Harbottle, George (Oral history)

British NCO served with 1/6th Bn Northumberland Fusiliers in GB and on Western Front, 1914-1917; served as officer with 15th Machine Gun Bn, Machine Gun Corps on Western Front, 1918

REEL 1 Background in Gosforth, Newcastle-upon-Tyne, 1893-1907: father's work as coal sales merchant; preparatory school education. Recollections of attending Leys School, Cambridge, 1907-1910: subjects taught; daily routine; discipline; importance of sporting activities; OTC training including rifle training and summer camp. Work as office boy and junior shipbroker with Cairns Noble & Company in Newcastle, 1910-1914: role of Commercial Exchange ; nature of coal market and role of shipbroker; duties as office boy; introduction to Commercial Exchange, 1912. REEL 2 Continues: importance of personal judgement and contacts in negotiating shipping contracts; daily routine; ignorance of approach of war; trade contacts with Hamburg, Germany; outbreak of war, 4/8/1914. Recruitment to A Coy, 1/6th Bn Northumberland Fusiliers at St George's Drill Hall, 6/8/1914: reasons; initial reception; reputation of A Coy recruited from 'Quayside' business community; parents' reaction. Aspects of periods training in Newcastle-on-Tyne, Blythe and Seaton Delavel, 8/1914-4/1915: billets; route marches; coastal defence duties; rifle and bayonet training; tactical exercise s and question of value of OTC experience; conditions of service. REEL 3 Continues: relationship with other ranks and NCOs; promotion to lance sergeant; opinion of officers; recreations; question of trench warfare training; territorial status; background to failure of application for commission. Journey out to Ypres area, Belgium, 21/4/1915-24/5/1915: duty as guard during train journey; volunteering for foreign service; situation on arrival; German shellfire on Ypres. Account of attack on St Julian, 26/4/1915: absence of briefing; casualties caused by hold up on British reserve line barbed wire; reception from regular troops on reaching British front line; night withdrawal; reactions to failure of attack. REEL 4 Recollections of conditions of service, lifestyle and daily routine in Ypres area, 4/1915-7/1915: working parties digging trenches in Yser Canal sector; gas masks; nature of trenches in Hooge sector; food rations; latrines; shaving; water supply; lice problem; role as sergeant; officers; relationship with other ranks; unaimed rapid rifle fire; sniping posts; construction and use of jam tin hand grenades; improving support trenches; rest periods including visits to estaminets. REEL 5 Continues: move to Menin Gates sector; story of close escape from German shell during working party in Zillebeke sector; move to Kemmel Hill sector; breastwork trenches; German trench mortars; duties on promotion to company quartermaster sergeant based at transport lines including accompanying ration parties up to front line, role of assistant and maintaining pay records; story of securing extra pay for troops; state of battalion strength; story of effects of German shellfire directed by observation balloon during ration party; relationship with transport officer and use of GS wagons; advantages of mules over horses; move to Dickebusch transport lines, 11/1915; story of corpse polluted water supply at Hill 60 illustrating acclimatisation to conditions. REEL 6 Continues: story of close escape from German shell whilst travelling on artillery limber in Shrapnel Avenue; sergeants' mess; extra food from Friends of Northumberland Fusiliers; letter and parcel contact with GB; GB leave. Question of quiet sector in Armentieres sector, 1916. Period in transport line positions in Somme area, 8/1916-1/1917: cricket match whilst in reserve; problems taking up ration parties due to muddy ground conditions; hut accommodation in transport lines; reports of brief truce with Germans at Butte de Warlincourt, 25/12/1916; story of setting up accidentally correct rumour of next move. Period in transport line positions at Proyart, 1/1917-4/1917: condition of French trenches; establishment of sergeants' mess serving drink; move to Arras, 4/1917. REEL 7 Period in transport lines in Arras area, 4/1917: background to promotion as acting regimental quartermaster sergeant; duties liaising with divisional headquarters; date ration; opinion of quartermaster officer; background to application for commission including receiving orders to apply, reasons for initial reluctance, persuasion by former company commander prior to interview with brigadier; securing recommendation to Machine Gun Corps after basic Vickers machine gun training and question of social acceptability required of officers. Recollections of initial basic training as cadets at Machine Gun Corps Depot, Grantham, 5/1917: reactions to conditions of service and drill designed to weed out problem cadets; origins of cadets; relationship with cadets; instructors. Recollections of training as infantry officer with No 1 Cadet Bn Machine Gun Corps at Bisley, 6/1917-10/1917: drill command practice. REEL 8 Continues: tactical exercises; .training with 45 Webley revolver including use in trench fighting and question of accuracy; question of art of command; nature of visual training; signal training; importance of sporting activities including playing cricket, story of getting sick leave with sports injury, boxing and rugby. Recollections of training in Vickers machine gun at Machine Gun Corps Depot, Grantham, 10/1917-1/1918: hut accommodation; visual training to identify targets; gun mechanism and stoppages; tactical exercises; theoretical lectures including visual cones of fire, indirect fire and barrage fire. REEL 9 Continues: question of effectiveness of barrage fire; lectures in SOS lines of fire; limited range firing and use of tracer bullets; commission. Recollections of period with C Coy, 15th Machine Gun Bn, Machine Gun Corps in Monchy le Preux sector, Arras area, 3/1918: unit composition; opinion of officers; attachment to 46th Bde; dispositions; concealed machine gun posts; story of first visit under German shellfire to front line; nature of section machine gun posts in second line to left of Monchy-le-Preux. Recollections of German offensive, 21/3/1918: prior expectation of German attack; German artillery bombardment; firing on SOS lines; story illustrating problem in communicating with flank units; shift in German bombardment; collapse of right flank and confused situation during retreat to Telegraph Hill. REEL 10 Continues: unidentified party of troops; situation after taking up defensive positions in GHQ Line on Telegraph Hill; move to positions in front of Wancourt Ridge; failed German attack, 28/3/1918. Recollections of operations, 4/1918-8/1918: strategic situation, 4/1918; transfer to B Coy; duties as billeting officer at Candas; problems entraining mules during move to Soissons area, 8/1918; impromptu cricket match; move into line in Bucenzy sector, Soissons area, 8/1918; impressions of US troops. Recollections of attack at Chateau du Bucenzy, 8/1918: situation; orders and planned consolidating role; moving forward into abandoned chateau grounds; rallying retreating Gordon Highlanders to establish defensive position to left of chateau; being reported as missing; return to unit headquarters after consolidation of position; move to Hulloch sector, Bethune area, reaction to award of Croix de Guerre and Military Cross. REEL 11 Recollections of advance, 9/1918-11/1918: situation in Hulloch sector; German retreat before planned attack; question of superior conditions of service for officer; officers' mess and drinking habits; question of German road mines; reception from French and Belgian civilians; reactions to news of Armistice, 11/11/1918; story of careless use of Vickers machine gun in anti-aircraft role in Hulloch sector. Period in Waterloo sector, Belgium, 11/1918-2/1918: story of avoiding cycling there as billeting officer; question of keeping troops entertained; background to early demobilisation to join coal exporting firm, 2/1918; reaction to suspension of promised war service pay by pre-war employers. Reads own poems, 'Again' and 'Ypres, 1915'.