TALLY-HO IN SOMME BATTLE

Taihape Daily Times, Issue 219, 17 January 1917, Page 2

TALLY-HO IN SOMME BATTLE

HOW THE GUARDS “CAME OUT LIKE HOUNDS FROM COVER.” COLDSTREAMERS WHO RALLIED | TO THE HUNTSMAN’S HORN. j Tally-ha! Tally-ho! The sound of a huntsman’s horn rat has been heard so often ever the ri tile acres of Shropshire was heard or the first time on the battlefield of Hie Somme recently. It was sounded oy Lieut-Colonel John Vaughan Campocil, D. 5.0., of the Coldstream Guards, : .aid of Broomhall, Oswestry, whose name appears in the latest list of ./wards of the V.C. I have to-day ieard the story of the famous advance jf the Guards, and of how Colonel Campbell, in command of the 3rd Batalien, rallied his men by sounding the diver horn that he always carries just vhen they had been dispersed by the errific fire of the enemy and had lost ouch with each other and their officers. It is a thrilling story of a kind to nakc the blood of every man in the j Vrmy who has followed the hounds ingle with pride, for so inimitably English was the episode. The official account of Colonel JampbelTs bravery does not mention ho incident, but says that he tcc’ :cmmand of the third line of his battalion after the first two waves had ueen decimated and led them against ho enemy machine-guns, which he ;aptured, killing the personnel. Later le rallied the survivors and at a crit- * ical moment led them through a very heavy barrage, being one of the first o enter the enemy trench. His perona! gallantry and initiative turned he fortunes of the day. It was when he lost his second in ■c mm and and his adjutant (cnly four officers survived) and his mei wore scattered about in shell holes reeking cover from the fierce machine gun fire that ho rallied them in this j striking way.

RINGING NOTES OF THE HORN. He went into battle with his revolver in cue hand and his huntsman’s horn in the other. For years he has accustomed his men to the sound. In peace time he drilled them with it. It was a silver horn presented to him by the non-commissioned officers and men of the Ist Battalion when he left to join the 3rd Battalion. He found that the clear, ringing notes of the horn were more easily heard, and .on the battlefield there was no mistaking it, “The men came running in from the shell holes just like the hounds from the cover,” said Colonel Campbell, when on leave at Broomhall a few days ago. “They came almost immediately after 1 blew the horn. They seemed to recognise it at once, and they knew it was me.” In the extraordinarily difficult situation the horn was probably the only thing that would have rallied the men so quickly. In the inevitable break-up of a formation during an attack men get lost, and the sound of many whistles being blown by the officers must be some- ; times confusing. It will be remembered that early in the war the Huns tried to confuse our ; men by imitating our bugle calls, and the bugle is not used to the extent that it was on the battlefield of other wars. B'ut the huntsman’s horn was a new thing to the Germans. It startled them and brought ‘dismay to their ranks, and they ran like foxes with the hounds in hot pursuit. RALLY OF THE COLDSTREAMERS. The immortal third line of the 3rd Eattlaion lined up under their brave colonel and moved irresistibly" forward, bayoneting the machine-gun-ners who had wrought such havoc, and then marched steadily through the barrage and gained the enemy trench. On this day they advanced altogether 200(1 yards. When the Goldstream Guards came from the trenches three battalions strong they had to face one of the most deadly mach-ine-gun fires that the Germans have managed to set up on the Somme. The ground was . very much broken up by shell fire, and this made it very hard for the men to keep marching abreast. Also the ground had been battered out of all recognition, and it was guesswork finding out whether they had advanced as far as had been intended, and at one time the Coldstreamers were holding a line which was very different from the one they imagined they were holding. But they advanced irresistibly again, and, with the Irish Guards coming up in support, Coldstreamers and Grenadiers swung forward until the real line they were after had been seized. “We could see the Huns clambering out of their trenches and running for all they were worth,” said one wounded Coldstreamer.

“They came out of dug-outs and shell holes and fairly scattered. Beyond them we could see the Germans skeltering off with their guns—they were in a -hurry! “If it had not been for just one or two machine-guns that escaped our, artillery fire and had commanding positions we should never have - stopped for a minute and would have gene on for miles unless our officers had stopped us. “I was sheltering in a shell hole and wondering where my mates were and whether they had gone on farther or gone back when I heard the colonel’s horn. It made me jump for joy and I never though of sheltering any more. There was the colonel waiting there with all the men running up to the sound, and he did not wait long. GREAT FIGHT WITH THE BAYONET. “Some of our men moved right into a trench where there was a crowd of Huns who were inclined to put up a real stand-up fight, and they got it. There was a great fight with the bayonet and the Huns stuck it until only about a couple of hundred remained, 'and then they gave in.” It was in this wonderful attack of the Guards that two “Tanks” came along to a trench where our men were held up by undamaged wire and, having rolled out the wire and sprawled over the trench, enabled our men to sweep forward again. The news that Lieutenant-Colonel Campbell had been awarded the V.C. aroused the greatest enthusiasm in Oswestry. He and his charming wife are very popular there. Their home, Broomhall, is just on the outskirts of the town.

The colonel is the Master of the Tannatside Harriers, a small hunt mostly composed of the farmers of the district. He followed the hounds again when he was home on leave and had with him the now famous silver horn. Friday, the day when the V.C. award was published, Mrs. Campbell was out with the hunt and was warmly congratulated. Her husband has been serving at the front for a year and a half, and although he has been in some tight fights and. his regiment has suffered terrible losses, he himself has not been wounded once. The people of Oswestry are devoutly hoping that he will have this good luck until the end.