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Western Mail, Thursday, 31 October 1929, p. 2.
Engineers on the Somme.
In the last sixty days of the A.I.F.'s fighting existence the advance along the Somme to the Hindenburg Line in 1918, incredible demands were made upon all ranks and all arms of the service. From the highest commander to the most humble private every physical and mental attribute was called upon to play its part in achieving the success of the most astonishing campaign in history.
The infantry could never have been so consistently victorious had they not been backed up by equally meritorious service by other arms. In that respect the engineers can look back on the period as one which gave them full scope for the exercise of the technical knowledge and resource with which their traditions of past wars are full. To rebuild the crossings of the Somme, destroyed by the Germans as they retreated, was an urgent necessity if full advantage was to be taken of the impetus given by the initial victory on August 8. Fighting troops had to be fed; guns needed a serviceable line of communications to effective battle positions. The erection of temporary bridges, the repair of roads and railway lines necessitated the employment of every technical unit in the work. Engineer field companies, pioneer battalions, and tunnelling companies laboured in relays night and day. Pile driving gear was hastily improvised; the wreckage of the original bridges was searched for sound timber; twisted wreckage was dragged out of the way, and hammer, saw, and axe were plied with vim. Within two days wrecked bridges were rebuilt which were capable of carrying ordinary transport and field guns, and were rapidly strengthened afterwards to take heavier traffic. The bridge at Peronne threatened difficulties. It was essential to further progress. Its temporary repairs and subsequent strengthening while the stream of fighting services were using it, constitute an epic in military engineering.
The Somme loomed large in the eyes of the fighting infantry; to the engineer it must appear as the acme of technical and physical war endeavour.