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At midnight they had again occupied the cairn south of Suffa, and remained there till 8 A.M., when the 268th Brigade Royal Field Artillery crowned the hill with a tremendous burst of fire and drove them off. The machine-gunners of the 7th Mounted Brigade caught the force as it was retiring and inflicted many casualties.
It was an anxious night, and No. 2 Light Armoured Car battery was kept west of Tahta to enfilade the enemy with machine guns should he appear in the neighbourhood of Suffa. The 7th Mounted Brigade was ordered up to reinforce.
At dusk the attack on Tahta, which had been under shell-fire all day, was beaten off and the enemy was compelled to withdraw one mile. Suffa was still his, but his advanced troops on the cairn south of that place had suffered heavily during the day at the hands of the 7th Mounted Brigade, who several times drove them off.
The 74th Division carried on to Nebi Samwil, Beit Izza to Beit Dukku, with the 10th Division on their left through Foka, Tahta to Suffa, the gap between the XXth Corps to the right of the XXIst Corps being held by the 3rd Australian Light Horse Brigade of the Australian Mounted Division.
On the 28th the 53rd Division bit farther into the enemy's line in order to cover the right of the 60th Division, which was to continue its advance up the Nablus road towards Bireh. The 158th Brigade captured Anata, and after fighting all day the 1/7th Royal Welsh Fusiliers secured Ras Urkub es Suffa, a forbidding-looking height towering above the storm-rent sides of the wadi Ruabeh.
At midday the brigade attacked Suffa but could not take it. The Scots, however, prevented the Turks breaking round the left flank of the yeomanry.
The 10th Division relieved the 229th and 230th Brigades of the 74th Division and extended its line to cover Beit Dukku, a point near and west of Et Tireh, to Tahta, and when the enemy retired from the immediate front of the 10th Division's left, Hellabi and Suffa were occupied. The Australian Mounted Division also slightly advanced its line.
Some howitzers of the 52nd Division were hauled over the hills in the afternoon and shelled the cairn so heavily that the post sought shelter in Suffa. To the south-east of the line of attack the Turks were doing their utmost to secure Foka.
The following day we went down the Ain Arik road to Tattenham Corner, along the road we ourselves had made to our bivouac area, near the old Devon Camp below Suffa. On 12th April we made Amwas, and next day after a long and dusty march we reached our destination Ludd. We spent a busy day there drawing stores from Ordnance and returning things for which we had no further use.
The 54th Turkish Division was in reserve at Bireh with 2700 rifles. The enemy held a line covering Bethlehem across the Hebron road to Balua, then to the hill Kibryan south-west of Beit Jala, whence the line proceeded due north to Ain Karim and Deir Yesin, both of which were strongly entrenched, on to the hill overlooking the Jerusalem road above Lifta. Aberjan, and beyond Suffa.
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