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With the Trench Mortars in France

Introduction

page 7

Introduction

The following account of the work of the Light Trench Mortars in France is given in order that the usefulness in the Great War of this wonderful invention of Stokes may be more widely known in New Zealand than at present is the case. The information given in the following pages is all of more or less value because it has been gained from personal experience in the field in France and with the help of official war diaries of different batteries engaged both in trench warfare and in attack, and these batteries are considered to have taken part in more offensive actions than any other batteries in the whole British Army, commencing from Armentières in February, 1916, right up to the end of the War.

To impress on the reader the value of the Stokes Mortar, which the British War Office page 8considered to be our greatest war invention, it is only necessary to give the following extract from the London Daily Mail of Mr. Kellaway's (Secretary to the Ministry of Munitions) speech in the House of Commons after the Armistice on the usefulness of the weapon in the tragic early days of the War:— "Now the Peace Treaty was signed," said Mr. Kellaway, "it was in the public interest that information about the early days should be given. Up to June, 1915, only 314 Trench Mortars had been issued to the Army, and these were types which the soldiers themselves had developed in France. The Trench Mortar position was saved very largely as the result of the invention of a civilian, Mr. Wilfred Stokes, who had an experience of official inertia which would have broken the heart of a man less confident.

"The Stokes Gun was taken up by the Ministry of Munitions, and in August, 1915, Mr. Lloyd George placed an order for 1000 page 9(the total number issued during the war was 20,000).

"Owing to the shortage of proper Trench Mortars in the first months of the war, large numbers of Catapults were sent out to the Armies.

"Up to the end of 1915, 3000 were issued, and it was these primitive catapults and with grenades improvised from bully beef tins that the British soldier was expected to defend himself. How much blood would have been saved, how different the history of the War, how fewer would have been the British graves in France, if only the decision that was taken after the shambles of Festubert had been taken nine months earlier, when the shortage of essential munitions was known to all who had access to official documents."

Very little has been said in any other book written during or since the War, not even in the History of the N.Z.E.F., nor in the history of any of its regiments, of the Trench Mortars page 10or their work, and, therefore, without making this little brochure an effort for people to read by supplying a lot of technical detail, I think it preferable to narrate in simple language some of the principal achievements of the New Zealand Expeditionary Force with this wonderful invention of Sir Wilfred Stokes, after its introduction to the Army.

W. E. L. Napier.

Devonport, Auckland, N.Z. November, 1923.