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Next morning the 75th Division captured Beer trenches and Tank and Atawineh Redoubts and linked up with the Irish Division of XXth Corps on its right. They were shelled heavily, but it was the shelling of rearguards and not attackers, and soon after twelve o'clock we had the best of evidence that the Turks were saying good-bye to a neighbourhood they had long inhabited.
By throwing forward his right, the XXIst Corps Commander was to pin the enemy down in the Atawineh district, and on the left he would move against the south-western defences of Gaza so as to lead the Turks to suppose an attack was to come in this sector.
Throughout the 7th, Turkish rearguards clung to Beit Hanun and to the Atawineh and Tank systems to the east of Ali Muntar. The effect of this was, that, when our troops eventually got under way in pursuit of the retreating Turks, those near the sea had several miles' start of those further inland.
Some one looking across the country towards Atawineh saw a huge mushroom-shaped cloud, and then we knew that one enormous dump at least contained no more projectiles to hold up an advance.
After securing Ali Muntar the 75th Division advanced over Fryer's Hill to Australia Hill, so that they held the whole ridge running north and south to the eastward of Gaza. The enemy still held to his positions to the right of his centre, and from the Atawineh Redoubt, Tank Redoubt, and Beer trenches there was considerable shelling of Gaza and the Ali Muntar ridge throughout the day.
At Atawineh, Sausage Ridge, Hareira, and Teiaha there were defences supporting each other on high ground overlooking an almost flat plain through which the wadi Ghuzze runs. All the observation was in enemy possession, and to attack over this ground would have been inviting disaster.
"During the 8th, then, the advance was continued, and interest was chiefly centred in an attempt to cut off, if possible, the Turkish rearguard which had held the Tank and Atawineh systems. Considerable captures of prisoners, guns, ammunition and other stores were made, especially at Huj and Deir Sineid, but no large formed body of the enemy was cut off.
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