BATTLE REPORT

Three, nearly four years after the GWHS abandoned the

untenable Jack Rabbit Trails trenches, the GWHS held

is first non-public trench battle at the prospective

new site at Ozena Ranch in Ventura County.  There was

much conflicting information the route to the site

regarding Lockwood Valley Road.  It turned out that

the road was open, but only to ‘local traffic.’ So

those who wanted to drive around the barricades drove

in without trouble.  

I had been repeatedly urged by several people to let

the group know that it would be cold at night, and

wanting our group to be at least to be prepared for

the cold, I duly passed on the dire warnings.  But all

I may have done is frighten off some teetering on

coming up.  The weather all weekend was quite mild,

although rather chilly even in the wee hours of the

morning (which is why we wear wool, right?) I arrived

Thursday night in order to guide the backhoe

operations on the following morning.  Although I had

the week before laid out trenches further down the

valley, after much weighing of alternatives, I moved

the site further up the canyon to one side of a narrow

valley.  Although a smaller battlefield than I wanted,

it was less visible from the road and passersby, and

it also appeared little used by the WW2 guys, whose

toes I didn’t want to step on unnecessarily.   I

designed the trench systems to mirror each other, with

a dog tooth pattern front line trench with four

12-foot firing bays, permitting four to five riflemen

per bay.  In the support line I had two additional

firing bays, plus two large holes dug to be used as

small bunkers, funk holes or mortar positions, to be

developed as the possessors saw fit.  Connecting the

front and support trenches I had dug a zig-zag

communications trenches, with could be defended by

firing positions in the support line.  The east end of

the battlesite was narrower than the west side, and

with some trees I did not want to cut down, the

digging around them made for a more compact trench

system than desirable.  But the east side trenches

were uphill from the west trenches and therefore had a

slight advantage in height. Once which sides were to

have which trenches was decided by a flip of the coin,

the Friday arrivals for the work party began

developing their trenches.  Work continued in earnest

as new arrivals unloaded their gear and set to work on

their positions.   Since this was the first event

there, and with all forces furiously digging,

positioning sandbags and stringing wire, the

pre-battle meeting, originally set for noon was set

back to 1:00, then 1:30, and hostilities did not

actually begin until much later, giving us only a

couple hours of daylight battles.  The one hour dinner

break stretched into two hours, and after the

recalcitrant combatants were herded back into the

trenches, hostilities were renewed for several more

hours.

The usual number of call offs left us with only 20

re-enactors total, lower than desired but still enough

to test the site worthiness.  With the local sheriff

department informed what we were about, we had a

battle with machine gun and artillery fire, plus

aerial flares, without the authorities coming down on

us like a ton of bricks, a very auspicious sign for

the viability of the site. 

The Germans had the MG08 set up in the second line

with a deadly sweeping view of the pathways through

the wire, and the granatenwerfer, which bombarded the

Allied trenches throughout the daylight battle.  

In addition to the Lewis Gun and the Lunde artillery

piece, the Allies also had several new weapons systems

to test, including a cup launcher and a spigot mortar,

although the trial run of the French spigot mortar

proved that there needs to be some modifications in

design of both the launcher and the projectiles before

it can be taken out in the field again.

The battle died down around 10:00.  Exhausted by the

trench building in the morning and the day’s fighting

and alarmed by my dire predictions of the cold, half

the forces bugged out by midnight.  That left less

than a dozen in the morning for breakfast, leaving

Bryan Thompson with an over-abundance of food

purchased for the morning.  

I would remind those that helped carry stuff out for

me that weekend that they needed to carry the stuff

back as well.  I was left with far more gear and

equipment than I had brought out.  Had not Sean Weller

remained on hand to haul out half of it Sunday

morning, I would have had no alternative but to

abandon a lot of it and try to get back sometime to

recover it al, at great loss of time and money to

myself.  So I owe Sean a debt of thanks.  

In fact, a number of tools that were abandoned were

simply left in the trenches and hopefully will still

be there in April.  

In the evening Saturday elections were held for

officers of the board for GWHS.  The present members

of the GWHS showed singular lack of good sense in

electing the following:

Phillip Dye – President

They showed substantially better judgment in

railroading the following by popular acclaim:

Adam Lid – Vice President

Chris Michaelis – Treasurer

James Minnich – Secretary

However the votes from Florida still haven’t been

counted, due to hanging chads.

It should be noted that all four officers have served

on both German and Allied forces at one time or

another at previous events, so the board is not

weighted one way or another.  In fact, despite an

allegation at the meeting that the board is heavily

weighed German, only one on the board served as a

German this last event.  

A vote whether to return to the site in April was

overwhelmingly approached and the date of April 26-27

was subsequently set.  Get ready for it now, because

time does fly, doesn’t it?

An account of funds raised and expended is being

prepared to be posted shortly.  Meanwhile, a number of

the board officers in charge of the funds will be

heading off to Columbus, suspiciously close to the

Mexican border.  Coincidence?

Phillip Dye

President, GWHS

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