Feb. 9th.
The Battalion entrained for the South.
Gommecourt.
July 1st.
This fighting is too recent for any details, however bare, to be given.
Previous to this date the Battalion, now part of as fine a Territorial Division as France had ever seen, took its ordinary tour of training and trenches. It was, of course, known that the Division was going "over the top" at the beginning of the offensive, and all training was carried out with this great end in view.
![[Voormezeele Church.]](#554794819204116998_i-17.jpg.id-2121722674221272660.wrap-0.html.html){kind=link}
The following extract from the account published in the Press is given here, not because the writer of these notes does not feel able to give his own account, but because he might unwittingly say more than the Censor would feel able to pass:—
"I am about to give, on first-hand information, an account of the part which has been played by certain of our famous London Regiments. These regiments, which included the London Rifle Brigade, the Queen Victoria's Rifles, the Rangers, the Queen's Westminsters, and London Scottish, had assigned to them certain objectives near Gommecourt, towards the northern end of our original line of advance, where, as is well known, owing to the extraordinary preparations which the enemy had made in that direction, we did not fare so well as we have done, and continue to do, further south. The London Regiments, which fought with magnificent gallantry and tenacity, did, in fact, accomplish their primary objects, but, owing to circumstances beyond their control, they subsequently had to retire to a line which nearly corresponds to that they occupied before the battle began. . . . ."