New Zealand Takes Messines: 7 June 1917, Part II–The Attack

New Zealand Division Advanced Dressing Station at Messines

In II Anzac Corps sector, the New Zealand Division was in the center between the 3rd Australian Division on the right and the British 25th Division on the left. Its role included the capture of the heavily fortified Messines village upon which the whole army plan depended. Once the village was taken the 4th Australian Division could pass through it on the way to the final objective, a line about a mile beyond the crest. 

At 3:10 a.m. on 7 June the mines went up (only 19 of them exploded), and a colossal barrage over a kilometer deep crashed down on the German defenses. The noise from the explosion was distinctly heard as far away as the United Kingdom, and an observatory on the Isle of Wight registered it on its seismograph. 

The famed war correspondent Philip Gibbs described it as: 

The most diabolical splendour I have ever seen. Out of  the dark ridges of Messines and Wytschaete and that ill-famed Hill 60 there gushed out and up enormous volumes of scarlet flame from the exploding mines and of earth and smoke all lighted up by the flame spilling over into mountains of fierce colour, so that the countryside was illuminated by red light. 

A German officer on the receiving end of this "diabolical splendour" recorded this vivid account of the event and its effect on his battalion: 

In the front line the relief was in full swing: when suddenly, at 4.00 am, there was an almighty roar and the earth began to quake and everything flew off the chairs: explosion! Attack! Both officers and men poured out of the entrance into the open air. An awe-inspiring and appalling sight met their eyes. The hills from Wijtschate [sic] to Messines were enveloped in a great sea of flames. Fourteen fiery volcanoes and masses of earth erupted vertically into the sky colouring it a blood red. Then the great masses of earth crashed back down to the ground and, simultaneously, drum fire of an unprecedented violence crashed down. Time passed worryingly then, at about 5.00 am a runner arrived from the front, with dreadful news: `3rd Battalion Bavarian Infantry Regiment 17 has been blown sky high.' 

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Capture of Messines by the New Zealand Division

 

Many other German battalions on the ridge suffered a similar fate.  Immediately following this eruption the infantry from the nine assault divisions moved off in the semi-darkness and advanced into the smoke and dust cloud that hung over the ridge. Moving behind a protective artillery barrage they occupied the Messines Ridge almost unopposed. So effective was the British artillery's counterbattery fire that it was ten minutes before a feeble German barrage fired on the advancing infantry. By then it was too late. 

The New Zealand Division easily captured Messines village by 7:00 a.m. and a New Zealand soldier, Lance Corporal Samuel Frickleton, won a Victoria Cross in the fighting to clear the village's outskirts. That afternoon the New Zealanders repelled a German counterattack that crumpled under heavy machine gun and artillery fire. 

The New Zealand infantry remained around (but not in) the village of Messines for the next two days, and it was then they experienced the bulk of their casualties.  The exposed ridge line was overcrowded with Allied soldiers (the Allied front line had shrunk from seven to four miles in length), and the New Zealand position  was no exception. Major General Russell requested but had not been permitted to thin out his defenses. The German artillery, once it had recovered from the shock of the opening attack, pounded the Messines village and its outskirts mercilessly. On 8 June those New Zealanders on the ridge endured a German artillery bombardment that lasted uninterrupted for ten hours. Fortunately, the survivors were withdrawn into reserve the next morning. 

Today: A Soldier of New Zealand Stands in Central Messines

The attack beginning in the early hours of 7 June 1917 was a complete success, the finest of the war to date, according to Field Marshal Sir Douglas Haig. The Battle of Messines came to be regarded as a model for offensives on the Western Front. Careful planning, effective preparation, and excellent infantry-artillery cooperation had produced an outstanding success. As Russell later commented: 

The battle. . .was won through the weight of metal thrown onto the enemy positions and the mettle of the men who advanced to attack. Everything went like clockwork. 

This success did not come cheap though; it never did on the Western Front. When the New Zealanders were withdrawn from Messines village on the morning of 9 June, they had suffered nearly 4,000 casualties of which some 700 were killed in action in just over two days of fighting.

Source:  Over the Top, June 2017