SKETCH MAP OF OPERATIONS AROUND JERUSALEM
There were constant alarms, and on the night of the 30th/31st March “D” Company repulsed four separate determined attacks on their position, with no loss to themselves. On the right and left “A” and “B” Companies were troubled slightly, but the brunt of the defence of Es Salt fell on the centre of the line.
The situation was nevertheless serious, and the 2/14th and 2/16th Battalions were brought back to Es Salt.
The Battalion was relieved on the night of the 31st of March, and at dawn moved down to the south side of Es Salt. The Divisional withdrawal from Annam, the assault on which place had not been entirely successful, was now in full swing, and the majority of the Armenian population of Es Salt, terrified at the prospect of the return of the terrible Turk, was hastily evacuating the town. The road, which had been churned up by men, horses, guns, and wheeled transport, was inches deep in liquid mud, and was packed with refugees. Old men and boys, women and children of all ages, with their household goods in large bundles on their backs, staggered along obsessed with great fear. Their flight was terrible, and not a few of us hurriedly realised that it is not only troops who suffer in war time. We could give little assistance; our own baggage wagons were already overburdened and our own loads were heavy, but we did what we could.
At 8.0 a.m. on the 1st of April (Easter Monday), after standing in full marching order in the mud for a solid hour, we started our retirement, and though hindered and hampered by the crowd of refugees which surged and swayed either side of us, we marched steadily until 5.0 a.m. next day, when we emerged from the hills at Shunet Nimrin, and bivouacked for a few hours, after which we continued and, crossing the Jordan River by the Ghoraniyeh Ford, we arrived at a position in the Wadi Nuemiah about 3 p.m., having covered a distance of about thirty miles since 8.0 p.m. the previous night.
Every one was footsore, dirty, unshaven, with seven days’ growth of beard, and thoroughly tired, but we soon settled down to our first proper night’s rest for nine days, during which time we had experienced almost the extremes of heat and cold, and had marched about seventy miles through some of the most atrocious country our army has ever operated in. The other Brigades had fared even worse than we had, but the whole Division had covered itself with honour, and had no reason to be dispirited at the apparent failure of its novel enterprise. Gains in warfare are not measured by territory alone, and the influence of this raid—indeed it was almost a campaign—had a far reaching effect on the strategy of the Palestine campaign.
We were happy, on our return to the Jordan Valley, to welcome back from leave in England our Commanding Officer, Lieut.-Colonel Bisdee, and the Battalion, though it had worked well under its temporary Commander, was delighted to see its Commanding Officer back once again, and it speaks much for the spirit of comradeship of the Regiment that no one was perhaps more pleased to be with us again than Colonel Bisdee himself.
After a day’s rest in the valley, we moved once again up towards Jerusalem, and halted at Talat ed Dumm for twenty-four hours. At Talat ed Dumm there is a wayside house reputed to be the Good Samaritan Inn of Biblical times. After this short rest we again pushed up the old Jericho road, which we had come to know almost as well as the Strand. On arriving at Jerusalem we were again billeted on the Mount of Olives. The road from Jericho goes through particularly desolate and wild country, and no doubt in years to come, many a Civil Service Rifleman, when questioned by his offspring concerning the man who fell among thieves, will truthfully say, “If you had seen the road you would not be surprised.”
It was not a habit in those days to keep us idle, and we were soon moved on up the Jerusalem-Nablous road via Bireh and Ram Allah to the Wadi el Jib, where we temporarily relieved the 10th (Irish) Division. The Battalion was in reserve, and bivouacked on a terraced hillside which was covered with fig trees and vines. It was very hot, and we were glad to resume our summer kit. The camping ground was one of the most pleasant we had experienced in Palestine, and we made the most of it. There were flowers and plants in great profusion, and botanists amongst us spent hours collecting specimens; one of them, a botanist by profession, collected a hundred or so specimens which he had never seen before, and which he could not name.
Of actual war we saw but little, occasional bombing raids were made by enemy planes, but our chief enemy was just behind us—a gunner officer in charge of an 18-pounder battery, whose idea of humour was to give an order for ten rounds gun fire regularly each night at varying times between midnight and 4.0 a.m. Our considered opinion of this gentleman cannot be published here.