RGA Gunner gassed at Mailly-Maillet

This article is based on research I carried out for a private client in 2020. It concerned the military service of London man Edwin Carter, who served as Gunner 198448 of the Royal Garrison Artillery.

Imperial War Museum photograph Q8674: a fatigue party of the Royal Garrison Artillery carrying 6-inch howitzer shells in Ransart, 7 April 1918.

Edwin’s background and attestation

Edwin Carter attested voluntarily in Battersea during the short-lived existence of the Group System of recruiting in late 1915.

The details recorded at the attestation are only partially visible in his record, but it can be seen that Edwin said that he was aged 29 years and 4 months; lived at 45 Brathway Road in Wandsworth; and that he had no previous military experience. For next of kin he named his wife Matilda. Details of their children Edwin and Lilian were also noted. The addition of a third child, Alfred Arthur, born on 7 August 1916, was noted at a later date.

It is of interest and possibly of significance to the rest of his story that Edwin said that he was employed as an examiner and gauger at a projectile company (presumably in the manufacture of shells or bullets): he had been a painter before the war, following in his father’s occupation.

Once attested, he was made a member of Section B Army Reserve.

Call-up and training

Edwin was mobilised to begin his service on 5 February 1918. This is many months after his group began to be mobilised in May 1916 and suggests that the start of his own service may have been deferred after appeal to a tribunal. The most probable factor was the nature of his employment. There is a suggestion in his record, although it is very hard to read, that he had been called for a further medical examination in February 1917.

Edwin had been allocated to the Royal Garrison Artillery and was ordered to proceed to its Number 1 (Heavy and Siege) Depot at Derby. He would have been provided with a free railway warrant in order to go there.

After around two weeks, recruits were posted to one of the RGA Companies stationed in Great Britain in order to carry out gunnery training. This detail is now lost in Edwin’s record and from those I could find of men numbered near to him (all of which appear to be in a similar state of destruction) there is no reliable pattern from which I could draw reliable conclusions.

Service in France

18-24 June 1918: this is the range of dates upon which men who were numbered around Edwin went to join the British Expeditionary Force in France. In most cases, drafts of men of the Royal Garrison Artillery sailed from Southampton to Le Havre and proceeded at first to the Number 1 General Base Depot, a camp situated just outside the port. It is evident that Edwin was then posted to join 224 Siege Battery RGA, a unit which had been in France for some time, as part of a reinforcement draft.

On 31 July 1918, Edwin was admitted to 3 Casualty Clearing Station at Gézaincourt, having been evacuated there via 131st Field Ambulance. The latter was operating a “Gas Centre” at Clairfaye near Varennes at the time. He was one of 64 British “other ranks” admitted on the day and was diagnosed as having been wounded by mustard gas.

Mustard was not actually a gas but a viscous fluid that burned the skin. It was delivered by an artillery shell that burst on contact with the ground. The colourless “gas” droplets persisted for a considerable time, soaking into the ground and coating surfaces. It was easy for an unwary man to come into contact either directly or by the fluid soaking into his uniform when in contact with a contaminated surface.

Edwin was evacuated by Number 28 Ambulance Train to Le Tréport on the coast of the English Channel. He was admitted to 2nd Canadian General Hospital which was located there.

Sadly, there are no details of the severity of Edwin’s injuries or the date of his subsequent return to duty. His wife would have been officially notified soon after 31 July and it became public knowledge with his appearance in the War Office casualty list of 6 September 1918.

Edwin’s battery

The raising of the battery took place in Plymouth after it was authorised on 12 August 1916. It went to France on 10 January 1917 and at that time was a battery of four 6-inch 26-hundredweight breech-loading howitzers that were hauled by horse transport. The official establishment of such a unit was 5 officers and 177 other ranks.

Imperial War Museum photograph Q5945. “Gunners of the Royal Garrison Artillery manhandling a 6-inch (BL 6-inch 26 cwt) howitzer. Ypres, 27 August 1917”.

The howitzer with which the battery was equipped was a mainstay of the British heavy artillery throughout the war but was one of its smaller, lighter types. With a length of 21 feet 7 inches (6.58m) it weighed 8,142 lb (3,693kg or just over 3.6 tons). The “26-hundredweight” referred to its barrel and breech mechanism. It fired a shell weighing 100 pounds (45.4kg), which could include high-explosive or compressed gas. Its maximum range was 9,500 yards (8.7km or 5.4 miles). The howitzer differed from the field gun in that it fired high, plunging its shell down onto a target. By 1918 the type was most often used for “counter-battery” work: firing against enemy artillery.

It is a pity that only a short portion of its own war diary now exists and does not cover the period of Edwin’s service. To build up the rest of the battery’s history it is necessary to refer to others. A good basis is provided by a document titled “Allocations of Siege Batteries RGA” (National Archives WO95/5494). It shows the succession of Heavy Artillery Groups (HAGs) under whose command the battery came. Later in the war HAGs became known as RGA Brigades. The HAG/Brigade normally came under orders of the Commander Heavy Artillery of a level in the army organisational hierarchy known as a Corps.

By June 1918, 224 Siege Battery was under command of 62 RGA Brigade, with which it then continued for the remainder of the war. It had also been expanded to six howitzers by the addition of a section of two from 425 Siege Battery in June 1917.

Circumstances of gassing

Throughout the period of Edwin’s service with the battery, 62 RGA Brigade was located in the Somme sector and under the command of V Corps. It was headquartered in the village of Forceville and had five batteries under its command (67, 76, 122, 224 and 274). June and July 1918 were comparatively quiet in this sector, which had seen heavy fighting in March and April (in defence against the major German offensive “Michael”) and would see much action again in August (the British offensive that drove the enemy many miles eastwards from the Somme).

The brigade’s war diary describes events reasonably well if not in great detail, picking out the battery’s locations, targets, enemy activity and so on. Small numbers of casualties were incurred in the batteries to enemy fire that occasionally included gas.

224 Battery is described as being at Mailly-Maillet crossroads at the time that Edwin became a victim of gas. Four of its howitzers were arrayed there with a section of two 300 yards distant and maintaining a silence (this helped to keep their presence secret, where the four could be observed by the enemy using flash-spotting and sound-ranging techniques whenever they opened fire). When they were not at the gun positions, the men of the battery were billeted in the beet sugar factory at Acheux-Amiénois and in the village of Léalvillers.