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Updated: May 5, 2025
Colonel Bellamy and his four company commanders are setting out to reconnoitre the new front line. Guides are to meet us at Deniécourt Château, a heap of chalk slabs and old bricks, beneath which are Brigade Headquarters. To reach this rendez-vous we pass through Foucaucourt and then along a corduroy road through Deniécourt Wood to the village of that name.
When all the Companies had been assembled on the west of the river a line was formed, along with the remnants of another Division, overlooking the marshes. By this time the day's fighting had died down, and things remained fairly quiet throughout the night. Early on the following morning, the 24th March, orders were received to withdraw the Battalion to Foucaucourt.
The Companies were therefore assembled on the road and marched back by the main Amiens-Peronne road to an old prisoners of war camp near Foucaucourt village. Further orders awaited them there to be ready to move up again, and in about two hours they were again marching eastwards. About 8 p.m. they were again in position, in reserve, in a line north-east of Estrées.
Within a day or two of the relief the frost had finally broken and the trenches everywhere started to fall in, making the outlook in this respect ominous. On the afternoon of February 23, we marched up to relieve the Berks. Near Foucaucourt the cookers gave us tea. There also we changed into gumboots.
It afterwards appeared that this was the enemy's parting shot, for soon after the Division was relieved the enemy's extensive retirement on this sector took place. On relief the Battalion returned to Foucaucourt. Towards the end of the tour Lieut.-Col.
The dun grass waved to the very edge of the road cut through it. Deep and wild stretched the battlefields, and there, a few yards ahead, were those poor strangers, the scavenging Chinamen. Upon a large rough signpost the word "Foucaucourt" was painted in white letters.
After our sixteen days in the line B.H.Q. moved back to Foucaucourt and remained there till about March 7. Then the 50th Division finally left the Somme front and moved back for a rest. B.H.Q. went to Warfusée and we had good billets there. Brigadier-General Ovens, C.M.G., left us at Foucaucourt and Lieut.-Col.
There was little of interest during this period and, on the whole, everybody was pleased when the move was resumed to huts at Hamel. After a few days there the Battalion marched to billets at Proyart, where Lieut.-Col. J.W. Jeffreys, D.S.O., returned and took over command. Again, in three or four days it marched to Foucaucourt, where it was in Divisional Reserve.
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