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Australian soldiers walking along duckboards during the Battle of Passchendaele. A duckboard is a type of boardwalk placed over muddy and wet ground. [8] During World War I, duckboards were used to line the bottom of trenches on the Western Front because these were regularly flooded, [9] and mud and water would lie in the trenches for months on end.
C Company and two platoons of A Company of 2/2nd Londons formed the left centre of the attack, with A Company of the 2/4th under command on the left. The attack had been carefully rehearsed, and tapes and duckboards had been laid to mark the forming-up positions. Zero Hour was set for 02.50, and the companies followed the barrage closely.
After 31 July, loads had to be carried over the Steenbeek and a one-way system was instituted, once the plank roads had been extended about 1,500 yd (1,400 m) closer to the new front line. Duckboards were easy to place, could be moved to avoid shell-fire and quickly repaired. [132]
New trenches collapsed as they were dug and the front and support lines were held by shell-hole posts, which became islands of squalor. Duckboards and ration boxes used as platforms sank under the mud; cooking became impossible and movement in daylight suicidal. There were epidemics of dysentery, trench foot and frostbite; old wounds opened.
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During the winter of 1915–1916, the German and French troops on the ridge spent much time trying to drain and repair trenches. In the area of the German 17th Reserve Division, long trenches were dug to divert water from the front trenches; in January 1916, about 4,900 ft (1,500 m) of duckboards were laid by Reserve Infantry Regiment 76 alone ...
British (upper) and German (lower) frontline trenches, 1916 German soldiers of the 11th Reserve Hussar Regiment fighting from a trench, on the Western Front, 1916 Plan of Ruapekapeka Pā 1846, an elaborate and heavily fortified Ngāpuhi innovation, which James Belich has argued laid the groundwork for or essentially invented modern trench warfare.
Ideally, the bottom of the trench was lined with duckboards to prevent men from sinking into the mud and dugouts were cut into the walls, these gave shelter from the elements and shrapnel, although in the British Army dugouts were usually reserved for the officers and senior NCOs. The men were then expected to sleep wherever they could and in ...