During the night of April 10/11th Battalion H.Q. was established in the Hospice at the south-west end of Nieppe, and here it remained until the following evening. With the exception of the pitiful remnants of C Company, and one platoon of D Company, the whole Battalion was manning the line which had been established in front of the railway, between Nieppe Station and the Steenwerck Road. In spite of the uncertainty of the situation, everyone whose duties would allow of it slept soundly, tired out with the activities of the previous day and night. The night passed quietly, the enemy, after his set-back at Le Veau, making no further attack.
Early the next morning, the Commanding Officer made a personal reconnaissance towards L’Epinette, and nearly reached the village before he saw anything of the enemy. He was then heavily fired on by a party of Germans and forced to withdraw. Other patrols were pushed out well to the west of the railway without encountering the enemy. From French civilians, who had remained in their homes all through the fighting, they learned that large numbers of Germans had been there, but had withdrawn towards the south-west after the successful attack of the Battalion at Le Veau. The only actual encounter that took place near the railway was with a German artillery officer, who rode nearly up to the line with a mounted orderly about 8-30 a.m. He was shot and fell from his horse dead, but his companion escaped. The numbers of German dead littering the ground in front of the railway showed that, in spite of its own heavy losses, the Battalion had made the enemy pay even more heavily. About 9-0 a.m., units of the 101st Infantry Brigade relieved the Battalion, and the men were concentrated in houses near the Hospice.
The Battalion was now in Brigade Reserve, the other battalions of the Brigade manning the Nieppe System to the east of the town. The day was a very confused one. Continually the situation was being reported obscure at some part of the front, and frequently a company, or two platoons, or some other force, had to be sent off to clear it up. The only part of the front where the situation was never reported obscure was that held by the 147th Infantry Brigade. Such duties proved very tiring, though for some time no serious fighting resulted. By now the enemy was everywhere well across the Lys, the entrenched line of which Wigan formed a part had been entirely given up, and the railway and the Nieppe System were the outpost lines of the British. Incidentally, it should be mentioned here that the 1/5th Battalion York and Lancaster Regt. did the 147th Infantry Brigade a very good turn that day. By a highly successful counter-attack in the neighbourhood of Steenwerck, they held up the enemy’s advance, and barred his approach to the main line of retreat from Nieppe—the road to Bailleul.
Nothing serious, so far as the Battalion was concerned, happened until after mid-day. But about 12-30 p.m., a message arrived from Brigade H.Q. stating that the situation was very obscure on the left of the 6th Battalion Duke of Wellington’s Regt., near Bruna Gaye; the remnants of C Company were already on their way there; and an additional company was to be despatched at once. A Company was detailed for this duty, and the Commanding Officer himself accompanied it, leaving Capt. Fenton in charge at Battalion H.Q. Lieut.-Col. Sugden found matters in a very critical state; artillery and machine gun fire were very heavy, and a strong German attack was being directed against a battalion of the Cheshires. The arrival of the 4th Battalion detachment restored the situation, but hard fighting continued there until the evening. One Lewis gun of A Company did great execution; it was concealed in the upper storey of a house, found excellent targets among the masses of the enemy, and was apparently never discovered by them. The Commanding Officer remained at Bruna Gaye to direct operations.
Late in the afternoon there was again trouble on the right, and two platoons of B Company were sent to the neighbourhood of Nieppe Station. Here they had hard fighting for two hours, but held their ground successfully.
About 7-0 p.m. the Commanding Officer returned from Bruna Gaye. He had called at Brigade H.Q. on his way back, and had received orders for a further withdrawal, which was to be made that night. This withdrawal was rendered necessary by a fresh attack which the enemy had launched at Wytschaete that day, for there was now great danger that, unless all the troops in and around Nieppe withdrew at once, they would be surrounded. The withdrawal was to start at 7-30 p.m. and the difficulty was to get orders through to A and C Companies. Runners managed to reach them just in time, when they were in imminent danger of being cut off.
At 7-30 p.m. B and D Companies, followed by Battalion H.Q., left the Hospice and started towards Bailleul. Enemy machine gun bullets were sweeping the ground, and, before he had gone more than a hundred yards, R.S.M. F. P. Stirzaker, M.C., was hit in the throat, and died within five minutes. His death was a great blow to the Battalion which he had fought with continuously for three years; he was a most hardworking, conscientious and gallant man, whose place could never be filled. It was impossible to remove the body, and he would have been the last to wish any risks to be run by others on his account. So he was left like a soldier on the spot where he had died, and the remainder of the party continued sorrowfully on its way.
The sight on the Nieppe-Bailleul Road that night was such as none of the Battalion had seen before, nor any wished to see again. Of vehicles there were practically none, but the whole road was crowded with men hastening to the rear. It was an army in retreat. But the crowd of men was not disorderly; there was no panic. As each one reached his allotted station he quietly fell in, ready to hold a fresh line. Mercifully the enemy, for some unknown reason, scarcely attempted to shell the road. Had he done so the casualties must have been awful, for no shell dropped among those masses of men could have failed to hit many. One gruesome spot, where a 15 cm. shell had burst among a number of Royal Engineers, gave the passer-by an idea of what might have been. All along the left of the road the enemy flares, approaching nearer and nearer, showed how near the British troops were to utter disaster. But they escaped. And never again had the enemy such an opportunity. By about 11-0 p.m. the Battalion was again concentrated in a position near Bailleul.
April 10–11, 1918.