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Chapter VI Establishment of Army Schools

With the establishment of corps and army schools of instruction in musketry, machine guns, and bombing came also the establishment of a trench mortar wing in these schools.

The Second Army established a particularly good school at Turdeghem, near Haze-brouck, which had very good instructors, who kept in touch with the Division in the line and got the latest important information and lessons that had been learned in each particular stunt, by conferences with the battery commanders of the different divisions after important battles. This kept the training of the men always up to date.

Our Division had an allotment every month of officers and N.C.O.'s at this school, both for bombing and trench mortar work, and a great deal of benefit was derived from the training, as much of the firing was with page 53live ammunition, and practice was carried on in conjunction with Infantry and especially with bombers in attack.

An examination was held at the end of every course, which lasted a fortnight, and in nearly every case the New Zealanders passed either V.G. (very good) or G. (good) and Q.I. (qualified as instructors). After this examination at the end of the course competitions in speed in setting up the mortar, and also in coming into action and firing on dummy trenches, were held, and almost without exception these competitions were easily won by our men, of which we were very proud, as at the Army School there were the men of a number of other British divisions to compete with.

Besides this Second Army School, we had a Corps School at Morbecque, and the officer in charge of the Trench Mortar Wing there was one of our own officers, Captain Sievright, of the Wellington Regiment. He worked page 54particularly hard in this branch, and many of our N.C.O.'s and men passed through his hands and came back to us much benefited by his instruction.

Owing to the simplicity of the trench mortar, which often makes one marvel that it was not invented before, and the short time in which a gunner can be trained to its use, compared with an artillery gunner, and also from an economical point of view, the Stokes stands alone. When one realises that an 18-pounder field gun costs about £500 and a Stokes about £10, and where the shell of an 18-pounder costs about £2 and the shell of a Stokes 7/6, and when communication was so easy by the Stokes with the Infantry, it can readily be seen that once the trench mortar was firmly established in France it relieved the Artillery of a vast amount of trench firing and enabled that arm to do more counter battery work, and effected a huge saving of money at the same time.

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