Current Information:

Age-19

217, High Holborn

Born-Hornsey

On 27th May, 1918, the Germans launched their third major offensive of the year, this time against the French Army in its positions along the Chemin des Dames, between Soissons and Reims. This was supposed to be a quiet front and that was why four badly damaged British divisions, the 8th, 21st, 25th and 50th, had been sent there so they could recover from the mauling they had taken during the previous two German offensives of that year. Formed into IX Corps, in early May they took over a 10 mile section of the front, just to the west of Reims including part of the Chemin des Dames. Like the two earlier offensives,  Operation Blücher on 27th May began with a ferocious artillery bombardment, carefully orchestrated to cause maximum confusion and damage and, as in March and April, enormous gains were made as the Germans drove a wedge forty miles wide and fifteen miles deep through the Allied lines. For over a week they continued the advance. Paris was threatened but once again their attack ran out of steam while French resistance strengthened and by 6th June the front had been stabilised.

The opening artillery bombardment at 1am on 27th May was heavier and more destructive than those experienced by the British Army either in March or April. It was simply devastating, made so by the liberal use of gas shells, interspersed with shrapnel and high explosive. All the rear areas, lines of communication, command centres and artillery positions, were targeted as were the trenches of the Forward and Battle Zones. The 21st, 8th and 50th Divisions who held the front line with all three of their brigades were simply blown away by the magnitude of it all. When the German storm troopers burst into their trenches at 3.40am nearly all resistance had crumbled. Those who survived the shelling were still sheltering in their dug-outs and were easily overcome. Some heroic stands were made and some troops managed to fall back to positions in the rear but in effect the three divisions had ceased to exist by dawn.

8th Division, in the centre of the British line had nine weak battalions which were attacked by twenty one fresh German battalions. 25 Brigade, on the right of the divisional front, had, from right to left, 2nd East Lancashire, 2nd Rifle Brigade and 2nd Royal Berkshire in the line, each with two companies in front. At 4am, after after having been pummelled for three hours by the enemy artillery, 2nd Rifle Brigade were then hit by a deluge of trench mortars and gas shells before the storm troopers, accompanied by tanks, attacked their positions. There were very few left to put up any resistance and they were soon overwhelmed. The remnants of the battalion fell back to the second line and from there moved back across the River Aisne where they tried to make a stand at the village of Gernicourt but were soon forced to withdraw again towards Guyencourt. At the end of a calamitous day, what was left of 2nd Rifle Brigade and the other battalions of 25 Brigade, were put under the command of 75 Brigade of the reserve 25th Division and took up positions on the line Romain to Les Grands Savarts. On 28th May, 75 Brigade, including what was left of 2nd Rifle Brigade, started off holding the line of the River Vesle, east of Jonchery but German pressure continued and by the evening they had been forced back to a line east of Branscourt, facing north-west and with French troops on both of their flanks. The estimated casualties for the battalion over the two days was over seven hundred, killed, wounded or missing. One of those killed was Herbert Barley.