The debut of flamethrowers

The debut of flamethrowers

On July 30, 1915, tough fighting broke out around Hooge, Belgium.. During the British attack a large crater emerged very close to the German trenches. A crater like this was a prized target, because it provided an element of protection to the army troops that captured it and a relatively safe point from which to shoot the enemy. 

To try to keep the British away from the crater, which was on the German frontline, the Germans used their dreaded heavy mortar projectile, the Minenwerfer, which the British called Minnie or Moaning Minnie.

One of the British officers present at Hooge when the attack began, July 29, Lieutenant G. V. Carey, later recalled: "It was the biggest scare our teammates had stumbled upon until then. 

Apart from the amount of people that flew in the air, the explosions were so tremendous that everything that was found in a radius of about a hundred meters was likely to lose their reason within a few hours and the 7th Battalion had to withdraw from The line to several men who fluttered, helpless. ”

None of the men who participated in the attack, from the Zouave Forest to Hooge Crater, had been on that part of the line before. There was greater confusion on July 30, when the Germans used flamethrowers for the first time, which sent burning oil shells against them. “Suddenly there was a sizzling noise, Lieutenant Carey recalled later, and a bright crimson glow on the crater dyed the whole scene red.” 

"When looking, I saw that there were three or four different bursts of flames (like a line of powerful fire hoses, which spewed fire, rather than water) crossing my trench." The men who were given the blazing fire were "never seen again."