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Updated: May 22, 2025
For three days the Battalion remained at Esdud and on the 12th moved out against Yebnah. On the march signs were multiplying to assure us that the enemy was not standing upon the order of his going, but this day we expected to get into touch again.
A day's rest, and the Battalion was rear-guard to the Brigade as far as el Butani, where the 5th A. & S.H. and the 7th H.L.I. were set to clear the enemy from their positions on the ridges south-west of Esdud. The 6th H.L.I. were in support and our Battalion was not called upon.
Past ruined Ascalon on the coast; Mejdel, farther inland, one of the largest native towns on the plain, with many ancient industries established there; Esdud, the ancient Ashdod, where later a station on the military railway was built; Gath, where the Turks made a most desperate attempt to delay our advance; Akron, the once great frontier fortress of the Philistines; these were among the chief.
The Australian Mounted Division were at Esdud next day and their innate love for chickens caused a large picquet of the battalion to be sent into the town to preserve order. The picquet squatted on the public square, gazed at solemnly by bearded and unclean descendants of the Philistines and unmoved by the rustlings and stifled laughter of hidden females.
While this fighting was going on about Burkah the 155th Brigade went ahead up a road which the cavalry said was strongly held. They got eight miles north of Esdud, and were in advance of the cavalry, intending to try to secure the two heights and villages of Katrah and Mughar on the following day.
The town itself is almost certainly built on the site of the ancient Ashdod, one of the Philistine strongholds, but, if the architecture of the houses lends colour to the story of Samson's pulling down a temple, it also makes it apparent that Goliath must have had great difficulty in finding a lodging. No house in Esdud could have afforded shelter for more than three quarters of him.
When it did move the Turk was still in Gaza in considerable numbers, and when we were as far north as Esdud we heard that certain strong points in his line were still holding out. He had, however, began his retreat and we knew that what we would have to deal with would be rear-guards, prepared to sacrifice themselves to the last man to save their main body.
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