The fourth shoot with 213 Siege Battery RGA in five days. We don’t know the target for this one. But it was another long time in the air being shot at, and another success.
Log Book
Date: 22.7.17 Time: 9.30 Rounds: 100 Bombs: 4 RE8: E27 Observer: Lt. Hodgson Time: 3 hr 25 m Height: 4000 Course/Remarks: Shoot with 213 SB. Successful.
Diary
Monday July 22nd. Did a shoot with 213 SB. Dropped 4 Cooper bombs & let off 300 rounds ammunition. Archie pretty hot stuff. Went to see the battery after, & scrounged some furniture for my room.
Another Visit to 213 SB
“Observers should utilise every opportunity of visiting the batteries allotted to them”, says the General Staff in the handbook “Co-operation of Aircraft with Artillery” [SS 131], December 1917 edition.
(Just to note in passing: “observers” in this context means those observing a shoot, rather than the chaps in the back seat of the plane.) Greg seems to have taken this injunction to heart. He went to see 213 SB again, only two days after his last visit on Saturday 19 July 1918. But perhaps at least part of his motivation was to complete his mission to furnish his room, possibly with more pieces from the ruins of St. Venant. Visiting the battery would have provided a good excuse…and the transport.
Haverskerque, which is where I speculated (here) might be near the location of 213 Siege Battery, is a village lying on the flat land by the River Lys not far north of the river crossing at St. Venant. In the corner of a quiet field is a small British cemetery – Cim. brit. on the map – looked after by the Commonwealth War Graves Commission:
And from the cemetery, the distant spire of St. Venant church is just visible:
More on shoots here:
More on Archie here: