on the common at Huntingdon, and another by Sir Ian Hamilton, helped to confirm our expectations, and when we suddenly got orders one Sunday at midnight that we were to move to an unknown destination few doubted that we were bound for Boulogne.

What a bustle we had that Monday. We had built a fine range of stables on the Market Square, which were completed all except the harness rooms on the Friday, and on the Saturday all the horses were moved in except those in the sick lines. We had just received a consignment of about 100 grass-fed remounts which had been handed over to squadrons to look after, but not definitely allotted. Consequently when we received orders to move we had horses in the Market Square, saddlery about a mile away up the Ramsey Road, and horses in the sick lines which belonged to no one in particular and had never been fitted with saddlery at all. In addition, every one had been collecting every conceivable sort of kit "indispensable for active service," presents from kind friends and purchases from plausible haberdashers, with the result that quite 50 per cent. of our gear had to be left behind or sent home. To add to our confusion a draft arrived from our second line to bring us up to War Establishment, and they had to be fitted out with horses, etc. However, we got off up to time and entrained at Huntingdon, wondering if it would be three days or a week (at most) before we were charging Uhlans.

But our destination was only the Lincolnshire coast—Grimsby. Fortunately thirty-six hours terminated our stay there, and we trekked off south, eventually halting at Hogsthorpe, a village about three miles from the coast. The two remaining regiments of the Brigade were one in Skegness and the other half-way between us and Skegness.

For the next few months we moved from one village to another in the neighbourhood of Skegness. "We dug miles of trenches along the coast—we erected barbed wire entanglements for the sea to play with—we patrolled bleak stretches of coast day and night, and in all sorts of weather—we watched patiently for spies and Zeppelins, and we were disappointed. Nothing happened; the Germans would not come."

Christmas was spent at Skegness, and in spite of alarms and excursions we had an excellent regimental dinner, very largely due to the generosity of our friends in Scotland. The ladies of the Regiment opened subscription lists for "Comforts" for the Regiment, and everyone who was asked not only gave but gave generously. Wherever we went our "Comforts" followed us, whatever we asked for we got and, except on Gallipoli, we were never without our own private stock of Grant's or Inglis' oatmeal. We owe a lot to the generosity of our friends in Scotland.

From Lincolnshire we moved again south to

Norfolk. King's Lynn was found to be unsatisfactory as a billeting area, so we trekked on to Fakenham which proved to be our final resting place in England. By now our training had so far advanced that we were not kept at it quite so hard, and we had more time for sports. We had polo, cricket, and all kinds of games, and on 3rd June mounted sports which were most successful.

We spent the summer putting on the finishing touches, and did some very useful bits of training, including some fairly ambitious schemes of trench digging and planning, which proved invaluable later on, and which was a branch of knowledge in which many Yeomanries were conspicuously lacking. Also, by this time, a few courses of instruction had been started at the larger military centres, and we had several officers and men trained at these courses in musketry and other branches who were then able to pass their information on to the rest of us. We were given an army gymnastic instructor who brushed up our physical training—on which we had always been very keen—and also started to put us through a thorough course of bayonet fighting. There was also a busy time among our machine gunners, who trained spare teams up to nearly three times our establishment, which was invaluable, as it enabled us to take advantage of the chance which came to us of going abroad with six machine guns per regiment instead of three. As our usual role on Gallipoli was to take over with three squadrons, whose effective strength was never more than 100 each at the most, and generally considerably less, from four companies of infantry, each numbering anything from 150 to 180 strong, these extra machine guns were worth their weight in gold.

By this time a good many were thoroughly "fed up" with so long a spell of home service, fearing that the war would be over before we got out at all. And it was not till nearly the end of August that we got definite news that at last we were to receive the reward of all our hard training and see service overseas. We were inspected and addressed by General Sir H. Smith-Dorrien. Our horses, that had done us so well on many a strenuous field day, that knew cavalry drill better than some of us, that had taken part in our famous charge with fixed bayonets on the common at St Ives, were taken from us and sent, some to our second line and some to remount depots. In return for a horse we were each given a heavy cavalry sword, presumably to prevent us being confused with mere infantry.

On 5th September we said good-bye to our friends in Fakenham and started off on our journey for an unknown destination but—business.

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CHAPTER IIToC

ABROAD—1915

The last few days at Fakenham were busy ones, chiefly owing to the floods of new equipment which were at last showered upon us. Two squadrons got a complete issue of new saddlery, harness, and vehicles, which meant, in the first place, handing over the old issues to representatives of the second line, and in the second place, assembling all the new saddlery (which was issued in small pieces) and packing it into sacks ready for the voyage. The rest of the saddlery was put on board without being unpacked. Then our complement of machine guns was increased from two to six per regiment, which meant taking from each squadron 1 officer and 20 men to form the new personnel, and replacing them in the squadrons with men from the second line. By this arrangement we lost also our adjutant, Captain M.E. Lindsay, who was made Brigade Machine Gun Officer. Lieutenant H.S. Sharp took Captain Lindsay's place as adjutant. All ranks were fitted with helmets (on which pugarees had to be fixed under the eye of the few old soldiers who had been abroad and knew how to do it), and also with a complete outfit of khaki drill clothing. This last caused no end of trouble and annoyance both to the tailors and the men. However, it was all finished somehow, and it was a very cheery party which embarked on the train at Fakenham station just after dusk. The entire population turned out to see us off and wish us luck, and gave us a very hearty send-off.

Next morning we found ourselves at Devonport, where we were to embark on H.M.T. Andania (Captain Melsom), a second-class Cunard Atlantic Liner, and set to at once to load our baggage in the holds. Speed seemed to be the main concern, the safety of the cargo being quite a secondary consideration. The Brigade arrived in some dozen or more trains, each carrying what corresponded to a squadron, its baggage, which consisted of all sorts of heavy cases and things more or less breakable such as personal baggage, and saddlery in sacks, and also motor bicycles and vehicles. Each train was unloaded as it arrived and its contents thrown holus-bolus into one of the holds, except for the wheeled vehicles. The result was that there were layers of saddles at the very bottom of the hold, and further layers at intervals up to the top sandwiched between ammunition and heavy cases of all kinds. Fortunately we were never asked to unpack the saddlery.

On Wednesday, 8th September, about 5 A.M., we left the harbour escorted by two destroyers who took us to abreast Cape Ushant and there left us.

The first day or two on board was regular pandemonium and most uncomfortable for the men. Four officers and 140 other ranks from the second line had joined us at Devonport and we were very overcrowded. Each man had a stuffy and inaccessible bunk and a place at a table in the steerage saloon for meals, which had to be served in three relays owing to the numbers on board. This meant either very perfect time keeping or very perfect chaos, and, needless to say, for the first few days it was the latter. The captain also had a habit of always having his alarm boat drills while some relay was feeding, which did not add to the harmony. After a few days, however, things went very much more smoothly, but at no time could it be called a comfortable voyage. For the officers it was very different. They were not too overcrowded and were fed like fighting cocks. The deck accommodation was, of course, ridiculously inadequate, and muster parades, boat drill, and physical drill in relays was all that could be managed. We also had lectures on flies, sanitation, and how to behave when we got to Constantinople.

We steered a very roundabout course to avoid submarines and came into the Straits of Gibraltar from the south-west keeping well south of

the Rock. We hugged the north coast of Africa, and passed a Greek tramp who signalled to us to stop as a large enemy submarine was ten miles east of us. As such ships had been used before as decoys for German submarines, we gave her a wide berth and informed Gibraltar who were to send out a destroyer to have a look at her. We reached Malta on 14th September, but we were too late to get into Valetta Harbour, so we anchored in St Paul's Bay for the night and got into Valetta Harbour early next morning. For most of us it was our first glimpse of the Near East, and no one could deny the beauty of the scene—the harbour full of craft of all sorts down to the tiny native skiff, and crowned by the old Castle of St Angelo, the picturesque town, the palm trees, and the motley crowd of natives swimming and diving, and hawking fruit and cigarettes from their boats. Some of us got ashore to see the historical old town, full of memories of the Templars—St John's Cathedral, the Governor's Palace, the Armoury—but most had to stay on board to bargain and argue with the native vendors. We slipped out of the harbour at dusk, showing no lights, but to show we were not downhearted, Lovat's entire pipe band started to play. But not for long; as the captain threatened to put them all in irons, which brought the concert to an abrupt conclusion.

We reached Alexandria on the morning of the 18th, and the first stage of our trip was over—to everyone's regret. We had had a lovely voyage, a calm sea and perfect weather, and only the most persevering had managed to get seasick. Those of us who had still lingering hopes of seeing horses at Alexandria were speedily disillusioned, as we were ordered promptly to unload all our saddlery and transport vehicles. This was done with just as much organisation and care as the loading. The following morning we all went a route march for a couple of hours through the town. Perhaps the intention was to squash any desire we might have had to linger on in Alexandria. All the same some bits undoubtedly stank less than others.

Meanwhile stacks of infantry web equipment had come aboard, and fortunately for us about forty infantry officers who were able to show us how to put it together. That kept us busy for the next few days.

A cruiser met us in the Grecian Archipelago and conducted us safely into Mudros Harbour on 23rd September. It had got very much colder as we got farther north, and the day before we made Mudros it was absolutely arctic, which was lucky indeed as it made us all take on to the Peninsula much warmer clothes than we would otherwise have done. Mudros Harbour was a great sight—British and French battleships, hospital ships, transports, colliers, and all sorts of cargo ships down to the little native sailing boats, and the steam cutters which tore up and down all day looking very busy. The island itself looked very uninviting, stony, barren, and inhospitable, and a route march only confirmed our opinions—the race ashore in the ship's boats, however, compensated us—and nearly drowned us.

Our ration strength at Mudros was 32 officers and 617 other ranks, but of these 9 officers and 63 other ranks remained behind as first reinforcements when the Regiment went on the Peninsula. Each squadron went forward 4 officers and 136 other ranks. When we returned to Mudros three months later our effective strength was 8 officers and 125 other ranks.

On 26th September the Regiment filed down the gangways of the Andania on to the Abassiyeh and landed that night on Gallipoli. From the Abassiyeh we were transhipped into a "beetle" packed like sardines and loaded like a Christmas-tree. These lighters being flat-bottomed could run ashore on the sand and land troops dry-shod. The gangway was very steep and slippery and the men were so overloaded, each carrying a bundle of firewood as well as full equipment, and a pick and a shovel, that nearly everyone, like William the Conqueror, bit the dust on landing. Otherwise, we had an unmolested landing and started off for our billets in some reserve trenches about a mile and a half away.

Here our difficulties began with daylight, as we were in full view of the Turkish positions and within easy range of their guns, with the result we were not allowed to move about outside the trenches during the day. Water had to be fetched by hand about a mile and then had to be boiled, and we had not, like those who had been on the Peninsula a few weeks, collected a stock of petrol and biscuit tins for storage. Later on we even got water-carts filled with water brought from Mudros or Egypt, but not for at least six weeks, and meantime everything had to be carried and stored in petrol tins, rum jars, and such few biscuit tins as were water-tight. The wells were so congested, and the water so scarce that water-bottles were not allowed at the wells, and all we could do was to keep them in the cookhouse, ready to be filled and issued as the water was boiled. Apart from the November blizzard our first week in the reserve trenches, until we got our water supply in working order, was the most uncomfortable of our stay. Rations were really wonderfully plentiful and good.

That night we were ordered forward to complete the digging of a new reserve area. Just as we were falling in to move off, a regular strafe started in the front line only just over a mile away, but luckily it stopped just before we were to move off. It was our first experience of being under fire, and for all we knew it might have been the sort of thing that happened every night, so we just carried on as if nothing unusual were happening. Familiarity may breed contempt in most cases, but bullets singing about four feet above one's head is one of the exceptions, and Heaven knows we had plenty of experience of "overs" on the Peninsula. They are undoubtedly a fine incentive to work however, and once on the ground the men dug like beavers—and they could dig—and by dawn at 4 A.M. we had a continuous though somewhat narrow trench. The soil, for the most part, was clay, and it was tough work digging, but once dug the trenches stood up well.

After a day or two we began to be sent up to the front line for instruction, 30 men per squadron at a time, the remainder digging trenches and going down singly to the beach for a bathe. That was the one thing for which Gallipoli was perfect. The beach was rather far away, perhaps two miles, but we were all glad of the exercise, and the bathing was glorious—the water beautifully warm and so refreshing.

As regards the lie of the land and our positions there—coming up from the beach at Suvla there were fully two miles of flat country before you reached the foothills. The northern part of this plain was a shallow lake dry in summer but with a few feet of brackish water in winter called Salt Lake, and the southern part a few feet higher stretched down to "Anzac," where spurs running down from Sari Bahr to the sea terminate it abruptly. Our front line, generally speaking, was just off the plain, a few hundred yards up the slopes of the foothills, with any reserves there were lying in trenches on the plain.

Imagining the whole Suvla plain and its surrounding hills to be a horse-shoe, you might say the Turks held round three parts of the shoe, leaving us with the two heels at Caracol Dagh on the north and Anzac on the south, and a line between these two points across the plain. This plain was practically bare, but Caracol Dagh was thickly covered with dwarf oak and scrub, and Anzac with a good undergrowth of rhododendron, veronica, and other similar bushes. At Sulajik (the centre of the horse-shoe), and immediately to the north of it, and also round the villages in the Turkish lines, were numbers of fine

trees, but nowhere that we could see was there anything that could be called a wood. As regards the soil, the gullies at Anzac on the spurs of Sari Bahr were quite bewildering in their heaped up confusion, partly rocky, but mainly a sort of red clay and very steep. In the centre it was a yellower clay with patches of sand and bog, and on Caracol Dagh it was all rock and stones, so that digging was impossible, and all defences were built either with stones or sandbags. The view looking back to the sea from almost any part of our line was glorious. Hospital ships and men-of-war, and generally monitors and troop-ships in the Bay, and on the horizon the peaks of Imbros and Samothrace reflecting the glorious sunrises and sunsets of the Levant.

In these surroundings we spent about a week before getting a turn in the front line. We struck a reasonably quiet sector and fairly well dug, but there were several details in which the trenches varied from what we were accustomed to read about. The first and most noticeable difference from the point of view of the inhabitants was the entire absence of head cover. Even after we had been on the Peninsula nearly three months all we had collected were one or two poles, a sheet of corrugated iron (ear-marked as a roof for a signal station), and a few yards of wire-netting. There was not a house or a building of course in the country-side, and as our neighbours were as badly off as we were, there was no scope for the enterprising.

Our first turn only lasted four days, and we had hardly a casualty until an hour or two before we were to move back into support. The support trenches were very much less comfortable than the front line, and as there were lots of parties to go up at all hours of the day and night to dig and wire in front, it took a lot of scheming to get everyone satisfactorily fixed with water and food. We also had to send out officers' patrols to fix the Turkish line, as we were intending to have a dash at capturing his barrier across the Azmac Dere—a dry watercourse which ran right through both the Turkish and our lines—and so straighten out our line. Patrolling was very difficult—there were no landmarks to guide one, the going was exceedingly prickly, and at that time the place was full of Turkish snipers, who came out at dusk and lay out till morning in the broken and shell-pitted country. We soon got the better of these sportsmen though—our snipers out-sniped them, and our bombing officer, if he frightened them with his catapults and other engines of offence half as much as he frightened us, must also be given credit for a share in dispersing them.