FIRST BATTLE OF THE MARNE, 5-10 SEPTEMBER
Sergeant Thomas Painting
1st Battalion, King's Royal Rifle Corps
We fought a rearguard action at St Bandry then marched to Hautevesnes, where we halted. The colonel came along and said, "Who's in charge here?" I said, "I am, Sir." He said, "Right, down the road a little way, turn left and join the next attack with C Company, range fifteen hundred yards." We formed up on the right of C company and then made an attack on the German Jager Battalion, a horse and rifle battalion such as they were. The colonel's fifteen hundred yards was over a cornfield which had been ploughed. It was just stubble, no cover at all. We had only two machine guns in the battalion. As soon as we started, our machine-gun sergeant was killed at fifteen hundred yards range.
We went forward as we had been trained - one section would advance under covering fire of another section, leapfrogging each other as the others were firing to keep Jerry's heads down. My company was going in with their bayonets when suddenly Jerry put up a white flag. We were really surprised. We took four hundred and fifty prisoners. I said to one of them, "Why did you pack up when you've got some much ammunition?" He said, "Well, your fire was so accurate we couldn't put our heads up to shoot at you." We lost twelve killed and sixty wounded, they lost about one hundred and eighty men. We had to guard them all night. They slept nicely on straw while we had to give them half our rations!
The next day it rained in bucketfuls and we were wet through to the skin but we found a farmyard, lit a fire and stood there practically naked while we dried out clothes. We felt an enormous sense of pride after the strafe at Hautevesnes. It was absolutely a field day, fire and movement, fire and movement, one section firing while the other moved, intercommunication with each other, extended order. It really was an absolutely set-piece operation. And what was more satisfying to us was that it was a crack battalion, a Jager battalion, and we held them. The germans were not going to get their way.