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Updated: June 2, 2025
On November 2, 1916, the Battalion left Robecq, where it had been well-housed and happy for a week, for Auchel, a populous village in the mining district, and marched the next day to Magnicourt en Comté, an especially dirty village, and thence again through Tinques and Etrée-Wamin to Neuvillette.
Headquarters for the new sector were in Les Amusoires; and rations came up each night as far as a farm, called Tripp's Farm, forward of which neither cooking could be done nor any water obtained. One night German shelling, that tune to which rations were usually carried, set light to Tripp's Farm. About this time both St. Venant and Robecq were burning for several days.
The Robecq district was remarkable for its well-stocked farms, and with the general flight of the civilians large numbers of unmilked cows, geese, goats, hens, and all manner of farmyard creatures commenced to stray across the fields and down the roads.
To them and to the N.C.O.s of C Company, and also to the conduct of the new draft, was owing the success of the day's operations. By 3 p.m. not only had the Battalion accomplished the task assigned to it twenty-four hours previously, when the extent of the German advance was unknown, but ground was being made and the enemy was being driven backward upon Calonne. Robecq was guaranteed.
Except for Howitt there was no staff officer upon the spot, and we found after passing St. Venant towards Robecq that it was every man for himself in the task of stemming the German attack.
When fighting was taking place at Robecq in April, 1918, and I found myself, under very different circumstances, in command of the Battalion, knowledge of the ground obtained eighteen months before, even to the position of garden gates and the width of ditches, proved most useful.
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