GIBLIN, Norris Prof

1889 - 1972  (82 years)

• Name	GIBLIN, Norris  [1]
  Suffix	Prof
  Born	22 Dec 1889	Hobart, Tasmania, Australia   [1]
  Gender	Male
  Died	14 Dec 1972  [1]
  Person ID	I12193	My Genealogy
  Last Modified	16 Sep 2023

  
  

  Father	GIBLIN, Herbert James,   b. 30 Jul 1854, Hobart Town, Tasmania, Australia ,   d. 9 Jan 1946, Orford, Tasmania, Australia  (Age 91 years)
  Relationship	natural
  Mother	MITCHELL, Amy Mary Jane,   b. 24 Oct 1854, Spring Bay, Tasmania, Australia ,   d. 1956  (Age 101 years)
  Relationship	natural
  Family ID	F1612	Group Sheet  |  Family Chart

  
  

• Notes

  The Big Offensive Lieut. Norris Giblin, son of Mr. Her- bert Giblin, of Glenorchy, writing to his mother, under date France, July 10, says:-We are enjoying straw- berries and red currants, and complete relaxation, in a jolly village right back from the line, where even the sound of the big guns seldom reaches us. It's topping weather, too, warm and healthy; in the woods it was so damp that all our kits got mouldy. We sure needed a rest, and a good clean up all round, for we've been doing our bit in the big offensive stunt, and it was some battle! That's why I haven't been able to write for so long. We. weren't allowed to write letters, and we couldn't, anyway. I sent off a post- card when I got tho chance. Our artil- lery bombarded the Hun lines steadily for a solid-,week, day and night, and, as we had as many guns as there was room for, and jolly heavy ones at that, and any amount of ammunition, it was, quite a sight to watch. Our own job was dropping bombs on the barbed wire entanglements in front of his first line, and we cleared it all away to every- body's satisfaction-wire had never been cut like it before, they said. Then, one morning the infantry went over the top, wave after wave of them, and just, where we were they went all the way, with nothing to stop them. The Hun infantry had boon absolutely demoral- ised by the bombardment, although they had very deep funk-holes to get into, 30 or 40 feet below the surface. But they showed no fight at all; and came running out in hundreds, with no arms or equipment on at all, shouting "Kam- erad ! Kamerad !" and waving their arms. They didn't need to be taken prisoner, but came running over to our lines on their own, officers too, as soon as they found they weren't being shot. We stood and watched them, and roar- ed with laughter. They were so terri- fied, and at the same time so delighted to get out of the fighting, and when one of their own shells fell into our lines they would throw up their arms again and run to cover. My battery was standing to, ready to advance at a moment's notice, s0 we had nothing to do but watch ; but that order never came. On each of our flanks the Huns had strongly fortified villages, with deep dug-outs, lined with concrete, and connected by underground galleries, stocked with any amount of machine-guns and ammunition and rations; and as soon as our bombard- ment ceased, he brought out his mach ine-guns, which he had kept safely down below, and swept the country with them. Consequently the troops on our flanks failed to advance at all. Mean- while, wisely realising that our special bit of line was the crucial point, he had been concentrating all his artillery, and now he began pouring it into our wood for all he was worth, for he knew his infantry had failed him, and his only hope was to cut off our supports while he reorganised them ; and he did it most effectually. You may have read in the account of "Eyewitness" of how the Hun shelled a certain wood, but that man was on a hill a mile away, and had no conception of what it was like. We were in that wood from start to finish, and in the very hottest cor- ner of it -what we called "Suicide Slope," a steep bank, covered with fir- trees, running down to a marsh. The Hun hated that slope, because he could not see behind it, and he had a fixed idea that we were massing troops there, so he lammed into it for all he was worth. We had certainly thought it a pretty safe place to await events, and had settled ourselves in two dug-outs, half-way. down it ; they were not really dug-outs at all, just recesses cut into the bank, and roofed with corrugated iron, and a single layer of sandbags flush with the ground - barely enough to stop a shrapnel bullet. It was there that we had the cheek to eat, sleep, and be merry, while Fritz did his worst to leave no soul alive there. And it wasn't his fault he failed, either, for his shooting was magnificent. I have been in two or three hottish corners before, during minor raids, when he made the air thick with smoke and red with bursting shells, and the earth quaked with his crumps, but it never lasted more than an hour or so. This time he surpassed himself in the in- tensity of his fury, and kept it up all the time; for three days and nights to show our noses outside the door was to court sudden death. Yet we came through it untouched-some of us. For it so happened that the slope of the bank was just too steep for the angle of descent of his big crumps, and they either hit the top of the bank or went hurtling to the bottom, to burst with a plonk in the marsh, raising a column of spray a hundred feet high, but the water prevented the pieces from flying back at us. His smaller howitzers and whizzbarags he could burst in air, and searched the hillside with them, but he never got us though he knocked in half-a-dozen much stronger dug-outs and hit my men's dug-out three times. And he surely did some damage to that wood. I have been working there for the last three months, yet when I went up yesterday and had a walk round I could hardly recognise it, ex- cept for an occasional landmark. Every tree - and there were some fine big beeches above the bank - is either clean uprooted, or only a tor- tured stump remains, bespattered with dust, and blued with smoke. The ground is soft and pulver- ised for several feet deep, and the front line trench, which was n double one, and the strongest I've seen, is almost obliterated. Tear gas still clings about, and other stenches are beginning to ripen. After that three days Fritz felt more easy in his mind about our bank, and began to switch about the neigh- bourhood a bit, which he had hitherto left untouched. But for three more days he still devoted half his time to us -just as a reminder. Then at last we got orders to come out for a rest -all the other trench mortar batteries had already gone. And we lost no time about it either. But since then he has only put an occasional shell on the place. In the meantime our lads out in front, finding that no reinforcements came up, and receiving the order to re tire, began to walk back in twos and threes. But some hundreds of them in small parties stayed on for several days, for they were not being shelled out there, and to retreat to the wood was to-walk into a death trap. And, in- deed they had quite a cushy time at first, for they had fine dugout to live in, any amount of rations, and nothing to fear, except parties of Huns out bombing occasionally, for his infantry were quite disorganised. When they came back they had some splendid sou- venirs too -helmets with golden eagles, swords, field glasses, and all sorts of valuables. I am not allowed to talk of casualties, but though pretty bad, they were not as heavy as you might suppose. In my own battery I only had one man killed, and most of the injuries were very slight affairs. But at the end I only had six men with any nerve left. Back here they thought the entire bat- tery was wiped out! We had an awful job to got our stuff out. Our guns were buried three times, and each time we dug them out again, and put them in a new dugout. So ended my first battle, and possibly the last, for we may be left on the shelf for quite a while. Wo were pretty fed up to have all our good work wasted, and to miss the chance of advancing that other people are having, but such is the luck of war, and indeed we are lucky to come through it at all. We have been through the hottest piece of inferno we are likely to meet in this war - and come out unscathed. I hope this letter won't bo stopped by the censor; I don't see why it should, for I have said nothing that the Hun doesn't know as well as we do. If we have to drive the Germans back village by village, it will be a very slow business, but I'm beginning to think that may not be necessary; he may crack up at any time now, or at least realise that it's only a question of time, and ho may as well give in. [Lieut. Giblin commands the 115th trench mortar battery-]

  
  

• Sources

  [S309] Public Member Trees, Ancestry.com, (Name: Name: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc.;;), Database online. Record for Amy Mary Jane Mitchell http://trees.ancestry.com/pt/AMTCitationRedir.aspx?tid=103289043&pid=4627