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Updated: May 3, 2025
Only the Australians stood out against it, and went by all officers except their own with a careless slouch and a look of "To hell with all that handwagging." Seated on high stools in the Folkestone, our young officers clinked their cocktails, and then whispered together. "When's it coming?" "In a few days... I'm for the Gommecourt sector." "Do you think we shall get through?" "Not a doubt of it.
Our time in reserve had been spent almost entirely in lectures on the attack, and on lessons drawn from the enemy's recent withdrawal from Gommecourt, and we had more than once been congratulated on our patrol work, which was excellent throughout this time.
All the country there is gentler and less decided than in the southern parts of the battlefield. Hébuterne stands on a plateau-top; to the east of it there is a gentle dip down to a shallow hollow or valley; to the east of this again there is a gentle rise to higher ground, on which the village of Gommecourt stood.
On February 27, 1917, the British pushed forward all along the eleven-mile line stretching from south of Gommecourt to west of Le Transloy. The British objective at this time was a crest overlooking the high ground running between Achiet-le-Petit and Bapaume. At every stage of the British advance fresh evidences were found of the German destructive methods before retiring.
There was just a suspicion of whiteness creeping into the sky beyond the rising ground opposite. Over towards the left rose the remains of Gommecourt Wood. Half its trees had gone since the last time that I had seen it, and the few that remained stood, looking like so many masts in a harbour, gaunt and charred by our petrol shells. The men in the left fire-bay seemed quite comfortable.
Gommecourt was to be attacked in the near future in conjunction with other greater attacks further South.
Three days later the Battalion took over the front line, the Headquarters still remaining at Gommecourt, but in another part of the village. The trenches were very wet, and reminded one of the Loos trenches in 1915. It was a time of great patrol activity. No one was quite sure where the Germans were and in what force.
We did not stop for this, but when a German Verey light shot up almost under our noses, we decided that we had indeed come too far and that it was time to turn back. This we did without waste of time and retraced our steps to Gommecourt. I was expecting any minute to hear a machine-gun open on us down the road.
In recording the history of the day's fighting two separate actions must be described, in the north and in the south. The Allies failed in the first of these, but in the second they gained a substantial victory over the German hosts. The most desperate struggle of the day was fought between Gommecourt and Thiepval.
On the 24th it became generally known that in certain contingent events, carefully kept secret, the Brigade would attack between Gommecourt Wood and the Puisieux road, with the Berks and the Bucks in the leading waves.
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