United States or Réunion ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
The line held by the Division for the next two months was wholly within Belgian territory, with a frontage of about 5,000 yards, which stretched from a point about 500 yards south-east of Wulverghem on the north to just below Le Gheer. The 143rd Brigade were on the left, 145th in the centre, and the 144th on the right.
However that may be, they advanced against our Division with considerable energy at the outset. The two Battalions of the 145th Brigade in the line were from right to left, the 1st/4th Oxfords and 1st/5th Gloucesters. The enemy succeeded in driving in the outer flanks of both Battalions, and also in pushing a wedge between them to a maximum depth of about 1,000 yards.
Orderly sergeants descended into the village in marching order with full packs, no officer was ever seen without his revolver, while every billet was guarded as if at any moment it might be taken by assault. On April 2nd we marched to Steenvoorde, where Lieut.-General Sir H. Smith-Dorrien, commanding 2nd Army, inspected the 145th Brigade.
The troops under Miles's command consist of the 61st, 64th and 66th New York, with detachments from the 53d Pa, 2d Delaware, and 140th, 145th and 148th Pa. and 27th Conn." The historian of the Second Corps is in error when he writes that the 61st was placed on the skirmish line.
Monte Catz was therefore left in a dangerously salient position on the west, but as the Bucks, and beyond them the French on the east, had been completely successful, it was thought well to take the risk of exploiting the success which the 145th Brigade had already won. All this was accomplished by about 3 p.m. The blow of the Battalion had been decisive, as Lord Cavan mentions in his despatch.
We were on the left of the 145th, and worked on a self-relieving system by which two Companies spent alternate periods of four days in the trenches and in local reserve. B and C Companies on the right shared trenches 37 and 38, also named Berkshire and Argyll; A and D in turn inhabited trenches 39 and 40, or Sutherland and Oxford, with a total frontage of 700 yards.
Meanwhile, in the bitter weather that had returned, incessant pressure was being exerted against the stubborn German rearguards, who were being gradually pushed eastward towards the much-vaunted defences of the Hindenburg Line. The beginning of April found the 145th Brigade round Villers-Faucon in support to the other two Brigades who were fighting their way forward beyond Epéhy.
Meanwhile the G.O.C. was planning for the execution of the 145th Brigade a task, which sounds prosaic enough on paper, but which demanded for its success minute organisation and a high state of discipline in all concerned namely, the digging of a forward trench in front of our own wire.
On the 2nd of September Mr. Graves went to the observatory, in response to a summons, and the great mathematician at once admitted to his friend that he felt the end was approaching. He mentioned that he had found in the 145th Psalm a wonderfully suitable expression of his thoughts and feelings, and he wished to testify his faith and thankfulness as a Christian by partaking of the Lord's Supper.
During the first week in June the three Brigades left their own quarters and exchanged trench sections. The 145th moved from the centre to the left, to the joy of the Warwicks, whose losses had been considerable. While this move was in process the Battalion was taken out of the wood, and marched to huts at Korte Pyp, on a plateau with a wide prospect on the southern slopes of Neuve Église Hill.
Word Of The Day