On the 25th another batch of Officers—Lieutenant G. B. Wardle and Second Lieutenants O. R. Cooper, R. Hodgson, G. H. Frost, E. H. Studdard, and L. O. Halliwell—joined us, followed, on the 30th, by a draft from the 1/5th North Lancashires, consisting of:—Captains R. W. B. Sparkes, M.C., and B. J. Phillips, Second Lieutenants J. S. Hampson, T. H. Scott, W. E. Pasley, J. H. Friar, F. Greaves, A. James, T. McLachlan, M.C., J. T. Taylor, and 163 Other Ranks.
On the 31st the total strength of the Battalion was 56 Officers (including the Medical Officer and the Padre) and 942 Other Ranks, there being actually 43 Officers and 631 Other Ranks serving with the Battalion.
Two more Officers, Second Lieutenants Beresford and Horsfall, and two Other Ranks arrived on the 2nd February, and Second Lieutenants Symes and G. Haworth came on the 3rd, Second Lieutenant R. Smith on the 4th, and Second Lieutenants G. Kirkby and H. Bailey on the 6th.
We had never been so strong in numbers since the battle of FESTUBERT, and the rest and daily training had improved our morale, so that when we moved away from DELETTE on the 7th February we presented a very different spectacle to the handful of survivors who had mustered after the VAUCELLETTE FARM affair at the end of November, 1917.
Esprit-de-corps is a wonderful thing, and has been noticed by many people during the war. Officers and men rejoining their Companies after perhaps two years’ absence would find awaiting them the same Company they had left, although perhaps no Officer and only half-a-dozen men remained of it, and though on this date the Commanding Officer was the only Officer still present who had left England with the Battalion, and there were probably not more than 20 of the originals with him, yet in some indefinable way the Battalion was the same one. Not perhaps so thoroughly grounded in some ways as it originally had been, but with all the cumulative experience of three years of war governing its every move.
On the 7th February, escorted by the Divisional Band (which was generally considered an ominous sign), we marched to ESTREE-BLANCHE, and arrived there very wet about 12 noon. Six men were sent to Field Ambulance sick.
The following day we marched on to CANTRAINNE, arriving there at 3 p.m., again very wet, and on the 9th on to FONGUIERES, where all were present and billeted by 1 p.m.
Sunday was devoted to Church Parade and cleaning up, the strength of the Battalion being recorded as 51 Officers and 708 Other Ranks. Second Lieutenant P. Adamson, M.C., rejoined us here.
The next three days were spent in training and preparations for the trenches and reconnaissance of the forward area, in this case the LA BASSEE CANAL sector.
On the 14th we relieved the 1/8th Lancashire Fusiliers by daylight. Companies marching via BETHUNE and the canal bank. Relief was completed by 4 30 p.m.