Harassing Fire
Heroes Remember
Harassing Fire
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So we used to go up there and we'd spend 72 hours up there and
then we'd go back to the guns, you know, observing and firing
and, but just to keep the war going, really, through the winter,
you know. And then we had harassing fire positions, what you
call HF positions. We had three of them and they were in
different places. We rarely fired from our proper gun position
because, although the Germans knew where it was cause they sent
over photographic planes, you know, spy planes, and they used to
dive and come zipping over your gun position. They knew where
we were, and we had some shelling there, fortunately, missed us.
But for proper firing, we would go up for two, three days to
these harassing fire positions. They were very elementary, they
were just holes dug in the ground for the guns and pre-prepared,
you know, and we'd move into one and we'd fire for, there for
two or three days, 72 hours, whatever it was, and it had its own
little slit trench for command posts, you know, covered with
wood and stuff and earth and, very elementary, and we would fire
from there for two or three days and then go back and then we
would send another group out, "Fire from over there" or "Fire
from over there." So we had three of them in our battery, and I
guess other batteries, other regiments had other different ones
and, so that, and sometimes they could be rough. Christmas Day
was very rough, because this place we were in was on the crest
of a valley, I guess it was the same Reichswald Valley, you
know. I never did see a map, a total map of the territory so I
always had to guess where we were, you know, just going from our
locale almost and, you know, being low down, you didn't get to
really look at the overall picture that, that much. So, anyway
we were, I was in the signal truck. We had one of these HUP, I
don't know what it stands for but they were a square truck and
it was filled with radios and communications equipment, and
another signaller and I were in there manning this thing and
our, and our command post, the gun post, you know, where the
tannoys were and everything, and the Colonel of the Regiment was
there and the Battery Commander and they were all dug in there.
It wasn't very big, you know, it wasn't this big, you know, this
little place, and covered and one little entrance, or exit.
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