Such a day as the 25th was not very favourable for preceding an attack, yet when Wednesday, the 26th, dawned it found the infantry of the 33rd Division assembling for the assault which had been fixed for 5.50 A.M. It will be remembered that just prior to the attack on the 20th the field batteries were all subjected to an intense bombardment, while the infantry were allowed to assemble in the front line almost untouched. Now the positions were reversed; at 5.0 A.M. the enemy put down an intense barrage on the infantry, just as the latter were forming up for the attack, and inflicted very heavy casualties upon them. For fifty minutes the hostile bombardment tore them and shook them, and it was in greatly diminished numbers that the infantry advanced across No Man's Land when, at 5.50 A.M., the guns blazed out in the assault barrage.
For this attack one hundred and two 18-pdrs., thirty-six 4·5 in. howitzers and a large number of heavy guns were covering the divisional front, which stretched from the southern edge of the Polygon de Zonnebeke on the north to a point three hundred yards short of Gheluvelt on the south. Dumps of eight hundred and thirty rounds per 18-pdr. gun and seven hundred and fifty rounds per 4·5 in. howitzer were maintained at the guns for, as previously, the barrage was to move at the very slow rate of one hundred yards in six minutes to the first objective, and one hundred yards in eight minutes to the final line to be taken. Moreover, a protective barrage was to be maintained beyond the final objective for half an hour after its capture (8.40 A.M.), and from then until 2.15 P.M. was to continue at a reduced rate searching all the ground beyond the infantry to a depth of one thousand yards. From this it will be seen that allowance had to be made for a very heavy expenditure of ammunition.
At 5.50 A.M. the infantry went over the top, and at 7.45 A.M. came the first news. A captain from the right and left artillery groups (between which two groups the 33rd Divisional Artillery was split up) had been attached to the headquarters of the two infantry brigades delivering the attack, while a subaltern from each group accompanied the battalions assaulting the final objective, and from them came the information. The 39th Division on the right and the 5th Australian Division on the left had captured the Red Line—the first objective—but the 33rd Division had been held up. The first objective on the front of the latter ran from Joist Farm past Jut Farm and through Polderhoek to the northern edge of Gheluvelt Wood, and had proved too strong for the troops who, during the previous twenty-four hours, had been fighting hand to hand in numberless counter-attacks and had endured the most intense bombardments. At 8.40 A.M. the trench which had been lost in the previous day's fighting just north of the Menin Road was recaptured, and at 11.55 A.M., after calling back the barrage, a fresh attack under the creeping fire of the batteries was launched upon the first objective. For twenty minutes the guns carried out this new programme, but at 12.15 P.M. a message was received asking the batteries to keep up a protective barrage beyond the Red Line until further notice, as a heavy barrage was being maintained by the enemy upon our assaulting troops. This protective barrage was continued for upwards of an hour, which fact indicated that no further progress had been made by the infantry, and throughout the afternoon intermittent fire was directed upon the enemy beyond the first objective until such time as orders should be received for a fresh attack.
In the middle of the afternoon a severe enemy shell storm descended upon all the batteries and inflicted serious casualties. At the same time a heavy bombardment of our infantry was reported, and at 5.0 P.M. our guns, themselves heavily shelled by the enemy, opened fire on their S.O.S. lines until 6.30 P.M. when they slowed down. At 6.40 P.M. the S.O.S. signal was again sent up, and again for one and a quarter hours the batteries put down a barrage. Scarcely had they stopped than the enemy launched yet another counter-attack, and not till nine o'clock at night did the gun detachments cease the barrage firing which they had begun shortly before 6.0 A.M. that morning. With the arrival of night matters became quieter and no further operations were attempted. From information received it was gathered that the infantry of the 33rd Division held the original line from which they had been driven on the preceding day, and had established advanced posts in the first objective although not occupying it in force. The casualties were reported to have been terribly heavy.
On the morning of the 27th a resumption of the advance was carried out. Ammunition was running low but, with pack horses hard at work bringing up fresh supplies, the batteries kept a covering fire over the infantry, and by 9.45 A.M. the latter had established themselves in force in the first objective of the previous day's fighting and had pushed out posts beyond. At midday the left brigade were very heavily shelled and asked for covering fire from the batteries, and half an hour later the 5th Australian Division on the left reported that they could see the enemy massing in Polderhoek Château Wood. On hearing this the guns of the 156th and 162nd Brigades were immediately turned on to this area, searching and sweeping it for upwards of three-quarters of an hour, and the threatened counter-attack was broken up. At 2.15 P.M., however, it developed again, and for an hour the guns of the 162nd Brigade maintained a medium rate of fire on their S.O.S. lines, at the end of which time all was reported quiet.
So the day wore on; the guns in continual action, the detachments, depleted by hostile shell fire and weary almost to death, seizing what opportunities they could of getting a few moments' rest. At a quarter to seven in the evening the never-ending S.O.S. call was sent out again, and for another hour the batteries fired on the lines indicated, breaking up the attempted counter-attack and assisting our troops to advance slightly upon the Blue Line—the final objective of the previous day's battle—towards which they had been working gradually the whole day long. When this barrage was finished night firing began and was continued throughout the night, two calls for support from the infantry being responded to at 1.15 A.M. and 5.10 A.M. respectively, and at twenty minutes past five on the morning of the 28th such gunners as still survived pulled themselves together to fire a Corps practice barrage.
This practice barrage had a threefold object. In addition to further shattering the enemy's defences and upsetting his morale, it was so timed as to coincide with any enemy counter-attack which might have been fixed for dawn, and which would therefore be dispersed by the fire of our guns before it could come to a head. Moreover, it also helped our front line troops under cover of its fire further to improve their position, and so well did it succeed in this respect that, at 8.0 A.M., the infantry reported that they had consolidated their front only one hundred yards short of the Blue Line. This operation, apart from an Army barrage at 5.15 A.M. on the 29th which coincided with and broke up a pending enemy counter-attack, proved the last combined operation between infantry and gunners to take place in the month of September; with the two brigades now engaged in the usual harassing fire which was the order of the day on this front, we must turn our attention to the life of the batteries and, leaving their tactical operations alone for a few moments, see how they had fared during the previous four days' battle.
The losses amongst the detachments had been cruel. In all the fighting a very heavy portion of the enemy's fire had been directed in counter-battery work upon the gun positions, and the batteries, being almost continually engaged with S.O.S. calls and unable to take any form of cover, had been shot down time and again. Moreover, the work had been desperate; with weakened detachments an incessant fire had had to be kept up almost without a break, and such intervals as offered themselves were necessarily utilised in rebuilding damaged gun platforms and in restocking with ammunition. The men were in an advanced stage of fatigue, and as yet no signs were forthcoming of any possibility of a rest. On September 27th B/162 (Major Cory) was relieved by B/102 and marched down to St. Hubertshoek, near Hallebast Corner, whither the 162nd Brigade wagon-lines had moved on September 25th, and here this one battery remained in rest until October 7th, but for the remainder there was no relief. With men from the D.A.C. and from the Trench Mortar batteries the guns were kept in action, but this course involved the use of many unskilled numbers, and few detachments had more than one man who could safely be trusted to lay the piece in a barrage.
On September 28th two moves took place which brought home to the batteries the fact that, for the present at any rate, they were not to be relieved. On that day General Stewart and his Staff, on the relief of the 33rd Division infantry by the 23rd Division, handed over control of the artillery to the incoming C.R.A. and moved out to rest at Boeschepe, where the headquarter staff remained until the batteries themselves at a later date were ultimately relieved. Simultaneously, Lieut.-Colonel E. J. Skinner, commanding the 162nd Brigade, came up and took over the control of the Left Group from Lieut.-Colonel Groves (103rd Brigade) and set up his headquarters first at Dormy House but later, on October 1st, at Bedford House, one thousand yards south of Shrapnel Corner. The zone covered by the two brigades was very slightly altered and now ran from Gheluvelt on the Ypres-Menin road to a point about 1,700 yards northwards, but the battery positions remained the same, and October came in to find them preparing for offensive operations again.
On October 1st an Army practice barrage had been fixed to begin at 5.15 A.M., and, just as the gunners were assembling to fire the opening rounds, a furious shell-storm was opened by the enemy upon our own front line and the whole area up to one thousand yards in rear of it. It was manifest, from hostile aeroplane activity and the weight of artillery fire which was being brought to bear, that a big counter-attack was impending, and the Army barrage accordingly came down at a very opportune moment. At 5.50 A.M., while it was at its height, the enemy were seen advancing in a series of waves upon our front line, and with that action there began a day of the most intense fighting. All communications with the front line were cut, not even pigeons succeeded in finding a way through the dense hostile barrage, and until the evening every battery was kept in almost continuous action answering the numerous S.O.S. rockets which appeared, and replying to the enemy bombardment which, even without the evidence of rockets, called by its weight for active reply. Not until midnight did the situation ease, and then it was found that the infantry had maintained their whole front except for the left which had been bent back very slightly. To the extraordinary heroism of the infantry the G.O.C. 23rd Division ascribed the defeat of the hostile attack—and with this the gunners very heartily agreed—but he added in his report that the field batteries had maintained such splendid protective fire that the enemy had, on frequent occasions, been broken up before they could get to grips with the garrison of our front line.