III. Third Battle of Gaza
On the 25th October the march south-eastward commenced. It was carried out by moonlight, and the fourth night brought the Buffs, together with the bulk of the division, to El Khasif and on the night of the 30th into their battle position. The march was a memorable one. The ground varied but was always open, so that movement in line was easy, and the moon was always shining. The operation seems to have been a triumph of staff work, and all the units slipped into their allotted positions for the attack that was to follow without a hitch of any kind. Khasif was some six miles from the Turkish lines, and, after a quiet day there, the 230th Brigade moved off at night and got into the places from which it was to attack at dawn.
The following description of what followed is given by one who was there: “We reached our jumping-off point about midnight, and at 4 a.m. on the 31st the advance began with B and C Companies, the unit on our right being the 25th Royal Welch Fusiliers and on the left the 12th Norfolks. Our objective being Z.6 Z.7 works. This position consisted of a line of trenches cut in white lime-stone rock, cleverly sited on the forward slope of a steep gully. A communication trench ran back into sloping ground in the rear and the wire was about seventy to one hundred yards down the sloping front. The leading waves of B and C Companies came under heavy shrapnel fire almost directly they started and the battalion suffered about sixty casualties, but, by continuing their advance and making use of the dead ground, they reached Hill 960, which was about one thousand two hundred yards from their objective. It became necessary to bring D Company into the line to fill a gap caused by the brigade on the right being drawn away. About 10 a.m. the 60th Division, who were on the right of the 74th, took Point 1070, and at 12.30 the final attack on Z.6 works was begun and, after a fierce fight, the position was captured. An intensive bombardment had previously been concentrated on the wire, but it was found to have been very ineffectual. By 1.30 the outpost line had been thrown out east of the captured positions and there the men remained for the night. It had been a very long and trying day’s fighting in the hot sun and wearing heavy packs and winter serges, which had been issued two days before the advance.”
In this Third Battle of Gaza 9 men were killed and Lieuts. Garle, Haughton, Hollom and Stockdale, 2nd. Lieuts. Aylward and Maddick, with 98 men, were wounded, 4 missing, 2 got shell-shock and 2 received injuries owing to the rough nature of the ground; 122 casualties in all. On the evening after the fight, news came that Beersheba had fallen.
On the 1st November the battalion bivouacked in Wadi Saba and were busied with salvage work, and on the next day at a public parade for the presentation of medal ribands, Corpl. Webb of D Company got the Military Medal. In the afternoon a march northward commenced, and on the 3rd November the battalion relieved the left unit of the 229th Brigade on outpost line in the vicinity of El Muweileh, which it held for a day, during which a half-hearted Turkish attack was easily repulsed and large bodies of troops were observed moving north and north-east.
During this period the scarcity of water was very severely felt and men and animals were suffering badly, as the Khamseen was blowing and all water had to be carried fifteen miles by camel. The available supply of the necessary fluid at Beersheba had been found to have been exaggerated by report and to be inadequate to sustain for long a large force in the field. This fact greatly influenced the Commander-in-Chief in his plans and determined him to attack Sheria on the 4th or 5th of November, and Gaza forty-eight hours earlier—this latter operation being in the nature of a feint rather than a determined attempt at capture.
At 5.30 p.m. on the 5th November, therefore, the battalion received orders to go forward, take up an outpost line previously held by another unit and then advance one thousand yards before dawn. There were no landmarks in the region and no points on the map which could be identified, and the greatest difficulty was found in complying with instructions. A guide was supposed to be provided, but when, after some trouble, he was found he said he only knew his way to his own brigade headquarters and from these to the outpost line. Notwithstanding these troubles the battalion got into position ready for the coming advance by 3 a.m. on the 6th, but this was not the case with the units on either flank. Finally, the Buffs started their advance, the objective being a Turkish trench reported very lightly held, but after proceeding about five hundred yards, they came under a tremendous fire from a somewhat unexpected quarter. A fierce fight ensued and the Suffolk and Sussex men were pushed up into our line to reinforce it, with satisfactory results, and that portion of the Sheria defences was captured, after which, while the others pushed on, the Buffs were withdrawn into reserve in Wadi Union only to be ordered out again at 3 p.m. to fill a gap between two brigades away to the left. The pace of the attack throughout the day had been abnormally fast and the men suffered considerably from thirst. That evening the battalion took up an outpost line on the Wadi Sheria, and, just before dawn, a tremendous bombardment and explosion was heard from the town which announced that the capture of the place was complete. The casualties to the Buffs on the 6th November were fortunately very slight, but Lieut. R. W. Mitchell was severely wounded and subsequently died of his injuries. The same day the Turks evacuated Gaza.
On the 10th November the Buffs moved back to Kharm and on the 17th to Shellal on the Wadi Ghuzze, the reason being that the transport of the 74th and another division had to be taken away to keep the cavalry and the 53rd Division in contact with the defeated enemy; so the remainder of the force had to be near the railway. Lists of decorations for Beersheba and Sheria were made public on various dates, and the following were awarded to the Buffs: Military Crosses to Captain D. S. Campbell and Lieuts. J. A. S. Aylward and M. G. Haughton; the Distinguished Conduct Medal to Sgt. D. G. Turner; and Military Medals to Sgt. L. G. Betts, L.-Corpl. W. Timmins, Ptes. C. Hughes, D. O. Melrose, H. Scott, H. Tidcombe and G. A. Wiles. Another move on the 18th took the battalion to the neighbourhood of Gaza for salvage work, and on the 23rd came orders for a march to the north.
The general situation, while the Buffs had been without transport at Kharm and Gaza, had developed considerably. Although the enemy made attempts to stand, it was necessary for his right flank to retire rapidly from Gaza, so much so that as early as the 9th November we had troops at Beit[19] Duras with supports at Mejdel, and as the enemy’s left flank was retreating towards Hebron, it became a case of direct pursuit by as many troops as could be fed and watered away from the railhead. There existed water, but in deep wells, and it takes much time to draw water from such. This is easily understood if one considers the actual number of seconds or minutes it takes to draw a bucket up two hundred feet. If that bucket is drunk by a cavalry horse it will be found that by the time the five hundredth animal or so of a cavalry unit is watered, the first is thirsty again. The Turkish forces were mostly supplied by the railway that comes from the north to the junction for the Jerusalem line, which is about nine miles south of El Ramle, and Allenby’s object now was the capture of this junction.