(a) St. Pol and Ghyvelde.
The Battalion arrived at L’Epinette early in the morning of July 4th, and there it remained for more than a week. After the recent depressing time which had been spent near Hulluch, the comfortable billets and the pleasant and highly-cultivated surroundings were indeed a welcome change. Some training was done, but the main feature of the stay was the Brigade Sports, which were held near Paradis. On the whole, the Battalion was not very successful in the events, but its canteen, the only one on the ground, did a roaring trade.
On July 13th the Battalion marched to Merville where it entrained. After a much quicker journey than was usual in France, it arrived at Dunkerque, and marched thence to a camping ground just outside St. Pol. Here tents had been pitched by the advanced party. The conditions were rather primitive, it being an entirely new site, and the number of tents was so small that about twenty-two men had to be crowded into each. The camp was pitched among the sand dunes which made an excellent training area, in view of the operations in which the Battalion expected soon to be engaged. Large tracts of these sand hills were covered with furze and other undergrowth, growing in places as high as six feet, and a highly interesting night march on compass bearing was carried out there. At first bathing was largely indulged in, but a particularly obnoxious variety of jelly fish infested the sea and caused so many casualties that it was practically given up, except by the few who patronised the deep ditch round Fort Mardyck.
At the end of five days the Battalion marched to Bray Dunes, where it was accommodated in a former Belgian camp. A further move into one of the front line sectors near the coast was expected, and an advanced billeting party actually went forward to Oost Dunkerque. But these orders were cancelled and the Battalion moved a mile or two inland to Ghyvelde, and settled down to hard attack training there.
When the Battalion first received orders to move up to the coast, the 49th Division was intended to take part in a big attack on the Dunes Sector, with its flank resting on the sea. This operation had been prevented by an enemy attack on July 11th, which had captured the whole of the Dunes Sector and pushed back the British line to the south side of the Yser Canal. Now the Division was detailed to make a frontal attack on the village of Lombartzyde. The 147th Infantry Brigade was to operate on the left, with its right on the Nieuport-Lombartzyde Road and its left on the Galeide Brook. The Battalion was to lead the attack on the right of the Brigade. The operation was a very complicated and difficult one. A large number of men had to be assembled on a very narrow front, and, after taking a series of objectives, which included the western half of the village of Lombartzyde, the Battalion was to consolidate a line on the light railway N.N.W. of the village, with another battalion of the Brigade on its left, facing nearly due west along the Galeide. With the enemy very much on the alert on that front, the assembly alone would have been fraught with great danger and difficulty.
A facsimile of the enemy trenches had been dug near at hand by another division, and this was used by the 147th Infantry Brigade. In order to approximate to the actual conditions of the operation, the Battalion used to fall in at 1-0 a.m. and march off to its assembly positions. All had to be assembled by half-an-hour before dawn. At dawn the “attack” would begin, and the Battalion would be back in camp about 8-0 a.m. Little was done during the rest of the day.
But this attack never took place. The Battalion never learned definitely why this was. Perhaps it was due to the severe casualties inflicted on the other Brigades of the Division by the enemy’s first use of “mustard” gas. On the last day of July the Battalion moved to La Panne Bains, and took over coast defence duties from a Belgian battalion. In those days La Panne was a delightful place, and the three days spent there were much enjoyed by all. The town had suffered little from shell fire or bombing, and everything was going on much the same as in peace time. The coast defence duties were not heavy. Billets were mostly on the sea front, in good houses or hotels. The “Terlynk” and the “Continental” were well patronised. It was a regular seaside holiday for everyone.
(b) The Lombartzyde Sector.
On the night of August 3rd/4th the Battalion relieved the 1/5th Battalion King’s Own Yorkshire Light Infantry in the Lombartzyde Right Sub-sector. Motor buses conveyed them to a point about midway between Oost Dunkerque and Nieuport, and from there they marched up to the line. The night was unusually quiet for that sector, but pouring rain hampered the relief and caused much discomfort.
The Lombartzyde Sector was a position of supreme importance. Since the enemy attack on July 11th had driven the British out of the Dunes Sector to a line on the south side of the Yser Canal, it had become the only British position north of the canal. It was simply a bridge-head, about 1,500 yards wide and 1,000 yards deep, bounded on the right by the flooded Bamburgh Polder, and on the left by the canal and the flooded Galeide Brook. Like the Dunes Sector it had been attacked on July 11th, but the enemy had only succeeded in maintaining a footing in the front, and part of the support, lines to the west of the Nieuport-Lombartzyde Road. To maintain this bridge-head as a “jumping-off” place for attack was of the utmost importance, and its capture was as much to be desired by the enemy. Hence, since July 11th, an enormous weight of artillery had been concentrated there by the British, and the Germans had been equally active on their side.