Wounded and Missing 2:
Captain F. W. Tomlinson and Lieut. G. R. Howe.
Missing 2:
Captain L. Howard Smith and Lieut. A. L. D. Ryder.
The other rank casualties are most difficult to account for, particularly in respect of the 150 men of the two drafts that arrived on the 30th April and the 1st May respectively. These men’s names were not known. Also many men were buried in the trenches and it was impossible to obtain identity discs. The following figures are approximate; it is certain, however, that many others were killed, including the majority of the above-mentioned drafts:—
| Killed | 67 |
| Wounded | 259 |
| Wounded and missing | 13 |
| Missing | 363 |
A total of 17 officers and 702 other ranks.
It may be conceived and understood from this list of losses that the old “Contemptible” army had by now disappeared. A few officers, including promoted N.C.O.’s, and some veteran soldiers, still existed; many of them, having partially recovered from wounds and sickness, were now in military employment in England, but, roughly speaking, the soldiers fighting in France were new men, who, a year before, never thought it possible that they would be fighting the battles of their Country; but still the drafts arrived and still the men composing them were called upon to die or be maimed. It was a sad thing in the case above recorded for the poor lads of the drafts who had just left Kent full of life, zeal and enthusiasm to be obliterated immediately on reaching their long-desired goal, their regiment, and even before they had been allotted to companies.
At daylight on the 8th May very heavy bombardment was heard, and at 8.30 a.m. the Buffs, still under the command of Captain Jackson, were ordered to a camp west of Ypres on the Zonnebeke road. Here were found very poor and dilapidated trenches with demolished parapets, but these were ordered to be held at all costs, and here the battalion was shelled all day. B Company set to work to dig itself into a new support trench about two hundred yards behind the main fire one. Towards midnight on the 12th, after almost continuous shelling during the preceding days, the battalion was relieved by the Life Guards and moved back to Poperinghe.