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Updated: June 3, 2025
Ridge upon ridge faced us, rising higher and higher to the horizon about six miles away where Burj Lisaneh stood up like a sugar-loaf, while to our half-right steepish slopes covered with fig trees, not yet in leaf, rose up to the heights of Tel Asur 3318 feet high.
Another counter-attack against Sheikh Hasan was repulsed later in the day, and a third starting from Crested Rock which aimed at getting back El Burj trench was a complete failure. After the second phase our troops buried 739 enemy dead.
We had first to climb down some 600 feet into the Beit Iksa Wadi; then up the precipitous face of El Burj about 1000 feet from the bottom to the top; then a couple of comparatively easy miles down into the Wadi Hannina, and up the other side some 1200 feet to Tel-el-Ful. Our Battalion did not have to go very far beyond the Wadi Hannina, but we certainly thought it quite far enough.
The Beit Iksa defences were carried by a most determined rush. A gallant attempt was also made to get the El Burj ridge which runs south-east from Nebi Samwil, but owing to strong enfilade fire from the right they could not get on. There was no doubt in any minds that Jerusalem would be ours, but the difficulties the 53rd Division were contending with had slowed down their advance.
The pack drivers had to keep off the road with their animals, as had the camel escort, which was hard on them. Arrived at el Burj, we obtained permission to go for a bathe, and moved off by companies through enormous sand hills.
Our afternoon was hot and unpleasant: about later March the Hawa el'-Uwwah, a violent sand-raising norther, sets in and lasts through a fortnight. After that the summer Jehannum! From the raised and metalled bank, upon which the Burj stands, we descended to the broad mouth of the Wijh valley, draining the low rolling blue-brown line of porphyritic hillocks on the east.
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