Entrenched German soldiers behind sniper plates at Slota Gora, September 26, 1916. Slota (or Zlota) Gora was in Polish Russia, west of a line running from Warsaw to Cracow. An original watercolor (over pencil) by O. Oettel, 12th company of Landwehr, IR 32 in the field. A sketch in pencil and red crayon is on the reverse.
Slota Gora26.9.16O.Oettel 12L.32.I. FeldeZlota GoraSeptember 26, 1916O. Oettel, 12th Landwehr 32nd RegimentIn the Field
". . . By dawn [on February 6, 1916] the position had been consolidated. Casualties were light at first, but consolidation had to be done under artillery and machine-gun fire, bombs, rifle-grenades and trench-mortars: in the end they numbered about 40, including 5 officers. The position was shelled all afternoon, but there were no further casualties. Radford commanded the garrison of bombers until the relieving battalion came out at night. We found loopholes from which the Germans had fired into our front at a range of 35 yards. The Corps Commander was very complimentary about the whole affair."
Extract from the entry for February 6, 1916 from the writings — diaries, letters, and memoirs — of Captain J.C. Dunn, Medical Officer of the Second Battalion His Majesty's Twenty-Third Foot, The Royal Welch Fusiliers. Dunn was in the line at Annequin, France, west of La Bassée. The Germans had connected two craters by blowing a mine between them, creating a third, larger crater that connected the other two. From this position, they dominated the British nearby. The British took the craters on February 5, extended their sap or communication trench, and improved the new position. 'Radford' was Captain N.H. Radford.
The War the Infantry Knew 1914-1919 by Captain J.C. Dunn, pp. 180, 181, copyright © The Royal Welch Fusiliers 1987, publisher: Abacus (Little, Brown and Company, UK), publication date: 1994
1916-02-06, 1916, February, shell crater, crater