CHAPTER VI.
THE THIRD BATTLE OF YPRES.
15th July, 1917, to 1st August, 1917.
On the 17th July, 1917, the preliminary bombardment of the enemy lines by our guns commenced. In the early morning ten shells from a Hun high velocity gun landed on Battalion Headquarters, one actually entering the Colonel’s dugout and exploding there without injuring him!
On the night following, a fighting patrol of ours had a brush with a Hun patrol in NO MAN’S LAND, and did good work, bringing back a dead German, who turned out to belong to the 449th Infantry Regiment, who were expected to be opposite to us. On the 20th Second Lieutenant Vincent took a raiding party of 20 in to the enemy lines and found a post of four men; two fled, one was bayonetted, and one taken prisoner. During these days artillery had been active, and our casualties were 6 killed, 13 wounded, 2 gassed.
On the 21st we suffered rather heavily from enemy artillery, a single shell hitting 9 men, our total casualties on that day being 11 killed and 14 wounded, of whom 2 afterwards died—our worst day since the SOMME. The Quartermaster, Lieutenant March, was wounded but remained on duty. In the evening we were relieved by the 1/5th King’s Liverpool Regiment, and went back to a canvas camp near POPERINGHE, where all had a bath, and then marched on to WATOU, resting there for three days and returning to the canvas camp on the 25th. Captain L. Duckworth rejoined us here, and Second Lieutenant Holmes reported for duty.
During the night of the 27th enemy aeroplanes dropped bombs near our camp.
The following Operation Order and the details of the attack are taken verbatim from the War Diary, the official record, and are very complete, but a few prefatory words are necessary to make them intelligible to the general reader.
The 55th Division was at this time in the 19th Corps of the 5th Army, which, with the 2nd Army and the 1st French Army, were to attack the enemy’s GHELUVELT-LANGEMARCK line; the task allotted to our Brigade (164), was to pass through the other two Brigades of the Division when they had taken their objectives and capture the third-line system, mostly consisting of concrete blockhouses, which we were to meet for the first time.
The barrage is officially stated to have been the most intense which had ever been put down up to that time, and largely contributed to the success of the attack. Another novelty for us was “B team,” a nucleus of Officers, Warrant Officers, N.C.O.’s and men who were kept out of the attack so that the Battalion could be reorganised as quickly as possible afterwards; the Order had been issued by the Higher Command some months before, and to it was largely due the wonderful speed with which units recovered from battles which in earlier years would have taken nearly all their leaders and specialists and rendered them unfit for action for at least six months.