On 9th April we were relieved by the 2/4 R.W.F. (53rd Division), and bivouacked that night at our transport lines on the shoulder of Tel Asur. Next day the Brigade marched via Beitin to Bireh and bivouacked just west of Ram Allah. The following day we went down the Ain Arik road to Tattenham Corner, along the road we ourselves had made to our bivouac area, near the old Devon Camp below Suffa.
On 12th April we made Amwas, and next day after a long and dusty march we reached our destination Ludd. We spent a busy day there drawing stores from Ordnance and returning things for which we had no further use. H.Q. and B Company entrained that evening, and the remainder the following morning, and we all got to Kantara that night, or very early on the morning of the 16th.
We were at Kantara just a fortnight, during which time we were disinfected and refitted, put through gas and exercised in field days on the desert. We had never been allowed to draw clothing in Palestine after Yalo as we were on the waiting list for France, and when we arrived at Kantara we were a most disreputable looking crowd—clothing patched and torn, garments showing where they should never be seen, and boots in some cases almost without soles at all. But when we marched out we were clad once more in new tunics, new trousers, and new boots, and looked very smart.
The transport left on 19th April under Mr J. Drysdale, and the Battalion followed on the 29th, reaching Alexandria early next morning, and embarking at once on H.M.T. Indarra. Brigade H.Q. were with us. Lieut.-Colonel Younger was O.C. troops, and Mr R. Colthart, ship’s adjutant.
We left Alexandria on 1st May, and so bade good-bye to Egypt and the East after a sojourn there of over two and a half years. We had all had a great experience, at times very strenuous and unpleasant, but on the whole interesting and not too bad. Our fighting had been almost entirely open warfare, for which as yeomanry we were well adapted, and which contrasted very favourably with the trench warfare on the Western Front. But few were sorry to go. None of us anticipated Allenby’s triumphant drive to Damascus, and felt we would be “doing our bit” more effectively on the Western Front where we well knew the final decision rested. But what counted much more was relief at escaping another hot, dusty, thirsty summer in the East, and the change to the civilisation and comparative comfort of France, and of course most of all to the proximity of Blighty, and the prospect of leave home. Though short local leave had not been so difficult to obtain, home leave, owing to the difficulty of transportation, had been very much restricted, and the great majority had never been home since coming out.
We had a very good trip to Marseilles. The captain laid himself out to make everything as comfortable as possible; the feeding was excellent, plenty of cabin accommodation for officers and N.C.O.’s, and the men were as comfortable as they ever can be in a crowded troopship. There were seven ships in the convoy which was escorted by British destroyers as far as Malta, and there relieved by Japanese destroyers who took us in safely to Marseilles. There was only one piece of excitement on the fourth day out. A destroyer sighted a submarine, rushed ahead at great speed and dropped a couple of depth charges. Nothing more was seen of the submarine, and we proceeded on our journey uninterrupted.