Sunday 7th
October 1917
Here at Ypres
there have been two minor attacks by our forces which gained no ground. The
adjutant of 6th Battalion, Bedfordshire Regiment, to the south of the Menin Road
contacted me with news: “Heavy artillery bombarded the German front line
throughout the day with success. Our front line companies pushed forward
patrols to ascertain if the enemy was still holding his same position. He was!”
The adjutant added that everyone is expecting another major attack somewhere in
the next few days.
Last evening
the 1st/5th Battalion, Bedfordshire Regiment, in front of Gaza in Palestine
sent out another patrol in their cat-and-mouse game with the enemy. This was a
strong patrol consisting of three officers, three warrant officers, three Lewis
guns and forty-six men and was trying to locate the Turks in Fisher’s Orchard.
Finding them, and engaging them, the patrol then withdrew and at a code word
our 4.2 inch howitzers and Stokes mortars opened up on the Turkish positions
followed ten minutes later by a barrage by eighteen-pounders and machine-guns which
lasted for another ten minutes. Shortly after this the patrol pushed out again
but met with such strong opposition just outside the battalion’s own wire that
Captain F B Hobbs who was commanding the patrol, thought it advisable to
withdraw to their own lines and to call on the artillery and Stokes guns to put
another barrage down closer to the Battalion’s own trenches thus inflicting
many casualties on the enemy. In all this the Battalion lost one man killed and
six wounded.
Sources: X550/6/8; X550/7/1
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