8 August 1918: The Black Day of the German Army

At 4.20 am on 8 August 1918 the Australian Corps — together with the Canadian Corps, and with the support of a British corps on the left and the French First Army on the right — attacked the German lines near Amiens in northern France. This day marked the beginning of the great Allied offensive that would ultimately lead to the end of the war. Nothing was left to chance. Planned in the strictest secrecy, Amiens would be one of the most tightly organised battles to date on the Western Front.

Like Hamel four weeks earlier, but on a vastly bigger scale, Amiens involved a network of firepower to enable the infantry to take their objectives. The artillery provided the over-arching support for the infantry operation, laying down a creeping barrier of shell-fire that preceded the men as they left the protection of their trenches. Every available tank in the British army was used at Amiens, wheedling their way forward side-by-side under the artillery barrage with the infantry. Machine-guns, trench mortars, rifle grenades and bombs provided added firepower. Aircraft worked hard to identify German targets on the ground, while keeping the skies clear of German planes.

This immense and deadly operation, the result of weeks and weeks of detailed planning, was an unprecedented success. Unlike previous campaigns, such as that on the Somme in 1916 or at Passchendaele in 1917, the attacking corps were able to capture large amounts of territory – the Australians advanced the line 11 kms on their front, and the Canadians nearly 13 kms. It so demoralised German general Ludendorff that he famously said that Amiens was “the black day of the German Army in the history of the war. This was the worst experience I had to go through.”

At 11.05 am that day, Lieutenant Edward Bice took off from behind the line to conduct a contact patrol above the battle. He had served in the Australian Imperial Force since Gallipoli, and in 1917 was awarded the Military Cross for “conspicuous gallantry in action” after being shot in the neck while with the 6th Machine Gun Company at Bullecourt. Bice aspired to fly, and later that year was successful in transferring to the Australian Flying Corps. He had a wife in London, and was able to visit her during his pilot training in Reading. He had arrived back in France as a newly minted pilot 46 days before he and his engineer, Lieutenant Chapman, left for their flight.

They were never seen alive again. The remains of their crashed plane were found several days later, and reports were later heard that they were attacked by nine Fokker bi-planes and brought down in flames. While it is hard to overestimate the significance of the success at Amiens — for the corps that fought it, and for the Allied effort as a whole — it came at a significant cost: thousands of men like Lieutenant Edward Bice lost their lives during the operation.

Lieutenant Edward Bice’s daughter was born three and a half months after his death. His remains were reinterred after the war at Heath Cemetery, Harbonnières. His headstone reads: “eternal honour give to those who died that we might live”.